the distinction between Imagination and Fancy. And this difficulty, it is to be observed, is one which perplexes English critics only; for in no other language does the distinction in question exist. Neither the French Fantaisie, nor Italian Fantasia, has any resemblance at all to our word Fancy, in the sense in which we attribute it as a quality to poetical or romantic compositions. The Germans, those learned analysts, do indeed recognize very minute and refined contrasts between their Einbildungskraft and Phantasie; but then they appear to mean something widely different from ourselves by the attributes thus designated ;-the first being rather the power of the mind to concentrate its attention on its own imaginary creations; the latter, a quick and keen perception of lively images, suggesting themselves spontaneously. And this very circumstance, namely, the absence of any distinction similar to our own in foreign languages, might perhaps suggest to us a doubt whether we are not sometimes a little seduced, by an accident of the dictionary, into drawing visionary contrasts where no real difference exists a suspicion which will be rather increased than lessened, when we observe the odd perplexities into which the endeavour to define and analyze these supposed antagonists, has led some of our chief authorities on the subject.

'The distinction between Imagination and Fancy is simply,' as one writer tells us, that the former altogether changes and remodels the original idea, impregnating it with something extraneous. The latter leaves it undisturbed, but associates it with things to which, in some view or other, it bears a resemblance.'

This distinction seems to us to represent the real difference which exists between the effects of a stroke of Imagination and a stroke of quick Thought, or wit-a concetto, turn, or point. When Homer terms the morn rosy-fingered,' we recognize at once the true poetical imagination, remodelling,' in our critic's language, the original idea, and impregnating it with something extraneous.' In Butler's well-known comparison,

When, like a lobster boil'd, the morn

From black to red began to turn,'

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we discover a clever effort of wit, associating the original idea with a thing to which, in some view of another, it 'bears a resemblance.' But to cite this as an instance of Fancy, and at the same time to call such creations as Titania, Ariel, Caliban, fanciful, and the mental faculty which conceived them, Fancy, would be to render analysis useless, and criticism ridiculous.

Let us hear a very eminent philosopher, the late Dugald Stewart, on the same subject

Fancy is Imagination at a lower point of excitement-not dealing with passions, or creating character; not pouring out unconsciously, under the influence of strong feeling, images as they arise massed and clustered-but going in search of comparisons and illustrations; and when it invests them with personality, as in metaphor, still adhering much more closely to the logical fitness and sequence which govern similar ornaments in prose. It seems to act like a colder and weaker species of imagination - furnishing the thoughts which "play round the head, but do not touch the heart;» pleasing the eye and ear; creating or heightening the idea of the beautiful much more than the sublime.'

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This is indeed criticism conveyed in exquisite language; but when we come to examine the philosophy of the passage, we fear it will be found indeterminate, and inconsistent with itself. The first sentence is striking, and, whether it will bear close analysis or not, it certainly conveys to our mind something nearly resembling the popular notion of the difference between the two words. But Mr. Stewart, unfortunately, Ioses sight forthwith of his first distinction, and goes after another. Having defined Fancy as identical with Imagination, only at a lower 'point of excitement,' he proceeds to describe its functions as altogether inconsistent with those of the other faculty; for surely there can be no process more different from any exercise of Imagination, than that of going in search of comparisons and illustrations.' Here he seems to approach the notion which indentifies Fancy with more general sense of that word. Yet presently afterwards he returns again to something more resembling his original

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Wit,' in the older and

distinction. Fancy, he says,

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creates or heightens the idea of the beautiful much more than the sublime.' Surely the process of going in search of comparisons and illustrations,' is just as likely to end in producing the one as the other. But if the reader will forgive our presumptuous attempt at dissection Mr. Stewart does not give us, in this passage, a much clearer notion of the functions of Imagination (which he has elsewhere beautifully defined), than of Fancy. Ima gination does not deal with the passions,' any more than Fancy that is, it does so only incidentally its own empire is elsewhere. Neither can it be properly said to create characters' that is the proper function of the Dramatic Faculty -a faculty constantly exhibited in the highest degree by writers who are not poets in any sense of the word.. To give the same name to the distinguishing characteristic of Milton, and the distinguishing characteristics of De Foe and Le Sage, could surely serve no purpose but to show how completely over-refined analysis ends in confounding objects, instead of discriminating between them. '

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Let us next see whether a great poet will afford us any assistance in getting out of the labyrinth in which our æsthetic philosophers have involved us.

