easure we receive from the
Sense of our own Safety. In short, we look upon the Terrors of a
Description, with the same Curiosity and Satisfaction that we survey a
dead Monster.

'--Informe cadaver
Protrahitur, nequeunt expleri corda tuendo
Terribiles oculos: vultum, villosaque satis
Pectora semiferi, atque extinctos faucibus ignes.'

Virg.

It is for the same Reason that we are delighted with the reflecting upon
Dangers that are past, or in looking on a Precipice at a distance, which
would fill us with a different kind of Horror, if we saw it hanging over
our Heads.

In the like manner, when we read of Torments, Wounds, Deaths, and the
like dismal Accidents, our Pleasure does not flow so properly from the
Grief which such melancholy Descriptions give us, as from the secret
Comparison which we make between our selves and the Person [who [2]]
suffers. Such Representations teach us to set a just Value upon our own
Condition, and make us prize our good Fortune, which exempts us from the
like Calamities. This is, however, such a kind of Pleasure as we are not
capable of receiving, when we see a Person actually lying under the
Tortures that we meet with in a Description; because in this case, the
Object presses too close upon our Senses, and bears so hard upon us,
that it does not give us Time or Leisure to reflect on our selves. Our
Thoughts are so intent upon the Miseries of the Sufferer, that we cannot
turn them upon our own Happiness. Whereas, on the contrary, we consider
the Misfortunes we read in History or Poetry, either as past, or as
fictitious, so that the Reflection upon our selves rises in us
insensibly, and over-bears the Sorrow we conceive for the Sufferings of
the Afflicted.

But because the Mind of Man requires something more perfect in Matter,
than what it finds there, and can never meet with any Sight in Nature
which sufficiently answers its highest Ideas of Pleasantness; or, in
other Words, because the Imagination can fancy to it self Things more
Great, Strange, or Beautiful, than the Eye ever saw, and is still
sensible of some Defect in what it has seen; on this account it is the
part of a Poet to humour the Imagination in its own Notions, by mending
and perfecting Nature where he describes a Reality, and by adding
greater Beauties than are put together in Nature, where he describes a
Fiction.

He is not obliged to attend her in the slow Advances which she makes
from one Season to anoth