this 'ere?" "That's Grasmere," replies the coachman ; "ain't it beautiful!" "How strange! says the practical man; "you ca' them all lakes and meres hereabouts; down with us they're called reser-voyers!” Worthy mate this of that other Englishman of whom we have heard, who, with his family, was-to use the characteristic Anglo-Saxon phrase" doing Rome." Visiting one of the great picture-galleries, he comes to a celebrated painting in which the principal figure is John the Baptist. This figure catches his attention; he nods approvingly; and then comes the emphatic criticism, uttered in the hearing of everybody near him, "Quite my idea of 'the party!'" Now, who does not feel that there must be a very practical defect in the mind of a man to whom Grasmere is a reservoir," or to whom the stern wilderness-preacher, seen through the vista even of eighteen centuries, has become simply

a party"? Who does not feel that all men of whom these may be taken as caricature-types, are (whatever their profits may be) losers of substantial good? Surely it must practically increase the happiness even of a British manufacturer, when his imagination is sufficiently cultivated to enable him, now and again, after the toils of the day are over, to take down his Tennyson from his shelves, and forget for a little while his ledger and his factory, in following Sir Bedivere as he bears the wounded Arthur down to the shining levels of the lake," or in listening to the Princess Ida as she holds converse with her maidens.

II. We pass on to notice the use which the Imagination subserves in stimulating ambition and in sustaining perseverance.

We were told in one of our earliest story-books how

a London apprentice, who had run away from his master's house because of the hardships of his lot, turned back to confront all these hardships again, when he heard the bells of Bow Church calling after him

"Turn again, Whittington,

Lord Mayor of London !"

It is not at all unlikely that the story is substantially true. There was undoubtedly a Richard Whittington nearly five centuries ago, who fought his way through early difficulties, became one of the greatest merchants of his time, and was thrice elected to the mayoralty of London. And it would be strange if such a man-long before he was Sir Richard—had not been often upheld in his youthful struggles by bright imaginings of a possible future. Indeed, there have been few eminent men who have not heard, in their youth, the chimes of the prophetic bells. "The child is father of the man"; and the latent powers of the mind often carry within themselves the pictorial prediction of what they are fitted to achieve. The dawn of conscious ability flushes with its own light even the distant horizon of the future. Your unimaginative Esaus dream no dreams worth telling, and carve out for themselves no destinies worth recording. What is a "birthright" to them? A birthright cannot feed a hungry man; "pottage of lentiles" is a much more "substantial" thing! But your Jacobs, who have their visions of the ladder and the angels, and who hang up before the mind's eye pictures of coming good-these are the men who can sacrifice the present to the future, to whom "the seven years are but a few days" for the love they bear their Rachel,

and who start enterprises, and found families, which leave their mark on the history of mankind. Such natures are often tempted to trickery in order that they may the more fully or swiftly realize their ideals; but take them on the whole, they are nobler in themselves, and they achieve more practical and permanent results, than those natures which are engrossed in chasing the fugitive pleasures of the passing day.

Nor is it merely the case that these visions of the imagination spring from latent power. There is also re-action here; the visions nurse the power to which they owe their birth. There is thus a double reason why our presentiments as to our own future tend to fulfil themselves. Our ideals, kept before the mind, quicken our powers, stimulate our perseverance, and maintain our patience. The young student of Christ's College, who has his visions of "adding somewhat to the permanent literature of his country," and whose lofty ideal of the poet is that "his own life ought to be a true poem," becomes by and by Oliver Cromwell's secretary, and the author of Paradise Lost. Yon Italian lad, who steals away from his desk in the notary's office to watch the artists at their work, will yet be known far and wide as Michael Angelo, the greatest of them all. That youth, who leaves his University with a profound contempt for Aristotle and the Aristotelian method, is Francis Bacon; and in that contempt lies the germ of the Novum Organum. In truth, most men who have achieved anything worthy of their powers, owe much to their own imaginings. None of us love disembodiment. We naturally wish to see our ideas incarnate and "clothed upon." The soul within us, like the sculptor of ancient fable, falls in love with

the image of beauty which it has itself fashioned, and then appeals to us to make this image a living and breathing thing. And again, when men grow weary of their toils and of confronting the difficulties which obstruct their progress, what is it that revives their drooping energies? What but hope ?—which, when it is at all definite, involves an exercise of the imagination. For hope simply holds up before our minds the picture of the possible future-the object we have in view the position we desire to attain; and the sight of this picture rekindles our ambition and stimulates our flagging perseverance.

III. The exercise of the Imagination is also helpful in the doing of justice and benevolence.

Every honest, earnest mind will grant that whatever aids men in fulfilling their mutual duties, confers an advantage of the most practical and substantial character. Now, there are many cases in which a man cannot act righteously towards his neighbour, unless by imagination he places himself mentally, as near as may be, in that neighbour's position. Even the judge on the Bench, in using such discretion as the law allows him, is often enabled, by the exercise of this faculty, to elicit such evidence, or to allot such penalty, as tends to bring the human administration of justice into closer harmony with the divine. But every wise and good judge must feel that the very rigidity and apparent impartiality of our human law often make its operation exceedingly partial and unequal. The justice of such law can, for the most part, weigh in her scales only overt acts; and so it may be well that she should be blindfold; but the absolute and eternal justice must also weigh temptations, privileges, and

circumstances; and so she has eyes "like unto a flame of fire," which behold the secret motive, as well as the outward deed. How grossly unjust many of our judgments are, simply for want of a little imagination! You set down a man as stingy and mean, when all the while he may perhaps be far more generous than yourself. Nor do we ever conduct controversy fairly, unless we represent to our own thought the views of those who differ from us. A man never holds his own convictions with a more honest and intelligent grasp, and never argues more convincingly on their behalf, than when he can fairly appreciate antagonistic opinions by having stood in imagination on the opposing platform. In our ordinary life, too, the simple endeavour to place ourselves imaginatively in the circumstances of others would often result in more equitable dealing. The man who is about to risk money that is not his own in some hazardous speculation, might be aroused, ere it is too late, to recognize the claims of honesty, if he would picture to his mind what, in the event of his being unsuccessful, would be the position and feelings of those who are now trusting in his honour. And there is many a clerk who would have his salary raised to-morrow morning, if only his rich employer, lying back to-day in his easy chair, would paint himself on the canvas of his own fancy as perched, throughout the long years, on that same counting-house stool!

Then, to pass from justice to benevolence: what a great deal of unkindness springs, not from any intention to inflict a wound, but from a thoughtless overlooking of the circumstances and feelings of others! A true politeness springs from imaginative sympathy. And herein it differs from a mere external courtesy,