"the germ of a nation," "the planting of a people," "the infancy of the republic," etc. Thus, when we reflect upon the progress of a great truth, first discovered by a retired philosopher, then modestly brought to the notice of the world, receiving testimony from kindred sciences, until, gaining strength at every step, it is universally acknowledged, we naturally think of a spring, which, arising in the recesses of the mountains, receives tributaries on every side, until it gradually spreads out into a mighty river. Hence, we speak of "ascending to the fountain head of knowledge,' of "the current of opinions," of "a flood of evidence," and the like. Instances of this kind are found in abundance in the books on rhetoric.

There is another relation, somewhat different from the above, in which the imagination stands to the art of persuasion. By the imagination we form pictures of objects, scenes, events, characters, and the like. It is a wellknown fact that our emotions are excited as truly by a conception as by the reality. We are moved by the incidents of a romance, we love one fictitious character and hate another, we grieve over the distresses of virtue, we rejoice in the punishment of crime, just as though what we read were veritable narrative. And this effect is produced by the conceptions themselves, for our emotions are not quelled by the reflection that all this is fiction. In this manner, the imagination may be made to address our domestic affections, our passions,-worthy or unworthy, our conscience, or our piety. Thus, the inimitable parables of our Saviour convey the most sublime and touching lessons of universal truth. The allegory of Bunyan overflows with religious instruction, and exquisite moral sentiment. Homer has instilled into the bosom of millions besides Alexander, the love of war, and the inextinguishable thirst for glory. We thus perceive that the passions and sentiments of mankind, either

for good or for evil, are greatly under the power of the imagination.

The manner in which the orator avails himself of this principle is the following. In the attempt to convince men our first appeal is to their reason. We construct a train of

argument which proves our propositions to be true, and we present such motives as should induce them to act in the manner we desire. If we are deeply in earnest ourselves, our earnestness will not fail to call into exercise every power of the mind. Notions of things material and immaterial, visible and invisible, related to our subject by all the laws of objective or subjective association, will with various degrees of distinctness rise before us. These various materials the orator uses in such manner as he perceives best adapted to accomplish his purpose. In the works of Shakspeare,

"The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,

Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;

And, as imagination bodies forth

The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen

Turns them to shape, and gives to airy nothings
A local habitation and a name.

MID-SUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM.

When an image, a picture, or an event, presents itself to the imagination of the orator, better adapted to excite the emotion which he wishes to arouse than the naked statement of his argument, he spreads this picture before the mind with all the graphic power of which he is capable. We are, as I have said, affected by conceptions as truly as by reality. The emotion excited by the accessory is readily transferred to the principal idea, and thus we are sunk in sadness, melted into compassion, aroused to indignation, or inflamed to patriotism, as we listen to the earnest appeals of impassioned eloquence. It is by this combination of the reasoning

power with the imagination, that the greatest triumphs of the art of persuasion have been accomplished.

Sometimes the imagination personifies an abstract principle, and, investing it with every element of grandeur and sublimity, awakens emotion which is at once transferred to the principle itself. Curran, in his defence of Rowan,— who had been indicted for the publication of a paper in which he pleaded, for universal emancipation,— affirms that his client had claimed nothing more than was the birthright of every Englishman, and that universal emancipation is an essential element of the British Constitution. His imagination, fired with so noble a theme, at once conceives of universal emancipation as the genius presiding over British soil, and he proceeds to clothe this being with every attribute of majesty, thus transferring to the principle which he defends, the sublime emotions which his conception has inspired. "I speak in the spirit of British law, which makes liberty commensurate with and inseparable from the British soil, which proclaims even to the stranger and the sojourner, the moment he sets his foot on British earth, that the soil on which he treads is holy, and consecrated by the genius of universal emancipation. No matter in what language his doom may have been pronounced; no matter what complexion incompatible with freedom an Indian or an African sun may have burned upon him; no matter in what disastrous battle his liberties may have been cloven down; no matter with what solemnities he may have been devoted on the altar of slavery, the moment he touches the sacred soil of Britain, the altar and the god sink together in the dust, his soul walks abroad in her own majesty, his body swells beyond the measure of the chains that burst from around him, and he stands redeemed, regenerated, and disenthralled, by the irresistible genius of universal emancipation." The effect of such a conception upon a hearer is obvious. He,

who before looked upon the doctrine as merely a matter of abstract right, now cherishes it as a sublime and most ennobling sentiment, and not only justifies, but honors and venerates the man who promulgates it.

It is obvious that the same means may be successfully used to arouse indignation against a person or an opinion. The same great orator, wishing to discredit the testimony of a government witness, presents before us an image which can awaken no emotion but those of loathsomeness and detestation. Referring to the confinement of this person in the castle before the trial, he styles him "the wretch that is buried a man, who lies till his heart has time to fester and rot, and is then dug up a witness." He asks, “Have you not seen him, after his resurrection from that tomb, after having been dug out of the regions of death and corruption, make his appearance upon the table, the living image of life and death, and the supreme arbiter of both? Have you not marked, when he entered, how the stormy wave of the multitude retired at his approach? Have you not marked how the human heart bowed to the supremacy of his power, in the undissembled homage of deferential horror? how his glance, like the lightning of heaven, seemed to rive the body of the accused and mark it for the grave, while his voice warned the devoted wretch of woe and death,— a death which no innocence can escape, no art elude, no force resist, no antidote prevent? There was an antidote,a juror's oath; but even this adamantine chain, which bound the integrity of man to the throne of eternal justice, is solved and melted in the breath that issues from the informer's mouth. Conscience swings from her moorings, and the appalled and affrighted juror consults his own safety in the surrender of the victim."

From such instances as these it is easy to perceive the manner in which the orator may make even the imagination

to aid in the work of persuasion. He may bring the past, the present, and the future, before the mind of the hearer, and awaken, by means of it, any train of sympathy that he desires. The pages of ancient and modern eloquence are studded with gems of this kind, illustrating the power of the consummate orator to wield the passions of men at his will, and too frequently, I must confess, to make the worse appear the better reason.

SECTION III. - ON THE IMPROVEMENT OF POETIC IMAG

INATION.

IMAGINATION, as we have before said, is the power of combination, the faculty by which, out of materials already existing in the mind, we form new and original images. Of course, our power of combination must be limited by the amount of the materials on which it may be exerted. Knowledge of all kinds is the treasury from which our power of combination must be supplied. The works of the classical poets of all languages furnish us with a great variety of beautiful imagery. But these poets themselves derived their images from nature. The same book is open to us, and we must study it for ourselves if we would attain to freshness and vigor of imaginative power. He, therefore, who would cultivate this faculty with success, must observe nature in all her infinite variety of phases, by day and by night, in sunshine and in storm, in summer and in winter, on the prairie and by the seaside, and delight himself in the beautiful and the grand wherever they may exist in every aspect of creation around him. Says Imlac, in Rasselas, "I ranged mountains and deserts for images and resemblances, and pictured on my mind every tree of the forest and flower of