es, Fables, and
Contemplations of Nature.

I have in this Paper, by way of Introduction, settled the Notion of
those Pleasures of the Imagination which are the Subject of my present
Undertaking, and endeavoured, by several Considerations, to recommend to
my Reader the Pursuit of those Pleasures. I shall, in my next Paper,
examine the several Sources from whence these Pleasures are derived. [2]

O.

[Footnote 1: [present to the]]

[Footnote 2: From a MS. Note-book of Addison's, met with in 1858, Mr. J.
Dykes Campbell printed at Glasgow, in 1864, 250 copies of some portions
of the first draught of these papers on Imagination with the Essay on
Jealousy (No. 176) and that on Fame (No. 255). The MS. was an old calf
bound 8vo volume obtained from a dealer. There were about 31 pages
written on one side of each leaf in a beautiful print-like hand, which
contained the Essays in their first state. Passages were added by
Addison in his ordinary handwriting upon the blank pages opposite to
this carefully-written text, and there are pieces in a third
hand-writing which neither the keeper of the MSS. Department of the
British Museum nor the Librarian of the Bodleian could identify. The
insertions in this third hand form part of the paper as finally
published. Thus in the paper on Jealousy (No. 171) it wrote the English
verse translation added to the quotation from Horace's Ode I. xiii. The
MS. shows with how much care Addison revised and corrected the first
draught of his papers, especially where, as in the series of eleven upon
Imagination here commenced, he meant to put out all his strength. In
Blair's Rhetoric four Lectures (20-23) are given to a critical
Examination of the Style of Mr. Addison in Nos. 411, 412, 413, and 414
of the Spectator. Akenside's poem on the Pleasures of the Imagination,
published in 1744, when he was 23 years old, was suggested by these
papers. Many disquisitions upon Taste were written towards the close of
the last century. They formed a new province in literature, of which
Addison here appears as the founder and first lawgiver.]

* * * * *

No. 412. Monday, June 23, 1712. Addison.

'--Divisum sic breve fiet Opus.'

Mart.

I shall first consider those Pleasures of the Imagination, which arise
from the actual View and Survey of outward Objects: And these, I think,
all proceed from the Sight of what is