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ON THE INFLUENCE OF SENSIBLE OBJECTS IN AWAKENING ASSOCIATED THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS.

To the Editors of the Northern Star.

WHEN a train of thought is excited by means of any sensible object, or of any accidental circumstance taking strong and forcible possession of the imagination, it leads on imperceptibly to a variety of similar thoughts and feelings, which no reasoning is able either to resist or control. This is what the metaphysicians call the Principle of Association. "Each one," says Foster," has his own separate remembrances, giving to some places an aspect and a significance which he alone can perceive. We pass without any awakened consciousness by the bridge, or the wood, or the house, where there is something to excite the most painful or frightful ideas in the next man that shall come that way, or possibly in the companion that walks along with us. How much there is in a thousand spots of earth, that is invisible and silent to all but the conscious individual.

'I hear a voice you cannot hear;

I see a hand you cannot see.'"

The recital of any memorable historical fact, which we have been accus. tomed to regard with a degree of interest; or a visible representation upon canvas of the splendid achievements of our ancestors, often fires the mind with a noble emulation, and awakens thoughts and feelings which might otherwise have slumbered for ever within our breasts. So, likewise, on be holding the portrait of a deceased friend, the resemblance, however imperfect, recals a thousand pleasing and delightful images to the mind, and our sympathy is almost as much excited as it would have been by a contemplation of the reality. How beautifully descriptive of this observation is that exquisite passage of Virgil, in which Æneas is represented as gaz ing in fixed astonishment upon a picture, commemorating the deeds of his brave countrymen, and, in the midst of his admiration, bursting into a flood of tears.

"Constitit: et lacrimans, Quis jam locus, inquit, Achate,

Quæ regio in terris nostri non plena laboris?

En Priamus. Sunt hic etiam sua præmia laudi;
Sunt lacrima rerum; et mentem mortalia tangunt.
Solve metus; feret hæc aliquam tibi fama salutem.
Sic ait, atque animum pictura pascit inani,}
Multa gemens, largoque humectat flumine voltum.”*
EN. i. 459-465.

He stopp'd, and weeping said, "O friend! ev'n here
The monuments of Trojan woes appear!
Qur known disasters fill ev'n foreign lands;
See there, where old unhappy Priam stands!
Ev'n the mute walls relate the warrior's fame,
And Trojan griefs the Tyrians' pity claim."
He said- (his tears a ready passage find)—
Devouring what he saw so well design'd;
And with an empty picture fed his mind.— Dryden.

Influence of Sensible Objects in awakening Associated Thoughts, &c. 203

Another class of associations, peculiarly grateful to persons of a refined and cultivated taste, is that connected with the study of antiquity. With what rapture does the classical tourist visit those scenes which bring to his recollection the brightest and most renowned periods in the history of Athens or of Rome; which awaken in his mind all the pleasing images connected with the labours of his boyish days; and which present to his enraptured imagination spots embellished and made sacred by the memory of departed genius! This delightful and enthusiastic feeling arises not so much from any intrinsic grandeur or beauty in the scenes themselves, as from the bewitching charms that imagination throws around them. We admire Athens, not because we find it abounding in relics of its former splendour, such as the shells of ancient temples, dilapidated columns, and broken arches; but because, as Cicero observes, speaking of this queen of cities, "Quacunque ingredimur, in aliquam historiam vestigium ponimus." We resort to this and other ancient seats of learning and the arts, not to witness the scenes of devastation which they now present, to gratify ourselves with the sight of ruined magnificence, or to contemplate the triumph of superstition over civilisation and refinement, but to catch a portion of that inspiration which pervades the works of ancient art, and to indulge ourselves in that delightful train of reflection to which classical ground alone can give birth.

Ante oculos urbisque domus, et forma locorum est ;
Succeduntque suis singula facta locis."

OVID. de Tristib. iii. 57.

"I know not," says Piso, in CICERO de Finibus, "whether it be a natural feeling or an illusion of the imagination founded on habit, that we are more powerfully affected by the sight of those places which have been much frequented by illustrious men, than when we either listen to the recital, or read the detail, of their great actions. At this moment I feel strongly that emotion of which I speak. I see before me the perfect form of Plato, who was wont to dispute in this very place. These gardens not only recal him to my memory, but present his very person to my senses. I fancy to myself that here stood Speusippus, there Xenocrates, and here, on this bench, sat his disciple Polemo. To me, our ancient senate-house seems peopled with the like visionary forms; for often, when I enter it, the shades of Scipio, of Cato, and of Lælius, and, in particular, of my venerable grandfather, rise to my imagination. In short, such is the effect of local situation in recalling associated ideas to the mind, that it is not without reason some philosophers have founded on this principle a species of artificial memory."

The influence of association in strengthening the ties which bind a man to his native land is often very powerful. Mountainous countries, from the natural protection which they afford to the inhabitants, and the obstructions which they present to an invading enemy, are peculiarly adapted to nourish sentiments of independence, and render a people brave, active, and free. Such countries abound in scenes which are consecrated with the blood of patriots, and which tend to remind the hardy inhabitant of events

which can never be too deeply imprinted upon his recollection. The venerable forms of antiquity rise up before him, as he visits ths spot where tyranny received an effectual check, or where the progress of a dangerous foe was successfully resisted. The physical advantages of soil and climate in such cases avail but little. Habit, and association, and local attachment are every thing.

