the more true and natural, if it conveys the impression which the object
under the influence of passion makes on the mind. Let an object, for
instance, be presented to the senses in a state of agitation or fear--
and the imagination will distort or magnify the object, and convert it
into the likeness of whatever is most proper to encourage the fear. "Our
eyes are made the fools" of our other faculties. This is the universal
law of the imagination,

"That if it would but apprehend some joy,
It comprehends some bringer of that joy:
Or in the night imagining some fear,
How easy is each bush suppos'd a bear!"

When Iachimo says of Imogen,

"------The flame o' th' taper
Bows toward her, and would under-peep her lids
To see the enclosed lights"--

this passionate interpretation of the motion of the flame to accord with
the speaker's own feelings, is true poetry. The lover, equally with the
poet, speaks of the auburn tresses of his mistress as locks of shining
gold, because the least tinge of yellow in the hair has, from novelty
and a sense of personal beauty, a more lustrous effect to the
imagination than the purest gold. We compare a man of gigantic stature
to a tower: not that he is any thing like so large, but because the
excess of his size beyond what we are accustomed to expect, or the usual
size of things of the same class, produces by contrast a greater feeling
of magnitude and ponderous strength than another object of ten times the
same dimensions. The intensity of the feeling makes up for the