I need not, my Lord, to suggest on this branch of my subject, that it requires the utmost delicacy to personify inanimate objects so justly, as to render them adapted in every circumstance to the occasion on which they are introduced. Your Lordship however will permit me to observe, that as the happiest effect is produced upon the mind of the reader by the judicious introduction of an ideal personage; so he is apt to be disgusted in an equal degree, when the conduct of the Poet in this instance is in the smallest measure irregular or defective. When an intellectual idea falls under the cognizance of an external sense, it is immediately surveyed with an accuracy proportioned to its importance, and to the distance at which we suppose it to be placed. We judge of Virtue and Vice, when represented as persons, in the same manner as we judge of men whose appearance is suggested by memory; and we therefore expect that these ideal figures shall be discriminated from each other by their dress, attitudes, features, and behaviour, as much as two real persons of opposite characters always are in the familiar intercourse of ordinary life. In reality we assign a particular shape, complection, and manner to the creatures of imagination, by the same rule which leads us to ascribe a certain assemblage of features to a person whom we have never seen, upon seeing his character particularly displayed, or upon listening to a minute detail of his actions. Nay, odd as it may appear, it is yet certain, that in many instances our idea of the imaginary person may be more distinct and particular than that of the real one. Thus we often find that the representation exhibited by Fancy of the figure of an Heroe, whose actions had raised admiration; I say, we find that this representation has been wide of the truth, when we come either to see the original, or a faithful copy of it: but our ideas of imaginary persons are generally so exact, that upon seeing a group of these displayed on a plate, we are capable to give each its proper designation, as soon as we observe it. Thus Anger, Revenge, Despair, Hope, &c. can be distinguished from each other almost as easily when they are copied by the pencil, as when _we feel their influence on our own minds, or make others observe it on our actions_.