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Our sight is the most perfect, and most delightful of all

our senses.

This sentence is clear, precise and simple. The author in a few plain words lays down the proposition, which he is going to illustrate. A first sentence should seldom be long, and never intricate.

He might have said, our sight is the most perfect and the most delightful. But in omitting to repeat the particle the, he has been more judicious; for, as between perfect and delightful there is no contrast, such a repetition is unnecessary. He proceeds:

It fills the mind with the largest variety of ideas, converses with its objects at the greatest distance, and continues the longest in action, without being tired or satiated with its proper enjoyments.

This sentence is remarkably harmonious, and well constructed. It is entirely perspicuous. It is loaded with no unnecessary words. That quality of a good sentence, which we termed its unity, is here perfectly preserved. The members of it also grow, and rise above each other in sound, till it is conducted to one of the most harmonious closes which our language admits. It is moreover figurative without being too much so for the subject. ever, except this, the epithet large, which he applies to variety, is more commonly applied to extent than to number. It is plain, however, that he employed it to

There is no fault in it what

avoid the repetition of the word great, which occurs immediately afterwards..

The sense of feeling can, indeed, give us a notion of extension, shape, and all other ideas that enter at the eye, except colours; but, at the same time, it is very much straitened and confined in its operations, to the number, bulk, and distance of its particular objects. But is not every sense confined as much as the sense of feeling, to the number, bulk, and distance of its own objects? The turn, of expression is also very inaccurate, requiring the two words, with regard, to be inserted after the word operations, in order to make the sense clear and intelligible. The epithet particular seems to be used instead of peculiar; but these words, though often confounded, are of very different import. Particular is opposed to general; peculiar stands opposed to what is possessed in common with others.

Our sight seems designed to supply all these defects, and may be considered as a more delicate and diffusive kind of touch that spreads itself over an infinite multitude of bodies, comprehends the largest figures, and brings into our reach some of the most remote parts of the universe.

This sentence is perspicuous, graceful, well arranged, and highly musical. Its construction is so similar to that of the second sentence, that, had it immediately succeeded it, the ear would have been sensible of a faulty monotony. But the interposition of a period prevents this effect.

It is this sense which furnishes the imagination with its ideas; so that, by the pleasures of the imagination or fancy, (which I shall use promiscuously) I here mean such as arise from visible objects, either when we have them actually in our view, or when we call up their ideas into our minds by paintings, statues, descriptions, or any the like occasion.

The parenthesis in the middle of this sentence is not clear. It should have been, terms which I shall use promiscuously; since the verb use does not relate to the pleasures of the imagination, but to the terms, fancy and imagination, which were meant to be synonymous. To call a painting or a statue an occasion is not accurate; nor is it very proper to speak of calling up ideas by occasions. The common phrase any such means,

would have been more natural.

We cannot indeed have a single image in the fancy, that did not make its first entrance through the sight; but we have the power of retaining, altering, and compounding those images which we have once received, into all the va rieties of picture and vision that are most agrecable to the imagination; for, by this faculty, a man in a dungeon is capable of entertaining himself with scenes and landscapes more beautiful than any that can be found in the whole compass of nature.

In one member of this sentence there is an inaccuracy in syntax. It is proper to say, altering and compounding those images which we have once received, into

all the varieties of picture and vision. But we cannot with propriety say, retaining them into all the varieties ; yet the arrangement requires this construction. This error might have been avoided by arranging the pas sage in the following manner: "We have the power of "retaining those images which we have once received; "and of altering and compounding them into all the va "rieties of picture and vision." The latter part of the sentence is clear and elegant.

There are few words in the English language, which are employed in a more loose and uncircumscribed sense than those of the fancy and the imagination.

Except when some assertion of consequence is advanced, these little words, it is and there are, ought to be avoided, as redundant and enfeebling. The two first words of this sentence therefore should have been omitted. The article prefixed to fancy and imagi nation ought also to have been omitted, since he does not mean the powers of the fancy and the imagination, but the words only. The sentence should have run thus: "Few words in the English language are employ"ed in a more loose and uncircumscribed sense than "fancy and imagination.”

I therefore thought it necessary to fix and determine the notion of these two words, as I intend to make use of them in the thread of my following speculations, that the reader may conceive rightly what is the subject which I proceed цроп.

The words fix and determine, though they may ap pear so, are not synonymous. We fix what is loose; we determine, what is uncircumscribed. They may be viewed, therefore, as applied here with peculiar deliсасу.

The notion of these words is rather harsh, and is not so commonly used, as the meaning of these words. As I intend to make use of them in the thread of my speculations is evidently faulty. A sort of metaphor is improperly mixed with words in their literal sense. The subject which I proceed upon is an ungraceful close of a sentence; it should have been, the subject upon which I proceed.

I must therefore, desire him to remember, that by the pleasures of imagination, I mean only such pleasures as arise originally from sight, and that I divide these pleasures into two kinds.

This sentence begins in a manner too similar to the preceding. I mean only such pleasures-the adverb only is not in its proper place. It is not intended here to qualify the verb mean, but such pleasures; and ought therefore to be placed immediately after the latter.

My design being, first of all, to discourse of those primary pleasures of the imagination, which entirely proceed from such objects as are before our eyes; and, in the next place, to speak of those secondary pleasures of the imagination which flow from the ideas of visible objects, when