resume it upon an apt occasion. But the Imagination is conscious of an indestructible dominion: the Soul may fall away from it, not being able to sustain its grandeur; but if once felt and acknowledged, by no act of any other faculty of the mind can it be relaxed, impaired, or diminished. Fancy is given to quicken and to beguile the temporal part of our nature, Imagination to incite and to support the eternal.”

Another writer who has done much to awaken a true appreciation of the exalted function of imagination as distinguished from fancy is Ruskin. The student cannot do better than to take a few of his illustrations and test them by vocal expression.

"WHERE the Norweyan banners flout the sky
And fan our people cold."

"WHO is she that looketh forth as the morning, as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners?'

"The outward

Of the first of these extracts, Ruskin says: shiver and coldness of fear is seized on, and irregularly but admirably attributed by the fancy to the drift of the banners." Of the second: "The imagination stays not at the outside, but dwells on the fearful emotion itself."

A NUN demure of lowly port; or sprightly maiden, of Love's court, in thy simplicity the sport of all temptations; a queen in crown of rubies drest; a starveling in a scanty vest, ―are all, as seems to suit thee best, thy appellations.

that thought

A little cyclops, with one eye staring to threaten and defy, comes next; and instantly the freak is over, the shape will vanish - and behold a silver shield with boss of gold, that spreads itself, some faery bold in fight to cover.

I see thee glittering from afar- and then thou art a pretty star; not quite so fair as many are in heaven above thee! Yet like a star, with glittering crest, self-poised in air thou seem'st to rest may peace come never to his nest, who shall reprove thee!

Bright Flower! for by that name at last, when all my reveries are past, I call thee, - and to that cleave fast, sweet silent creature! that breath'st with me in sup and air, do thou, as thou art wont, repair my heart with gladness and a share of thy meek nature!

From "To a Daisy."

Wordsworth.

Which stanza here is the most imaginative?

Ruskin says:

"Observe how spiritual, yet how wandering and playful the fancy is in the first stanzas, and how far she flies from the matter in hand, never stopping to brood on the character of any one of the images she summons, and yet for a moment truly seeing and believing in them all; while in the last stanza the imagination returns with its deep feeling to the heart of the flower and cleaves fast' to that." There is more imagination in the last, because it is more simple, more genuine, truer to human experience, and centres the mind's attention, as the imagination always does, at the heart of things.

BRING the rathe primrose, that forsaken dies;
The tufted crow-toe and pale jessamine,
The white pink and the pansy freaked with jet,
The glowing violet,

The musk-rose and the well-attired woodbine,
With cowslips wan, that hang the pensive head,
And every flower that sad embroidery wears.

(Imag.)

(Nugatory.)

(Fancy.)

(Imag.)

(Fancy, vulgar.)

(Imag.) (Mixed.)

Milton.

O, PROSERPINA,

For the flowers now, that frighted thou let'st fall

From Dis's wagon: Daffodils

That come before the swallow dares, and take

The winds of March with beauty. Violets, dim,
But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes

Or Cytherea's breath; pale primroses

That die unmarried, ere they can behold
Bright Phoebus in his strength, a malady
Most incident to maids.

Shakespeare.

Ruskin contrasts these extracts from Milton and Shakespeare. "Observe," he says, "how the imagination in these last lines goes. into the very inmost soul of every flower, after having touched them all at first with that heavenly timidness, the shadow of Proserpine's, and gilded them with celestial gathering, and never stops on their spots or their bodily shape; while Milton sticks in the stains upon them, and puts us off with that unhappy freak of jet in the very flower that without this bit of paper-staining would

have been the most precious to us of all. 'There is pansies, that's for thoughts.""

While the imagination is superior to fancy, it must be borne in mind that fancy is not to be despised. It has a high and important function, though one distinct from imagination. The true office of each of these is best illustrated by Shakespeare. He gives the greatest variety, as well as the highest action, of both of these faculties.

PROBLEM XI. Contrast the play of fancy with imagination; note the difference in mental action, and in the effect upon the voice.

O, THEN, I see, Queen Mab hath been with you.

She is the fairy midwife; and she comes

In shape no bigger than an agate-stone
On the fore-finger of an alderman,
Drawn with a team of little atomies
Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep.
Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut,
Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,
Time out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers:
Her wagon-spokes made of long spinner's legs;
The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers;
The traces, of the smallest spider's web ;

The collars, of the moonshine's watery beams;
Her whip, of cricket's bone; the lash, of film;
Her wagoner, a small grey-coated gnat.
And in this state, she gallops night by night
Though lovers' brains, and then they dream of love;
O'er courtiers knees, that dream on curtsies straight;
O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees;
O'er ladies' lips, who straight on kisses dream:
Sometimes she gallops o'er a courtier's nose,
And then dreams he of smelling out a suit;
And sometimes comes she with a tithe-pig's tail
Tickling a parson's nose that lies asleep,
Then dreams he of another benefice:

Sometimes she driveth o'er a soldier's neck,
And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,
Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,
Of healths five-fathom deep; and then anon
Drums in his ear, at which he starts, and wakes;
And, being thus frighted, swears a prayer or two,
And sleeps again.

Shakespeare.

WHEN to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste;
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,

For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
And weep afresh love's long-since-cancell'd woe,
And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight.
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er
The sad account fore-bemoanèd moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before :
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restored, and sorrows end.

By wells and rills, in medowes greene,
We nightly sing our heydey guise ;
And to our fairy king and queene
We chant our moonlight minstrelsies :
When larks 'gan sing, away we fling;
And babes new-borne steal as we go,
And elfe in bed we leave instead,

And wend us laughing, ho, ho, ho!

THERE is an eminence of these our hills,

The last that parleys with the setting sun.

AMONG THE ROCKS.

OH, good gigantic smile o' the brown old Earth,
This autumn morning! How he sets his bones
To bask i' the sun, and thrusts out knees and feet
For the ripple to run over in its mirth;

Listening the while, where on the heap of stones
The white breast of the sea-lark twitters sweet!

That is the doctrine, simple, ancient, true;

Such is life's trial, as old Earth smiles and knows.
If you loved only what were worth your love,
Love were clear gain, and wholly well for you:

Make the low nature better by your throes!
Give Earth yourself, go up for gain above!

Shakespeare.

Shakespeare.

Wordsworth.

Browning.

THERE's one great bunch of stars in heaven
That shines so sturdily,

Where good Saint Peter's sinewy hand
Holds up the dull gold-wroughten key.

And also there's a little star

So white, a virgin's it must be,
Perhaps the lamp my love in heaven

Hangs out to light the way for me.

Theophile Marzials.

NIGHT AND MORNING.

Low hanging in a cloud of burnished gold,
The sleepy sun lay dreaming;

And where, pearl-wrought, the Orient gates unfold,
Wide ocean realms were gleaming.

Within the night he rose and stole away,

And, like a gem adorning,

Blazed o'er the sea upon the breast of day,

And everywhere was morning.

Eugene Field.

VII. ACTIONS OF THE IMAGINATION.

THE Poet should communicate an Infinitude to his delineation. By intensity of conception, by that gift of transcendental Thought which is fitly named genius and inspiration, he should inform the Finite with a certain Infinitude of significance; or, as they sometimes say, ennoble the Actual into Idealness.

Carlyle.

Wordsworth.

THE most diverse opinions are held regarding the imagination. One of the latest theories is that there is no such faculty, but that the human mind is full of "imaginations." According to this view, the imagination is simply a general word for perceptive