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ANALYSIS

OF THE FIRST PART.

THE Poem begins with the description of an obscure village, and of the pleasing melancholy which it excites on being revisited after a long absence. This mixed sensation is an effect of the Memory. From an effect we naturally ascend to the cause; and the subject proposed is then unfolded with an investigation of the nature and leading principles of this faculty.

It is evident that there is a continued succession 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 sense; and, in return, they have a considerable influence on the animal œconomy.

They are sometimes excited by sensible objects, and sometimes by an internal operation of the mind. Of the former species is most probably the memory of brutes ; and its many sources of pleasure to them, as well as to us, are considered in the first part. The latter is the most perfect degree of memory, and forms the subject of the second,

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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 contrasted with it. Hence arises our attachment to inanimate objects; hence also, in

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some degree, the love of our country, and the emotion with which we contemplate the celebrated scenes of antiquity. Hence a picture directs our thoughts to the original: and as cold and darkness suggest 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.

The associating principle, as here employed, is no less conducive to virtue than to happiness, and as such it frequently discovers itself in the most tumultuous scenes of life. It addresses our finer feelings, and gives exercise to every mild and generous propensity.

Not confined to man, it extends through all animated nature, and its effects are peculiarly striking in the domestic tribes.

OH! Could my Mind, unfolded in my page,
Enlighten climes and mould a future age!
There as it glow'd, with noblest frenzy fraught,
Dispense the treasures of exalted thought;
To virtue wake the pulses of the heart,
And bid the tear of emulation start!
Oh! could it still, thro' each succeeding year,
My life, my manners, and my name endear!
And, when the poet sleeps in silent dust,
Still hold communion with the wise and just !—
Yet should this Verse, my leisure's best resource,
When thro' the world it steals its secret course,
Revive but once a gen'rous wish supprest,
Chase but a sigh, or charm a care to rest;
In one good deed a fleeting hour employ,
Or flush one faded cheek with honest joy;
Blest were my lines, tho' limited their sphere,
Tho' short their date as his who trac'd them here,

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