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.

Nor are we pleased only with a review of the brighter passages of
life. Events, the most distressing in their immediate consequences,
are often cherished in remembrance with a degree of enthusiasm.

But the world and its occupations give a mechanical impulse to the
passions, which is not very favourable to the indulgence of this
feeling. It is in a calm and well-regulated mind that the Memory is
most perfect; and solitude is her best sphere of action. With this
sentiment is introduced a Tale, illustrative of her influence in
solitude, sickness, and, sorrow. And the subject having now been
considered, so far as it relates to man and the animal world, the
Poem concludes with a conjecture, that superior beings are blest with
a nobler exercise of this faculty.


Sweet MEMORY, wafted by thy gentle gale,
Oft up the stream of Time I turn my sail,
To view the fairy-haunts of long-lost hours.