e been preached before a Congregation
of _Cartesians_. On the contrary, your Men of Business usually have
recourse to such Instances as are too mean and familiar. They are for
drawing the Reader into a Game of Chess or Tennis, or for leading him
from Shop to Shop, in the Cant of particular Trades and Employments. It
is certain, there may be found an infinite Variety of very agreeable
Allusions in both these kinds, but for the generality, the most
entertaining ones lie in the Works of Nature, which are obvious to all
Capacities, and more delightful than what is to be found in Arts and
Sciences.

It is this Talent of affecting the Imagination, that gives an
Embellishment to good Sense, and makes one Man's Compositions more
agreeable than another's. It sets off all Writings in general, but is
the very Life and highest Perfection of Poetry: Where it shines in an
Eminent Degree, it has preserved several Poems for many Ages, that have
nothing else to recommend them; and where all the other Beauties are
present, the Work appears dry and insipid, if this single one be
wanting. It has something in it like Creation; It bestows a kind of
Existence, and draws up to the Reader's View several Objects which are
not to be found in Being. It makes Additions to Nature, and gives a
greater Variety to God's Works. In a Word, it is able to beautifie and
adorn the most illustrious Scenes in the Universe, or to fill the Mind
with more glorious Shows and Apparitions, than can be found in any Part
of it.

We have now discovered the several Originals of those Pleasures that
gratify the Fancy; and here, perhaps, it would not be very difficult to
cast under their proper Heads those contrary Objects, which are apt to
fill it with Distaste and Terrour; for the Imagination is as liable to
Pain as Pleasure. When the Brain is hurt by any Accident, or the Mind
disordered by Dreams or Sickness, the Fancy is over-run with wild dismal
Ideas, and terrified with a thousand hideous Monsters of its own framing.

'Eumenidum veluti demens videt Agmina Pentheus,
Et solem geminum, et duplices se ostendere Thebas.
Aut Agamemnonius scenis agitatus Orestes,
Armatam facibus matrem et serpentibus atris
Cum videt, ultricesque sedent in limine Dirae.'

Vir.

There is not a Sight in Nature so mortifying as that of a Distracted
Person, when his Imagination is troubled, and his whole Soul disordered
and confused. _Babylon_ in Ruins is not so melancholy a