tas men
ta{pein}as kai mesas phuseis dia to medame parakinduneuein mede
ephiesthai ton akron, adamartetou hos epi to polu kai asphalesteras
diapherein.+ Longin. de Sublim. Sect. 33.]

That we may conceive more fully the propriety of this observation with
regard to Lyric Poetry, I shall now proceed to enquire what part
Imagination naturally claims in the composition of the Ode, and what are
the errors into which the Poet is most ready to be betrayed.

As to the first, I need not tell your Lordship, that whatever Art
proposeth as an ultimate end to excite Admiration, must owe its
principal excellence to that Faculty of the mind which delights to
contemplate the sublime and the wonderful. This indeed may be called the
sphere, in which Imagination peculiarly predominates. When we attempt,
even in the course of conversation, to paint any object whose
magnificence hath made a strong impression upon the memory, we naturally
adopt the boldest and most forcible epithets we can think of, to convey
our own idea as compleatly as possible to the mind of another. We are
prompted by a powerful propensity to retouch our description again and
again, we select the most apposite images to animate our expression;
in short, we fall without perceiving it, into the stile and figures of
poetry. If then Admiration produceth such an effect upon the mind in the
more common occurrences of life, we may conceive the superior influence
which it must have upon the imagination of a Poet, when it is wound up
to the highest pitch, and is placing a great object in every point of
light by which its excellence may most conspicuously appear. It will at
least be obvious, that in such a situation the feelings of the heart
must be more intensely animated than in any other, not only because
Genius is supposed to be the Parent of Sensibility, but as the person
who is possessed of this quality exerts the full force of his talents
and art to produce one particular effect. He endeavours (as Longinus
expresseth it) "not to be seen himself, but to place the idea which he
hath formed before the very eye of another[60]."

[Footnote 60: De Sublim. Sect. 32.]

It is a common mistake among people who have not examined this subject,
to suppose that a Poet may with greater ease excite Admiration when his
theme is sublime, than when it is such as we have been more accustomed
to contemplate[61]. This opinion is indeed plausible at the first view,
because it