| [No. 83] | Tuesday, June 5, 1711 | Addison |
... Animum pictura pascit inani.
Virg.
When the Weather hinders me from taking my Diversions without Doors, I frequently make a little Party with two or three select Friends, to visit any thing curious that may be seen under Covert. My principal Entertainments of this Nature are Pictures, insomuch that when I have found the Weather set in to be very bad, I have taken a whole Day's Journey to see a Gallery that is furnished by the Hands of great Masters. By this means, when the Heavens are filled with Clouds, when the Earth swims in Rain, and all Nature wears a lowering Countenance, I withdraw myself from these uncomfortable Scenes into the visionary Worlds of Art; where I meet with shining Landskips, gilded Triumphs, beautiful Faces, and all those other Objects that fill the mind with gay Ideas, and disperse that Gloominess which is apt to hang upon it in those dark disconsolate Seasons.
I was some Weeks ago in a Course of these Diversions; which had taken such an entire Possession of my Imagination, that they formed in it a short Morning's Dream, which I shall communicate to my Reader, rather as the first Sketch and Outlines of a Vision, than as a finished Piece.
I dreamt that I was admitted into a long spacious Gallery, which had one Side covered with Pieces of all the Famous Painters who are now living, and the other with the Works of the greatest Masters that are dead.
On the side of the
Living
, I saw several Persons busy in Drawing, Colouring, and Designing; on the side of the
Dead