Every one will perceive, that it is combining things opposite, things in themselves grand and sublime, that imparts peculiar grandeur to this grand conception.

In similar strains the same writer represents the imprisoned eagle, as longing to

"Rise through tempest-shrouded air,

All thick and dark, with wild winds swelling,
To brave the lightning's lurid glare,

And talk with thunders in their dwelling."

Here the rational, in its sublimest forms, is first blended with the irrational, and then with the inanimate; and then one of these beings is represented, as longing to rise amid scenes of fearful grandeur and sublimity, to converse with the other in his awful dwelling-place. Thus a creative Imagination evolves the forms of grandeur and sublimity.

It is the peculiar manner in which opposites are blended, that imparts such peculiar beauty to that most beautiful of almost all compositions, the 19th Psalm. The imagination of the poet represents the entire material universe, especially the luminaries of heaven, as all held in a blissful and devout contemplation and study of the perfection and glory of the Creator-all learning, and each imparting to the other a knowledge of the Infinite and Perfect. Day speaks to day, and night to night, of some new-discovered excellence revealed in the manifold works of God.

"Hark! his hands the lyre explore.

Bright-eyed Fancy hovering o'er,
Scatters from her pictured urn,

Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn."

Fancy, as a bright-eyed, embodied spirit, hovering over, breathing thoughts, and burning words-opposites, in themselves beautiful, so beautifully blended, are what impart such surpassing beauty to this beautiful thought.

"But trailing clouds of glory do we come

From God, who is our home."

By blending things so opposite as spirits and trailing clouds, does the poet impart an ineffable beauty to the idea of the soul coming from the hands of its Maker.

4. Blending Things in their Nature alike.

Sometimes the Imagination evolves the beautiful, by

blending things in their nature identical. I will give a single example of this kind, the subjective influence of maternal affection, as the poet has presented it :

"Her love to me, in strong control,

Form'd of her life the dearest part;

It seem'd a soul within her soul,

The very pulse within her heart."

No comments are requisite here, in pointing out the blending, plastic influence of the Imagination, in thus evolving the forms of the beautiful.

5. Combining Numbers into Unity, and dissolving and separating Unity into Number.

Perhaps in no way does the Imagination more frequently body forth the forms of beauty, grandeur, and sublimity, than by "consolidating numbers into unity, and dissolving and separating unity into number."

"How beautiful are thy tents, O Jacob,
And thy dwelling-places, O Israel,
As rivers spread themselves abroad,
As gardens by the river side.

He coucheth and lieth down as a lion,
As a young lion, who shall rouse him up.
Blessed is he that blesseth thee,

And cursed is he that curseth thee."

The main force and beauty of this passage consists in the manner in which a vast number of people are presented as one venerable personage. Every one is so familiar with examples of this kind, that I need not multiply them.

I will give a single example or two of the opposite kind, that of dissolving and separating unity into number:

"And too oft

Even wise men leave their better sense at home,

To chide and wonder at them when return'd.”

No individual can fail to recognize the beauty of the thought here expressed. Yet it mainly consists in dissolving the unity of the Mind itself.

"Between the acting of a dreadful thing
And the first motion, all the interim is
Like a phantasma, or a hideous dream :

The genius and the mortal instruments
Are then in council; and the state of man,
Like a little kingdom, suffers then

The nature of an insurrection."

6. Adding to, or abstracting some Quality from, an Object. When a property is added to an object which it does not possess, the object then, as Mr. Wordsworth observes, "re-acts upon the mind which has performed the process, like a new existence." This is one of the ways in which the Imagination delights us with the conception of the beautiful. For example :

"O Cuckoo! shall I call thee bird,
Or but a wandering voice?"

The cuckoo, though almost continually heard through the season of spring, is herself almost always invisible. This fact imparts a surpassing beauty to the conception evolved, in abstracting from her the idea of substantial existence, and representing her as a wandering voice."

