'English', is like a stately Palace built of Brick, where one
may see Architecture in as great a Perfection as in one of Marble, tho'
the Materials are of a coarser Nature. But to consider it only as it
regards our present Subject: What can be conceived greater than the
Battel of Angels, the Majesty of Messiah, the Stature and Behaviour of
Satan and his Peers? What more beautiful than 'Pandaemonium', Paradise,
Heaven, Angels, 'Adam' and 'Eve'? What more strange, than the Creation
of the World, the several Metamorphoses of the fallen Angels, and the
surprising Adventures their Leader meets with in his Search after
Paradise? No other Subject could have furnished a Poet with Scenes so
proper to strike the Imagination, as no other Poet could have painted
those Scenes in more strong and lively Colours.

O.

[Footnote 1: [a Thousand]]

[Footnote 2: [that]]

* * * * *

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* * * * *

No. 418. Monday, June 30, 1712. Addison.

'--ferat et rubus asper amomum.'

Virg.

The Pleasures of these Secondary Views of the Imagination, are of a
wider and more Universal Nature than those it has when joined with
Sight; for not only what is Great, Strange or Beautiful, but any Thing
that is Disagreeable when looked upon, pleases us in an apt Description.
Here, therefore, we must enquire after a new Principle of Pleasure,
which is nothing else but the Action of the Mind, which _compares_ the
Ideas that arise from Words, with the Ideas that arise from the Objects
themselves; and why this Operation of the Mind is attended with so much
Pleasure, we have before considered. For this Reason therefore, the
Description of a Dunghill is pleasing to the Imagination, if the Image
be represented to our Minds by suitable Expressions; tho' perhaps, this
may be more properly called the Pleasure of the Understanding than of
the Fancy, because we are not so much delighted with the Image that is
contained in the Description, as with the Aptness of the Description to
excite the Im