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Show ORIGIN OF SOCIETY. CANTO III. 100 Or if the dewy hands of Sleep, unbid, O'er het~ blue eye-balls close the lovely lid, Watches each nascent smile, and fleeting grace, That plays in day ~d~·eams o'~r her blushing face; Counts the fine mazes of the curls, that break Round her fair ear' and shade her daJnask cheek; Drinks the pure fragrance of her breath, and sips With t~nderest touch the roses of her lips;O'er female hearts with chaste seduction reigns, And binds SociETY in silken--chains. 200 IV. " IF the wide eye the wavy lawns explores, The bending woodlands, or the winding shores, The 'ttJaVY lawns, I. 207. 1Vhen the babe, soon after it i born into this cold world, is applied to its mother's bosom; its sense of perceiving warmth is first agreeably affected; next its sense of smell is delighted with the odour of her milk; then its taste is gratifi , cl by the flavour of it; afterwards. the appetites of hunger and of thirst afford pleasure by the possession of their objects, and by the subsequent digestion of the aliment; and lastly, the sense of touch is delighted by the softness and smoothness of the milky fountain, the source of such variety of happiness. All these various kinds of pleasure at length become associated with the form of the mother's breast; which the infant embraces with -... CAN'fO III. PROGRESS OF THE MIND. 101 HiJls, whose green sides with soft prot u b erance n.s e, Or the blue concave of the vaulted skies;- 210 Or scans with nicer gaze the pearly swell Of spiral volutes round the twisted shell· ' Or undulating sweep, whose graceful turns Bound the smooth surface of Etrurian urns, When on fine forms the w·aving lines impress'd Give the nice curves, which swell the female breast. ' The countless joy~ the tender Mother pours Round the soft cradle of our infant hours ' In lively trains of unextinct delight Rise in our bosoms recognized by sight; 220 its h~nds, presses with its lips, and watches with its eyes; and thus acqu1res more accurate ideas of the form of its 1iwther's bosom, than of the odour and flavour or warmth, which it perceives by its other ~enses. And 1Jence a~ our maturer years, when any object of vision I.s presented to us, whiCh by its waving or spiral Jines bears any similitude to the form of the female bosom, whether it be found in a Jands. cape ~vith soft gradations of rising and descending surface, or in the fo1:ms of s,ome antique vases, or in other works of the pencil or the ch1sel, we feel a general glow of delight, wl1ich seems to influence all our s.enses; and jf the object be not too large, we experience an attractw~ t~ embrace it .with onr arms, and to salute it with our Jips, as we d1d 111 otu ~arJy mfancy the bosom of our mother. And thus |