has done, they see reason to conclude, that such intelligences are not among her productions. It is an axiom in criticism, that a certain portion of obscurity is essential to sublimity. The extension of knowledge is gradually removing from us this source of mental gratification. We are admitted behind the scenes, and we no longer wonder at any thing. There is a well known adage, that "familiarity breeds contempt;" it is universally true. The hero with whom we are constantly associating, is to us no hero. When the mysteries of nature are revealed, they are sublime no longer. When we perfectly understand, we cease to admire. "Philosophy, which has led to the exact investigation of causes, has robbed the world of much of its sublimity; and by preventing us from believing much, and from wondering at any thing, has taken away half our enthusiasm, and more than half our admiration."* Whatever may be gained to the other parts of our nature by the progress of science, the imagination is decidedly a loser. BUT WHILE SOME WERE FOUND to argue that matter of fact was rapidly invading the territories of imagination, and threatening the destruction of her dominion; THERE WERE OTHERS who not only hoped, but believed, that she would fill her throne with as much glory as ever, in despite even of the progress of science and knowledge. Nay, that these would only remove some of the dim stones that of old were found in her coronet, and supply their places by diamonds of the purest water. To a certain extent it was admitted, and we could well afford the admission, that where we knew, we could not fancy; but in most cases we should find that even truth would afford a wider scope for the imagination, than the errors which it exploded could do. It would turn fancy from the dark and narrow path in which she had been bewildered, into a boundless field of light. It would dry up the rivulet, but unfold a river leading to an ocean without shore, and without limit. The discoveries of astronomy were of this description. What could the imagination do with the stars, seen only as so many spangles of gold, placed to adorn the arch of night? Prove them to be worlds, and a field is opened to the speculations of fancy, which she herself would hardly have ventured upon, without the testimony of science. The advance of * Edinburgh_R‹ view, vol. 21, p. 25. knowledge would not destroy the operation of the imagination; it would only direct it into new channels. Where it was before circumscribed, the mounds of ignorance would be now broken down: where it once trod with hesitation and difficulty, it would now walk abroad with free and unfettered limbs. The clouds that once presented a barrier imagination feared to pass, were now dissolved, and the realms of space opened to her flight. The imagination is perhaps the strongest faculty of the human mind. It is the one which is least dependent on education, and less controlled by circumstances than any other with which we are endowed. Cultivation may guide, and direct, and improve its powers, but cannot impart them. It is a gift, and is not to be acquired by labour: the perseverance of a whole life will not bestow it on him to whom nature has denied it. Inculcated taste may prune its exuberances, and judgment, matured by time, may direct its flight; but in its nature it is self-existent, and where largely bestowed, generally reigns paramount. It indulges its revels in despite of the mathematics and the sciences, and even in defiance of the sober rules of reason. Is fancy to direct her flight only by the rules of geometry? What has she to do with demonstration? It is enough that she says, let it be, and it is. She is herself a creative faculty, and she reigns despotic over her own universe. She pours her light upon the canvass of the painter, and the colours stream from his pencil in forms of ideal life and beauty: the scenes which she pictures in his mind, are transformed in all the seeming realities of existence to his picture. From the shapeless mass of stone she brings to view the images of life, and action, and passion; by her magic touch, the cold marble seems to live, her own creation. Under the dominion of her potent rule, the poet brings before our mental vision the inventions of his mind: his ideal beings come before us as so many wild and fantastic realities; we follow his characters through every possible variety of action, and we gaze upon his scenes as if they really existed before our eyes; he unfolds to our view prospects and descriptions, that never had any existence but in his own imagination. And is it likely, then, that a power so potent, with resources so exhaustless, should find her stores diminished by those very means that enlarge all the other faculties of the mind,-that those very causes that add to the general store of intellect, should diminish the empire of imagination, and lessen her means of display,—that the mind by attaining a greater stock of ideas should become more fettered, more narrowed, and be less disposed to take those daring flights, because her wings have been strengthened, and the scene of her operations enlarged; that she will be likely to display less, because more has been given to her? Surely this will be very difficult of proof. The imagination is a faculty that is scarcely bound by any rules; her dominions extend almost to the boundaries of frenzy, and if not carried into that region, she is still within the pale of her own legitimate authority: hence it appears to be an idle fear that any thing in itself rational, can narrow her empire. The fact more likely is, that science will tend to establish and consolidate her power: it will put, more effective forces at her disposal, and at worst, can only deprive her of a few inefficient allies; while new resources will be opened to her command, upon which she will be enabled to draw largely for every noble and ambitious purpose, and her throne, instead of being established in error and delusion, will be more and more consolidated in truth and reason. It may appear that, by the progress of truth and science, imagination will be deprived of the aid she has been accustomed to receive from the superstitious fears and feelings of mankind. Happily, these are among the worst of her means, and can be spared with the least injury to her fame and power. It has been by means of these, that crafty men have been enabled, in all ages of the world, to tyrannize over the uninformed mass of their fellow-creatures; by conjuring up ideal terrors, and by threatening them with unearthly visitations, they have embittered their days, and filled their nights with dreams of horror; and, acting upon their wild and uncultivated imaginations, they