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Gentleman's Magazine 1842 part 1 p.12
Prophet, the English Bard, and the English Divine: these are
the phantasmata of Plutarch. To the imagination, the
vision of the father following the son, and shouting to warn
and guide him in his perilous course: this is the
phantasia of Plutarch.
But we have to deal with the POET, and we therefore again
resort to poetry for aid in illustrating and confirming our
opinions.
Mr. Taylor remarks, and the remark may be true, that
Macpherson had more fancy than imagination. It is, indeed,
quite possible, that a writer may create by impersonation;
and that he may not be able to adorn his own creation with
characteristic attributes.
Collins was a poet of a different order; and his far-famed
Ode on the Passions, once so familiar to the ear of youth,
will enable us to display in comparison the peculiar
characteristics of fancy and imagination, acting in concert
to produce one scenic effect.
The Passions, as so many exisitencies, thronging to the cell
of Music, snatching the instruments of sound from the
myrtles upon which they hung; and their mad resolution, each
to prove his own expressive power; the several
impersonations of Fear and Anger, Despair and Hope, Revenge
and Jealousy, of Pity, of Melancholy and of Cheerfulness,
are the pure creations of Fancy; but she must resort
to the aid of Imagination for a supply of imagery,
from which she may borrow the appropriate attributes,
actions, passions, with which she may endow these her
creatures. It is from these that she must select the picture
of Fear, recoiling at the sounds himself had made; of the
rude clash and hurried hand of Anger, and of the enchanted
smile and waving golden hair of Hope; of the low sullen
sounds of Despair; of the numbers of Jealousy, fixed on
nought; of the notes, in which, by distance made more sweet,
Melancholy poured through the mellow horn her pensive soul;
and, lastly, of the inspiring air, ringing through dale and
thicket, blown by Cheerfulness, with bow across her
shoulder, and buskins gemmed with morning dew.
We now approach the preface of our POET, in which he
explains his tenets, and to the poems which he professes to
have composed in consistency with them. Here we are to
encounter a combination of precept and practice, with the
experto credite of a consummate master in his art. We
shall not, we suspect, gain much ground, either in the
estimation of the author, or that of our reader, when we
commence with an acknowledgment that we suspect ourselves
unable to understand the tenets sufficiently to reduce them
to precepts by which the practice might be tried; or to
discriminate whether each poem can, in conformity with them,
pretend to be composed under the influence of one poetic
power in preference to the other. We are perfectly sure that
the manly and liberal mind of the Poet will not fancy
that under this acknowledgment it is intended to couch the
slightest disrespect; and we can as confidently assure him
that it is, on the other hand, from respect, a just respect,
to opinions entertained by him, that we have thought it
worth while to continue so prolonged a discussion, as, we
are apprehensive, this must now begin to appear. Our
readers, however, will begin to revive their flagging
attention (if any have permitted it to flag) when we apprize
them that it is to Wordsworth, and to him almost alone, to
whom they will now be called to lend their ears.
The POET remarks, upon the explanation of Mr. Taylor which
we have above quoted, "It is not easy to find how
imagination, thus explained, differs from distinct
remembrance of images, or fancy, from quick and vivid
recollection of them; each is nothing more than a mode of
memory."
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