Page:A Prospect of Manchester and Its Neighbourhood.djvu/15

Rh hence it is, that a reader of poetry should possess a quick imagination, or many beauties of a composition will necessarily escape him. When a writer delineates vigorously, he is followed with delight; the poetic ardour becomes infectious, and the reader finds himself

But the contrary of this takes place, when a description is spun out: the mind becomes fatigued, and we confess the dulness of the author, in our inability to follow him. "In vitium ducit culpæ fuga, si caret arte."

If we examine the works of the painter or the sculptor, we shall be as much struck with the poetry of their conceptions, as if we read the warm fictions of the assistance given by the Gods to men, in the Iliad. Painting and sculpture differ however from poetry in this; in these, the poetic thought is conveyed tp the mind, through the medium of the eye; there is no void, no space left for the imagination to fill up, and hence the intellectual satisfaction consists in contemplating the