Page:The Pleasures of Memory (Rogers).djvu/29



HE Memory has hitherto acted only in subservience to the senses, and so far man is not eminently distinguished from other animals: but with respect to man, she has a higher province; and is often busily employed when excited by no external cause whatever. She preserves for his use the treasures of art and science, history and philosophy. She colours all the prospects of life: for "we can only anticipate the future by concluding what is possible from what is past." On her agency depends every effusion of the Fancy, whose boldest effort can only compound or transpose, augment or diminish the materials which she has collected and retained.

When the first emotions of despair have subsided, and sorrow has softened into melancholy, she amuses with a retrospect of innocent pleasures, and inspires that noble confidence which results from the consciousness of having acted well. When sleep has suspended the organs of sense from their office, she not only supplies the mind with images, but assists in their combination. And even in madness itself, when the soul is resigned over to the tyranny of a distempered imagination, she revives past perceptions, and awakens the train of thought which was formerly most familiar.