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Here it occurs to me to mention the well-known fact, that a tune called the Rances des Vaches, sung by the milk-maids of Switzerland when they go to the pastures, was absolutely interdicted in the French armies, because it melted the rough Swiss soldier into tears, and made him sigh for the freedom which he had once enjoyed on his native mountains. Here, too, it may not be amniss to record the observation of some Canadian Indians, on being sollicited to quit their native country, and settle in a more congenial climate:-- What!" replied they, shall we say to the bones of our fathers, Arise, and go with us into a foreign land?"

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From the former of these anecdotes it would appear, that, when at a distance from scenes which we love, and to which we are bound by peculiarly endearing ties, our attachment is often awakened by events, which might occur, at another time, without producing the slightest emotion. This interesting fact is still further illustrated by a curious anecdote, which a celebrated navigator has recorded concerning himself. Whilst we were at dinner," says Captain King, "in a miserable hut on the banks of the river Awatska, the guests of a people with whose existence we had before been scarce acquainted, and at the extremity of the habitable globe, a solitary, half-worn pewter spoon, whose shape was familiar to us, attracted our attention, and, on examination, we found it stamped on the back with the word London. I cannot pass over this circumstance in silence, out of gratitude for the many pleasant thoughts, the anxious hopes, and tender remembrances it excited in us. Those who have experienced the effects that long absence, and extreme distance from their native country,

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produce on the mind, will readily conceive the pleasure such a trifling incident can give." For my own part I can readily conceive" it, having felt it in all its force, when at a distance from those in whose happiness I was deeply interested, and to whom I had been bound, from the earliest periods of infancy, by the tenderest and most affectionate ties.

But the most pleasing class of associations yet remains to be noticed I mean those which relate to the scenes of our childhood and youth; which have grown up with our advancing years, and in which memory delights to trace the thousand little incidents connected with the history of our early life. It was from an association of this kind that Cardinal Richelieu, when he built his magnificent palace on the scite of the old family-mansion at Richelieu, sacrificed its symmetry to preserve the room in which he was born; and that Pope, in one of his letters, good-humouredly observed," I should hardly care to have an old post pulled up, that I remembered ever since I was a child." The same kind of local attachment forms a very prominent feature in Goldsmith's Deserted Village, and, in conjunction with the beauty of the scenes described, and the harmony of the versification, renders it one of the most interesting poems in the English language :—

"Sweet AUBURN! parent of the blissful hour,

Thy glades forlorn confess the tyrant's pow'r.
Here, as I take my solitary rounds,

Amidst thy tangling walks and ruin'd grounds;
And, many a year elaps'd, return to view
Where once the cottage stood, the hawthorn grew;
Here, as with doubtful, pensive steps I range,
Trace every scene and wonder at the change,
Remembrance wakes with all her busy train,
Swells at my breast, and turns the past to pain."

The present article is now extended far beyond the limits which I had assigned to it in my own mind, before I sat down to write, or I should, perhaps, have troubled the reader with some metaphysical speculations as to the origin of that class of feelings which it has been my object to illustrate. This task, however, I now decline, content with having afforded a trifling amusement to the lighter class of readers, and offering my humble apologies to the learned for having, by a deceitful title, excited their hopes only to disappoint them.

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REGARD it as my duty to apologise for my delay in noticing the query proposed to me by one of your correspondents, in p. 505 of your Magazine, of 31st December, 1817:-"What is the physical cause that the

offspring of the Blacks by their repeated intermarriages with the Whites, invariably become the latter; that in the first instance they are distinguished from the Blacks by their tawny complexion, their hair not being so woolly, nor their lips so thick, and that in the third remove they are not to be known from a native European."

In my late publication," On the Effects of Physical and Moral Causes on the Circumstances and Character, &c., I have devoted an entire chapter to the display of the influence of race or descent on the form, features, complexion, and constitutional propensities of different families, tribes, and nations, as well as on their mental powers; and as that work, which, although recently published, is already extensively circulated, must be in the hands of many of your readers, it would be useless to occupy your interesting pages with a repetition of what is there advanced. It must therefore suffice to say, that the observations of your correspondent exhibit one of the numerous instances of the influence of race or descent operating, with such power, as to counteract that of climate, and other physical causes which might seem unfavourable to the production of its effects; and your correspondent may be assured, that if his observations were reversed, he would And that repeated intermarriages of Whites with Blacks would, in like manner, in a few generations, produce a Negro offspring. For a more particular answer to his query, I must refer the Gentleman to the above, mentioned treatise, in which he will find the whole theory developed.

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ENQUIRIES into such of our popular customs as appear to owe their existence to times long gone by, have often afforded me an interesting and, I may add, in most cases a profitable amusement, during the hours of relaxation from severer studies: the result of some of these enquiries you have already thought worthy of appearing in your valuable publication, and should you judge as favourably of the one I now send, I shall hope

for its insertion also in the Northern Star.

The use of a Ring in the nuptial ceremony is one of those established customs, which lay claim to very ancient origin. We find that with the Romans it was usual to present one to their betrothed wives even before the day of marriage, as appears from the following passage in Juvenal:—

- Digito pignus fortasse dedisti.'

'Perhaps you have already put the ring upon her finger.' Pliny informs us that the ring used on such occasions was a plain one, unadorned with jewels, and made of iron; but Tertullian observes, that at one time it was made of gold, which being the purest metal, and continuing the longest without rust or tarnish, might perhaps indicate that perma

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