Hark! they whisper! angels say, I AM serisible of the difficulty of distinguishing resemblances from thefts; and of what a late critic has urged, that a want of seeming originality arises frequently, not from a barrenness and timidity of genius, but from invincible neceffity, and the nature of things: that the works of those who profess an art, whose essence is imitation, must needs be stamped with a close resemblance to each other, since the objects material or animate, extraneous or internal, which they all imitate, lie equally open to the observation of all, and are perfectly similar. Descriptions therefore that are faithful and just, MUST BE UNIFORM AND ALIKE; the first copier may be perhaps entitled to the praise of priority, but a fucceeding one ought not certainly to be condemned for plagiarifm. THESE general observations however true, do not, I think, extend to the case before us, because not only the thoughts, but even the words N words are copied; and because the images, especially the last, are such, as are not immediately impressed by sensible objects, and which therefore, on account of their SINGULARITY, did not lie in common for any poet to seize. Let us however moderate the matter, and fay, what perhaps is the real fact, that POPE fell into the thoughts of Flatman unawares, and without design; and having formerly read him, imperceptibly adopted this passage, even without knowing that he had borrowed it. That this will frequently happen, is evident from the following curious particulars related by Menage, * which, because much has been faid of late on this head by many writers of criticism, I shall here infert. " I have often heard M. Chapelain, " and M. Dandilly declare, that they wrote "the following line," D' arbires de la paix, de foudres de la guerre; without knowing it was in Malherbe; and the moment I am making this remark, recollect * Anti-baillet. tom. II. 208. that that the fame thing happened to M. Furetiere. I have often heard Corneille declare, that he inferted in his Polyeucte, two celebrated lines concerning fortune, without knowing they were the property of M. Godeau bishop of Vence; Et comme elle a l'eclat du Verre GODEAU had inserted them in an ode to Cardinal Richleiu, fifteen years before Polyeucte was written. Porphyry in a fragment of his book on Philology, quoted by Eusebius, in the tenth book of his Evangelical preparation, makes mention of an author named Aretatedes, who composed an entire treatise on this fort of resemblances. And St. Jerom relates, that his preceptor Donatus, explaining that sensible passage in Terence, " Nihil est dictum quod non " dictum fuit prius," railed severely at the ancients, for taking from him his best thoughts; "Pereant qui ante nos, nostra "dixerunt." MENAGE makes these observations on occafion of a passage in the Poetics of Vida, intended to justify borrowing the thoughts and even expressions of others, which passage is very applicable to the subject before us: Aspice ut exuvias, veterumque infignia nobis Menage adds, that he intended to compile a regular treatise on the thefts and imitations of the poets. As his reading was very extenfive, his work would probably have been very entertaining. For surely it is no trivial amusement, to trace an applauded sentiment or description to its fource, and to remark, with what † judgment and art it is adapted and inserted; provided this be done with such a spirit of modesty and candour, as evidently shews, the critic intends merely to gratify * Lib. 3. v. 255. + Dryden says prettily of Ben. Johnson's many imitations of the ancients, " You track him every where in their snow." curiofity, curiosity, and not to indulge envy, malignity, and a petulant defire of dethroning established ‡ reputations. Thus for instance, says the Rambler, f " it can scarcely be doubted, that in the first of the following pafsages POPE remembered Ovid, and that " in the second * he copied Crashaw, be "cause there is a concurrence of more re" semblances, than can be imagined to " have happened by chance." Sæpe pater dixit, studium quid inutile tentas? I left no calling for this idle trade, † See the fruitless and impudent attack of Lauder on Milton. † N° 143. * The Works of Cardinal Bembo, and of Casa, of Annibal Caro, and Tasso himself, are full of entire lines taken from Dante and Petrarch. Believe |