Examples of the former kind-that of blending with objects qualities which do not belong to them-have been given under the preceding topics. I will not forbear, however, the presentation of a single additional instance :

"Sweet day! so cool, so calm, so bright,
The bridal of the earth and sky:
The dew shall weep thy fall to-night,
For thou must die."

The beauty of this inconceivably beautiful thought, consists in representing the dew-drop, which in itself is the pure result of physical causes, as a tear which Nature sheds over the fall of a bright and gladsome day. Adding this new quality to the dew-drop, makes it act upon us as a new existence.

7. Blending with external Objects the Feelings which they excite in us.

The Imagination often imparts a surpassing beauty to what is in itself beautiful, by blending with the object the feelings which the contemplation of it excites in our minds:

"O then what soul was his, when on the tops
Of the high mountains he beheld the sun

Rise up, and bathe the world in light! He look'd—

Ocean and Earth, the solid frame of Earth,
And Ocean's liquid mass, beneath him lay

In gladness and deep joy. The clouds were touch'd,
And in their silent faces he did read
Unutterable love."

"The moon doth with delight

Look round her when the heavens are bare."

No particular remarks, after stating the principle, are requisite, to show how that principle is illustrated by such

creations.

8. Abstracting certain Characteristics of Objects, and blending them into Harmony with some leading Idea.

The same object, in respect to different features of it, may be contemplated relatively to different ideas, in the mind. In the light of how many leading ideas, for example, may the bright worlds that hang around us, in the immensity of space, be contemplated. Now, the Imagination often evolves the forms of the beautiful, the grand, and the sublime, by throwing these objects before the mind, in harmony with one or more of these leading ideas. Take, as an example, the following stanzas from a poem entitled "A Psalm of Night :"

"Fades from the West the farewell light,

Flung backward by the setting sun,
And silence deepens as the Night
Steals with its solemn shadows on!
Gathers the soft, refreshing dew

On spiring grass and flowret stems-
And lo! the everlasting blue

Is radiant with a thousand gems!

Not only doth the voiceful Day

Thy loving kindness, LORD! proclaim

But Night, with its sublime array

Of worlds, doth magnify Thy name!

Yea-while adoring seraphim

Before Thee bend the willing knee,

From every star a choral hymn

Goes up unceasingly to Thee!

Day unto Day doth utter speech,

And Night to Night thy voice makes known;
Through all the earth where Thought may reach
Is heard the glad and solemn tone-

And worlds, beyond the farthest star
Whose light hath reach'd a human eye,
Catch the high anthem from afar,
That rolls along Immensity !"

Every one who contemplates the thought here embodied, aside from the sentiment of devotion awakened in his mind, will have a sense of the beauty, majesty, and sublimity of the works of Divinity, unfelt before In the stanza, also,

"And beauteous as the silver moon,

When out of sight the clouds are driven,
As she is left alone in heaven,"

that beautiful orb is thrown before the mind in the light of one idea only, that of the beautiful. To blend thus into one conception, the elements of beauty, grandeur, and sublimity, existing in objects which may be contemplated in the light of other ideas, is one of the peculiar functions of the Imagination. In the light of the conceptions which it shadows forth, objects the most familiar put on new forms, and stand before the mind in an array in which we never contemplated them before. New fountains of thought and feeling are thus awakened in the depths of our own minds.

9. Throwing the fleeting Thoughts, Sentiments, and Feelings, of our past Existence, into one beautiful Conception.

I mention but one other form in which the Imagination delights us with the forms of the beautiful, the perfect, and the true, &c. It is by throwing into distinct and hallowed embodiment, those deep thoughts and sentiments which have had a fleeting existence in our experience, but which, above all things, we desire never to forget. Who does not feel like dropping a tear of gratitude for that divine gift which enabled the poet thus beautifully to embalm, for eternal remembrance, what we have all experienced, but might otherwise forget?

"The tear, whose source I could not guess,
The deep sigh, that seem'd fatherless,

Were mine in early days."

Every one feels himself richer, when he has found such a thought as this. Of the same character is the following:

"To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears."