THE PLEASURES MEMORY. PART I. Dolce fentier, Colle, che mi piacesti, Ov' ancor per usanza Amor mi mena; Non, laffo, in me. PETRARCH. ANALYSIS OF THE FIRST PAR T. THE HE Poem begins with the defcription of an obfcure village, and of the pleasing melancholy which it excites on being revisited after a long abfence. This mixed fenfation is an effect of the Memory. From an effect we naturally afcend to the caufe; and the fubject proposed is then unfolded with an investigation of the nature and leading principles of this faculty. 17 04 9 It is evident that there is a continued fucceffion of ideas in the mind, and that they introduce each other with a certain degree of regularity. Their complexion depends greatly on the different perceptions of pleasure and pain which we receive through the medium of fense; and, in return, they have a confiderable influence on the animal œconomy. They are fometimes excited by fenfible objects, and fometimes by an internal operation of the mind. Of the former fpecies is moft probably the memory of brutes; and its many fources of pleafure to them, as well as to ourfelves, are confidered in the first part. The latter is the most perfect degree of memory, and forms the subject of the fecond. When ideas have any relation whatever, they are attractive of each other in the mind; and the perception of any object naturally leads to the idea of another which was connected with it either in time or place, or which can be compared or contrafted with it. Hence arifes our attachment to inanimate objects; hence alfo, in fome degree,. the love of our country, and the emotion with which we contemplate the celebrated fcenes of antiquity. Hence a picture directs our thoughts to the original: and, as cold and darknefs fuggeft forcibly the ideas of heat and light, he, who feels the infirmities of age, dwells most on whatever reminds him of the vigour and vivacity of his youth. > |