have subdued the whole mind to the thraldom of superstition. The progress of science, it is true, may have diminished the operations of the fancy in this particular, but, for all proper and legitimate ends, they are still as available as before; and, though they are now received only as fictions, and creations of the brain, imagination may still impress them into her service, and use them at will, she may still launch out into the ocean of romance, and give to those "airy nothings, a local habitation and a name. At her bidding, they may act their wild and terrific parts, without calling down the thunders of criticism, or threatening the reason of those who gaze or read. We are not, indeed, at this era, to be scared with the superstitious horrors of former times; nor are we, because imagination chuses to make use of beings that have no existence, called upon to believe in their reality; nor, because we cannot believe them, must we deny the fancy to weild them to her purpose, in the productions of poetry, fiction, and romance. The witches of Shakespeare may pronounce their wild incantations on the stage, without being hissed off, because the belief in witchcraft is exploded by the light of superior information; and the ghost in Hamlet may still stalk the tragic boards, and produce all the effect intended, and all that ought to be produced, though it may not appal the mind so much as in those good old times, when the belief in spectres formed a part of the received creed of man; when the apparition of Mrs. Veal might come for no other purpose than to recommend Drelincourt on Death, without being suspected of any sinister design, though we fear it will never more promote the sale of a single copy of that spiritually recommended book. We know that the tragic scene altogether the creation of the poet's brain, and that the supernatural machinery which he finds it convenient to make use of, is as fictitious as those other means which he thinks proper to employ. It is true that, the taste of the times has in part prohibited the introduction of supernatural personages in the regular drama, but this arises simply from an alteration in the public taste, and is not because the boundaries of science are enlarged. In works of fiction of all kinds, the mind is as free to indulge the full scope of imagination as ever; it may avail itself of every thing which it is in the power of the wildest fancy to invent, and some of our modern romances are not the worse received, nor the less read, because they depict scenes which we know to be impossible. The recent production of Frankenstein is an instance in point: what can be further from truth than to suppose a man creating a living being by his own single power! And yet this piece was not condemned on account of its gross violation of probability; those who read it, and see it, do not stop to enquire what relation it bears to the demonstrations of modern science, nor how far it accords with the increased light of knowledge: they take it as it was intended, and it is a proof of the toleration that is allowed, and the latitude that is bestowed on the imagination, by the general consent of mankind. It may be said that science and knowledge, by introducing more correct modes of thinking, will have a tendency to banish these vagaries of fancy,-that they will less and less accord with the sobriety of truth, which is lessening the dominion of extravagance, by making its absurdity the more unbearable. If it does accomplish this (which is even doubtful,) it will rather be a benefit than an injury: if truth should be found to prune these wild exuberances of fancy, it will render her a service,-it may direct her flight, and restrain her within bounds, but it will not pluck one feather from her wing; and will leave her strong enough to soar as far as it is desirable she should soar; but it never will, and never can, prevent her flight. An enlarging region is open to her attempts, and always will be; and though it may throw over her the reins of judgment, that very circumstance will be an advantage rather than a detriment; and will but make her efforts more pleasing to correct taste. But is even this the fact? Does our daily experience prove it? Is the painter, the poet, the dramatist, or the romance writer, found to be more scrupulous now, of availing himself of the powers of his imagination, than he was in olden times? Do not the traditions, even of those very days of superstition, find their way as readily into the pages of the poet, as ever they did? Are not local superstitions as much made use of as ever they were?-do we reject them as poetry, because we do not believe them as our ancestors did? Look at the most popular of all modern works of fiction, the Scotch novels, and say whether it is so or not! There is scarcely one of these works which has not a character displaying some sort of supernatural knowledge, the intuitive prognostication, the visions of the second sight,-the spell of the magician,-all are brought into action; and, though science may pour its light upon the page, it will not divest these beings of their dark grandeur, nor dispel the awful clouds that envelope them; nor is there found a reader the less, because of the marvellous scenes they display. They still triumph over truth and science, and work their magic spells in their despite. The same remarks apply to the introduction of the fabulous deities into works of imagination. Without believing in the mythological personages of the Greeks and Romans, the Egyptians, or the Hindoos, they are all available for the purposes of fancy, and may all pass like magic figures over the poet's page. Though we have divested them of real existence, they are yet allowed "to come like shadows and so depart." The pages of Homer and Virgil are not the less pleasing because their deities have gone to that bourne, from whence not even such gods as they ever return. Minerva still holds her shield before the man she designs to protect; Juno flashes her jealous ire; and Jove with his frown appals the assembly of Olympus. The whole train of fairies and gnomes may yet dance in revelry on the moonlight green, without being put to flight by the beams of science, or the torch of truth. All these are now, what they ever were in the minds of the wise, the creations of imagination; it is by her will alone they are called from the vasty deep; and they never were properly intended to address themselves to the judgment, but to the fancy. They are the holiday sports of the mind, when, escaping from reason's school, she roams in wild disorder; indulging all her playful faculties, surrounded by the beings of her own creation, personifying even her own |
