t is said that a Milanese artist painted two peasants,
and two country-girls, who laughed so heartily, that _no one_ could
look at them without laughing.[70] This is an instance of sympathy
unconnected with imagination. The following is an instance of sympathy
excited by imagination. When Porcia was to part from Brutus, just
before the breaking out of the civil war, "she endeavoured," says
Plutarch, "as well as possible, to conceal the sorrow that oppressed
her; but, notwithstanding her magnanimity, a picture betrayed her
distress. The subject was the parting of Hector and Andromache. He was
represented delivering his son Astyanax into her arms, and the eyes of
Andromache were fixed upon him. The resemblance that this picture bore
to her own distress, made _Porcia_ burst into tears the moment she
beheld it." If Porcia had never read Homer, Andromache would not have
had this power over her imagination and her sympathy.

The imagination not only heightens the power of sympathy with the
emotions of all the passions which a painter would excite, but it is
likewise essential to our taste for another class of pleasures.
Artists, who like Hogarth would please by humour, wit, and ridicule,
must depend upon the imagination of the spectators to supply all the
intermediate ideas which they would suggest. The cobweb over the poor
box, one of the happiest strokes of satire that Hogarth ever invented,
would probably say nothing to the inattentive eye, or the dull
imagination. A young person must acquire the language, before he can
understand the ideas, of superior minds.

The taste for poetry must be prepared by the culture of the
imagination. The united powers of music and poetry could not have
triumphed over Alexander, unless his imagination had assisted "the
mighty master."

"With downcast looks the joyless victor sat,
Revolving in his altered soul
The various turns of chance below;
And now and then a sigh he stole,
And tears began to flow."

The sigh and the tears were the consequences of Alexander's own
thoughts, which were only recalled by kindred sounds. We are well
aware, that savage nations, or those that are imperfectly civilized,
are subject to enthusiasm; but we are inclined to think, that the
barbarous clamour with which they proclaim their delight in music and
poetry, may deceive us as to the degree in which it is felt: the
sensations of cultivated minds may be more exquisite, though they are