things in an instant; and things divorced in nature are married in fancy as in a lawful place. It is also most restless; whilst the senses are bound, and reason in a manner asleep, fancy, like a sentinel, walks the round, ever working, never wearied. The chief diseases of the fancy are, either that they are too wild and high soaring, or else too low and grovelling, or else too desultory and over voluble. Of the first:

"1. If thy fancy be but a little too rank, age itself will correct it. To lift too high is no fault in a young horse, because with traveling he will mend it for his own ease. Thus lofty fancies in young men will come down of themselves, and in process of time the overplus will shrink to be but even measure. But if this will not do it, then observe these rules.

"2. Take part always with thy judgment against thy fancy in anything wherein they shall dissent.

"3. Let thy judgment be king, but not tyrant over it, to condemn harmless, yea, commendable conceits. Give it liberty to rove in right directions.

"4. Acquaint thyself with reading poets, for there fancy is in her throne; and in time the sparks of the author's wit will catch hold on the reader, and inflame him with love, liking, and desire of imitation. There is a secret force of fascination in reading poems to raise and provoke fancy. If thy fancy be over voluble, then

"5. Whip this vagrant home to the first object whereon it should be settled. Indeed, nimbleness is the perfection of this faculty, but levity the bane of it. Great is the difference betwixt a swift horse and a skittish, that will stand on no ground. Such is the ubiquitary fancy, which will keep long residence on no one subject, but is so courteous to strangers, that it ever welcomes that conceit most which comes last; and new species supplant the old ones, before seriously considered. If this be the fault of thy fancy, I say whip it home to the first object whereon it should be settled. This do as often as occasion requires, and by degrees the fugitive servant will learn to abide by his work without running away.

"6. Acquaint thyself by degrees with hard and knotted studies, as school divinity, which will clog thy over nimble fancy. True, at the first it will be as welcome to thee as a prison, and their very

solutions will seem knots unto thee. But take not too much at once, lest thy brain turn edge. Taste it first as a potion for physic, and by degrees thou shalt drink it for thirst; practice will make it pleasant. Mathematics are also good for this purpose.

"7. Imagination, the work of the fancy, hath produced real effects. Many serious and sad examples hereof may be produced; I will only insist on a merry one. A gentleman having led a company of children beyond their usual journey, they began to be weary, and jointly cried to him to carry them; which, because of their multitude, he could not do, but told them he would provide them horses to ride on. Then cutting little wands out of the hedge as nags for them, and a great stake as a gelding for himself, thus mounted, fancy put metal into their legs, and they came cheerfully home.

"8. Fancy runs most furiously when a guilty conscience drives it. One that owed much money and had many creditors, as he walked London streets in the evening, a tenter-hook caught his cloak. 'At whose suit?' said he, conceiving some bailiff had arrested him. Thus guilty consciences are afraid where no fear is, and count every creature they meet a sergeant sent from God to punish them."

IMAGINATION.

Imagination is a higher exercise than fancy. It is more under control of the reason and aims at more definite results. It is the power by which we combine parts of our conceptions into new forms and images more striking, more select, more beautiful or terrible, as the case may be.

"Imagination's power creates
What fancy only decorates."

Ruskin observes that we all have a general and sufficient idea of imagination, and of its work in our hearts: we understand it "as the imagining or picturing of new things in our thoughts; and we always show an involuntary respect for this power, whenever we can recognize it, acknowledging it to be a greater power than manipulation, or calculation, or observation, or any other human faculty. If we see an old woman spinning at the fireside, and distributing her thread

dexterously from the distaff, we respect her for her manipulation; if we ask her how much she expects to make in a year, and she answers quickly, we respect her for her calculation; if she is watching at the same time that none of her grandchildren fall into the fire, we respect her for her observation-yet for all this she may still be a common-place old woman enough. But if she is all the time telling her grandchildren a fairy tale out of her head, we praise her for her imagination, and say she must be a rather remarkable old woman."

The faculty of imagination is of infinite value for enlarging the field for the action of the intellect. It is a conducting and facilitating medium for intellect to expand itself through, where it may feel itself in a genial, vital element, instead of a vacuum.

There is no finer strain of poetry than Akenside's "Pleasures of the Imagination." Read it, whether you are wont to revel in such intellectual delights:

"O blest of Heaven! whom not the languid songs

Of luxury, the siren! not the bribes

Of sordid wealth, nor all the gaudy spoils

Of pageant honor, can seduce to leave

Those ever-blooming sweets, which from the store
Of nature fair imagination culls

To charm the enliven'd soul! What though not all
Of mortal offspring can attain the heights
Of envied life; though only few possess
Patrician treasures or imperial state;
Yet nature's care, to all her children just,
With richer treasures and an ampler state,
Endows at large whatever happy man
Will deign to use them. His the city's pomp,
The rural honors his. Whate'er adorns
The princely dome, the column and the arch,
The breathing marbles and the sculptured gold,
Beyond the proud possessor's narrow claim,
His tuneful breast enjoys. For him the spring
Distils her dews, and from the silken gem
Its lucid leaves unfolds; for him the hand
Of autumn tinges every fertile branch
With blooming gold, and blushes like the morn;
Each passing hour sheds tribute from her wings;

And still new beauties meet his lonely walk,
And loves unfelt attract him. Not a breeze
Flies o'er the meadow, not a cloud imbibes
The setting sun's effulgence, not a strain
From all the tenants of the warbling shade
Ascends, but whence his bosom can partake
Fresh pleasure unreproved. Nor thence partakes
Fresh pleasure only; for the attentive mind,
By this harmonious action on her powers,
Becomes herself harmonious; wont so oft
In outward things to meditate the charm
Of sacred order, soon she seeks at home
To find a kindred order, to exert
Within herself this elegance of love,

This fair inspired delight; her temper'd powers
Refine at length, and every passion wears
A chaster, milder, more attractive mien;
But if to ampler prospects, if to gaze
On nature's form, where, negligent of all
These lesser graces, she assumes the port
Of that eternal majesty that weigh'd

The world's foundations--if to these the mind
Exalts her daring eye, then mightier far

Will be the change, and nobler. Would the forms
Of servile custom cramp her generous power;
Would sordid policies, the barbarous growth
Of ignorance and rapine, bow her down
To tame pursuits, to indolence and fear?
Lo! she appeals to nature, to the winds

And rolling waves, the sun's unwearied course,
The elements and seasons; all declare
For what the eternal Maker has ordain'd
The powers of man; we feel within ourselves

His energy divine: He tells the heart,

He meant, He made us to behold and love
What he beholds and loves-the general orb
Of life and being; to be great like Him,
Beneficent and active. Thus the men

Whom nature's works can charm, with God himself
Hold converse; grow familiar, day by day,
With His conceptions, act upon His plan,
And form to His the relish of their souls."