The Monarch's stately step, and tragic pause,

The Hero bleeding in his country's caufe,
O'er her fond child the dying Mother's tears,
The Lover's ardor, and the Virgin's fears;

The tittering Nymph, that tries her comic task,
Bounds on the scene, and peeps behind her mask,
The Punch and Harlequin, and graver throng,
That shake the theatre with dance and fong,
With endless trains of Angers, Loves, and Mirths,
Owe to the Muse of Mimicry their births. 339

"Hence to clear images of form belong
The sculptor's ftatue, and the poet's fong,
The painter's landscape, and the builder's plan,
And IMITATION marks the mind of Man.

Imitation marks, 1. 334. Many other curious inftances of one part of the animal fyftem imitating another part of it, as in fome contagious diseases; and alfo of fome animals imitating each other, are given in Zoonomia, Vol. I. Sect. XXII. To which may be added, that this propenfity to imitation not only appears in the actions of children, but in all the customs and fashions of the

3.

VI." WHEN ftrong defires or foft fenfations.

move

The astonish'd Intellect to rage or love;

Affociate tribes of fibrous motions rife,

Flush the red cheek, or light the laughing eyes.
Whence ever-active Imitation finds

The ideal trains, that pass in kindred minds; 340
Her mimic arts affociate thoughts excite

And the firft LANGUAGE enters at the fight.

world; many thousands tread in the beaten paths of others, who precede or accompany them, for one who traverses regions of his own discovery,

And the firft Language, 1. 342. There are two ways by which we become acquainted with the paffions of others: first, by having obferved the effects of them, as of fear or anger, on our own bodies, we know at fight when others are under the influence of these affections. So children, long before they can speak, or understand the language of their parents, may be frightened by an angry countenance, or foothed by smiles and

blandishments.

Secondly, when we put ourselves into the attitude that any paffion naturally occafions, we foon in fome degree acquire

"Thus jealous quails or village-cocks inspect Each other's necks with ftiffen'd plumes erect; Smit with the wordlefs eloquence, they know The rival paffion of the threatning foe.

So when the famish'd wolves at midnight howl,
Fell ferpents hifs, or fierce hyenas growl;
Indignant Lions rear their bristling mail,
And lash their fides with undulating tail.
Or when the Savage-Man with clenched fift
Parades, the fcowling champion of the list ;

350

that paffion; hence when those that fcold indulge themselves in loud oaths and violent actions of the arms, they increase their anger by the mode of expreffing themselves; and on the contrary, the counterfeited finile of pleafure in difagreeable company foon brings along with it a portion of the reality, as is well illuftrated by Mr. Burke. (Effay on the Sublime and Beautiful.)

These are natural figns by which we understand each other, and on this flender bafis is built all human language. For without fome natural figns no artificial ones could have been invented or understood, as is very ingenioufly obferved by Dr. Reid. (Inquiry into the Human Mind.)

With brandish'd arms, and eyes that roll to know

Where first to fix the meditated blow;

Affociation's mystic power combines

Internal paffions with external figns.

"From these dumb gestures first the exchange

began

Of viewless thought in bird, and beast, and man;
And still the stage by mimic art displays
Historic pantomime in modern days;

360

And hence the enthusiast orator affords

Force to the feebler eloquence of words.

"Thus the firft LANGUAGE, when we

frown'd or smiled,

Rofe from the cradle, Imitation's child;
Next to each thought affociate found accords,

And forms the dulcet fymphony of words;
The tongue, the lips articulate; the throat
With foft vibration modulates the note;

Love, pity, war, the shout, the fong, the prayer

Form quick concuffions of elastic air.

"Hence the firft accents bear in airy rings The vocal fymbols of ideal things,

370

Hence the first accents, 1. 371. Words were originally the figns or names of individual ideas; but in all known languages many of them by changing their terminations express more than one idea, as in the cafes of nouns, and the moods and tenfes of verbs. Thus a whip fuggefts a single idea of that instrument; but "to whip," suggests an idea of action, joined with that of the instrument, and is then called a verb; and "to be whipped," suggests an idea of being acted upon or fuffering. Thus in most languages two ideas are fuggefted by one word by changing its termination; as amor, love; amare, to love; amari, to be loved. Nouns are the names of the ideas of things, first as they are received by the stimulus of objects, or as they are afterwards repeated; fecondly, they are names of more abstracted ideas, which do not suggest at the fame time the external objects, by which they were originally excited; or thirdly, of the operations of our minds, which are termed reflex ideas by metaphysical writers; or lastly, they are the names of our ideas of parts or properties of objects; and are termed by grammarians nouns adjective.

Verbs are alfo in reality names of our ideas of things, or