evidence. It resembles the faith which we repose in our own
sensations. Thus, the Arab, when covered with wounds, saw
nothing but the dark eyes and the green kerchief of a beckoning
Houri. The Northern warrior laughed in the pangs of death when
he thought of the mead of Valhalla.

The first works of the imagination are, as we have said, poor and
rude, not from the want of genius, but from the want of
materials. Phidias could have done nothing with an old tree and
a fish-bone, or Homer with the language of New Holland.

Yet the effect of these early performances, imperfect as they
must necessarily be, is immense. All deficiencies are supplied
by the susceptibility of those to whom they are addressed. We
all know what pleasure a wooden doll, which may be bought for
sixpence, will afford to a little girl. She will require no
other company. She will nurse it, dress it, and talk to it all
day. No grown-up man takes half so much delight in one of the
incomparable babies of Chantrey. In the same manner, savages are
more affected by the rude compositions of their bards than
nations more advanced in civilisation by the greatest master-
pieces of poetry.

In process of time, the instruments by which the imagination
works are brought to perfection. Men have not more imagination
than their rude ancestors. We strongly suspect that they have
much less. But they produce better works of imagination. Thus,
up to a certain period, the diminution of the poetical powers is
far more than compensated by the improvement of all the
appliances and means of which those powers stand in need. Then