'Fancy,' says Mr. Wordsworth, depends upon the rapidity and profusion with which she scatters her thoughts and images, trusting that their number, and the felicity with which they are linked together, will make amends for the want of individual value; or, she prides herself on the curious subtilty and the succesful elaboration with which she can detect their lurking affinities. If she can win you over to her purposes, and impart to you her feelings, she cares not how mutable and transitory may be her influence, knowing that it will not be out of her power to resume it on 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 support the eternal. Yet it is not less true, that fancy, as she is an active, is also, under her own laws and in her own spirit, a creative faculty. In what manner fancy ambitiously aims at rivalship with the imagination, and imagination stoops to rwok with the materials of fancy, might be illustrated from the com

positions of all eloquent writers, whether in prose or verse, and chiefly from those of our own country. Scarcely a page of the impassioned part of Bishop Taylor's works can be opened that shall not afford examples. Referring the reader to these inestimable volumes, we will content ourselves with placing a conceit, ascribed to Lord Chesterfield, in contrast with a passage from the Paradise Lost. The dews of the evening most carefully shun:

They are tears of the sky for the loss of the sun. » 'After the transgression of Adam, Milton, with other appearances of sympathizing nature, thus marks the immediate consequence: Sky lower'd, and, muttering thunder, some few drops. Wept at completion of the mortal sin. »

The associating link is the very same in each instance: dew and rain, not distinguishable from the liquid substance of tears, are employed as indications of sorrow. the former case: a flash of surprise, and nothing more; for the naA flash of surprise is the effect in ture of things does not sustain the combination. effects of the act, of which there is this immediate consequence and In the latter, the visible sign, are so momentous, that the mind acknowledges the justice and reasonableness of the sympathy in nature so manifested; and the sky weeps drops of water, as if with human eyes had before trembled from her entrails, and nature gives a second as if earth groan.

At the first opening of this splendid passage, we perceive a mysterious light, which seems to direct us out of the paths in which we were wandering; but it vanishes before we have finished it. Indeed-if we might say so with due reverencethe poet leaves us even more perplexed than the critics; and we are tempted to acknowledge the justice of the profound reasonings of those supporters, of the successful candidate at the late Oxford election to the Professorship of Poetry, who pronounced him better qualified for it than his antagonistfirst, in respect of orthodoxy; secondly, in that he had never been known to aberrate into verse.

For surely the distinction between Imagination and Fancy cannot lie, in the first place, in the comparative profusion and rapidity of succession of their respective imagery. Takefor instances the inspired Prophets, or Eschylus, or Milton, in many parts what can exceed the rapidity with which the images are poured forth, wheel within wheel, or as if each was pregnant with its successor? And yet we surely, in com

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mon parlance, denominate these instances of their superlative Imagination, not of their Fancy. And Mr. Wordsworth then proceeds to ascribe to Fancy, in the alternative, a very opposite function-that of subtly detecting remote affinities;-here, again, assimilating it, as other authorities have done, to something radically different, Wit; and making it altogether unlike that which he nevertheless with the utmost truth asserts it to be a creative faculty.

May we venture on the still bolder step of quarrelling with the instance which so high an authority has selected in support of his position? The passage from Lord Chesterfield is of course a mere conceit, passable enough for a person of quality. But is not the passage of Milton in reality a conceit also, although of a far higher description? Does it exhibit any creative faculty? Does it call up any image in the mind of the reader, or suggest any as present in that of the poet? Is it, in short, any thing more than an effort of thought, 'associating the original idea with things to which, in some 'view or other, it bears a resemblance, by what Aristotle would have called a metaphor by analogy? For,' as that most unpoetical philosopher would infallibly have summed up the case, C as tears are to the human face, so are drops of water to the sky.'

Nor will another distinguished poet afford us any better guidance out of our difficulties. Lord Byron, in the course of the paradoxical warfare which it was his pleasure to wage against the poetical taste of his times, thought proper to assert, among other doctrines, that Pope was an imaginative poet; and supported his position by example, as follows:

'We are sneeringly told that Pope is the poet of reason»-as if this was a reason for his being no poet! Taking passage for pas sage, I will undertake to cite more lines teeming with imagination, from Pope, than from any two living poets, be they who they may. To take an instance at random from a species of composition not very favourable to imagination-satire. Set down the character of Sporus, with all the wonderful play of fancy which is scattered over it, and place by its side an equal number of verses, from any two existing poets of the same power and the same variety-where will you find them?.'