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No. 421. Thursday, July 3, 1712. Addison.

'Ignotis errare locis, ignota videre
Flumina gaudebat; studio minuente laborem.'

Ovid.

The Pleasures of the Imagination are not wholly confined to such
particular Authors as are conversant in material Objects, but are often
to be met with among the Polite Masters of Morality, Criticism, and
other Speculations abstracted from Matter, who, tho' they do not
directly treat of the visible Parts of Nature, often draw from them
their Similitudes, Metaphors, and Allegories. By these Allusions a Truth
in the Understanding is as it were reflected by the Imagination; we are
able to see something like Colour and Shape in a Notion, and to discover
a Scheme of Thoughts traced out upon Matter. And here the Mind receives
a great deal of Satisfaction, and has two of its Faculties gratified at
the same time, while the Fancy is busie in copying after the
Understanding, and transcribing Ideas out of the Intellectual World into
the Material.

The Great Art of a Writer shews it self in the Choice of pleasing
Allusions, which are generally to be taken from the _great_ or
_beautiful_ Works of Art or Nature; for though whatever is New or
Uncommon is apt to delight the Imagination, the chief Design of an
Allusion being to illustrate and explain the Passages of an Author, it
should be always borrowed from what is more known and common, than the
Passages which are to be explained.

Allegories, when well chosen, are like so many Tracks of Light in a
Discourse, that make every thing about them clear and beautiful. A noble
Metaphor, when it is placed to an Advantage, casts a kind of Glory round
it, and darts a Lustre through a whole Sentence: These different Kinds
of Allusion are but so many different Manners of Similitude, and, that
they may please the Imagination, the Likeness ought to be very exact, or
very agreeable, as we love to see a Picture where the Resemblance is
just, or the Posture and Air graceful. But we often find eminent Writers
very faulty in this respect; great Scholars are apt to fetch their
Comparisons and Allusions from the Sciences in which they are most
conversant, so that a Man may see the Compass of their Learning in a
Treatise on the most indifferent Subject. I have read a Discourse upon
Love, which none but a profound Chymist could understand, and have heard
many a Sermon that should only hav