the end of HENRY VIII. when the poet makes him say of Queen Elizabeth,
that,
“In her days ev’ry man shall eat with safety
Under his own vine what he plants.”
and of King James, that,
“He shall flourish,
And, like a mountain Cedar, reach his branches
To all the plains about him”—
It is easy to see that his _Vine_ and _Cedar_ are not of English
growth, but transplanted from Judæa. I do not mention this as an
impropriety in the poet, who, for the greater solemnity of his
prediction, and even from a principle of decorum, makes his Arch-bishop
fetch his imagery from Scripture. I only take notice of it as a certain
argument that the imagery was not his own, that is, not suggested by
his own observation of nature.
The case you see, in these instances, is the same as if an English
landskip-painter should choose to decorate his Scene with an Italian
sky. The Connoisseur would say, he had copied this particular from
Titian, and not from Nature. I presume then to give it for a certain
note of Imitation, _when the properties of one clime are given to
another_.
II. You will draw the same conclusion whenever you find “The Genius of
one _people_ given to another.”
1. Plautus gives us the following true picture of the Greek manners:
—In hominum aetate multa eveniunt hujusmodi—
Irae interveniunt, redeunt rursum in gratiam,
Verùm irae siquae fortè eveniunt hujusmodi,
Inter eos rursum si reventum in gratiam est,
Bis tanto amici sunt inter se, quàm prius.
AMPHYT. A. III. S. 2.
You are better acquainted with the modern Italian writers than I am;
but if ever you find any of them transferring this placability of
temper into an eulogy of his countrymen, conclude without hesitation,
that the sentiment is taken.
2. The late Editor of Jonson’s works observes very well the impropriety
of leaving a trait of Italian manners in his _Every man in his humour_,
when he fitted up that Play with English characters. Had the scene been
laid originally in England, and that _trait_ been given us, it had
convicted the poet of _Imitation_.
3. This attention to the genius of a people will sometimes shew you,
that the _form_ of composition, as well as particular sentiments, comes
from Imitation. An instance occurs to me as I am writing. The Greeks,
you know, were great haranguers. So were the ancient Romans, but in
a less degree. One is not surprized therefore that their historians
abound in set speeches; which, in their hands, become the finest parts
of their works. But when you find modern writers indulging in this
practice of speech-making, you may guess from what source the habit is
derived. Would Machiavel, for instance, as little of a Scholar as, they
say, he was, have adorned his fine history of Florence with so many
harangues, if the classical bias, imperceptibly, it may be, to himself,
had not hung on his mind?
Another example is remarkable. You have sometimes wondered how it has
come to pass that the moderns delight so much in _dialogue-writing_,
and yet that so very few have succeeded in it. The proper answer to
the first part of your enquiry will go some way towards giving you
satisfaction as to the last. The practice is not original, has no
foundation in the manners of modern times. It arose from the excellence
of the Greek and Roman dialogues, which was the usual form in which the
ancients chose to deliver their sentiments on any subject.
Still another instance comes in my way. How happened it, one may ask,
that Sir PHILIP SYDNEY in his Arcadia, and afterwards SPENSER in
his Fairy Queen, observed so unnatural a conduct in those works; in
which the Story proceeds, as it were, by snatches, and with continual
interruptions? How was the good sense of those writers, so conversant
besides in the best models of antiquity, seduced into this preposterous
method? The answer, no doubt, is, that they were copying the design,
or disorder rather, of ARIOSTO, the favourite poet of that time.
III. Of near akin to this contrariety _to the genius of a people_ is
another mark which a careful reader will observe “in the representation
of certain TENETS, different from those which prevail in a writer’s
country or time.”
1. We seldom are able to fasten an imitation, with certainty, on such a
writer as Shakespear. Sometimes we are, but never to so much advantage
as when he happens to forget himself in this respect. When Claudio, in
_Measure for Measure_, pleads for his life in that famous speech,
Ay, but to die, and go we know not where;
To lye in cold obstruction, and to rot;
This sensible warm motion to become
A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit
To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside
In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice;
To be imprison’d in the viewless winds,
And blown with restless violence about
The pendant world—
It is plain that these are not the Sentiments which any man entertained
of _Death_ in the writer’s age or in that of the speaker. We see in
this passage a mixture of Christian and Pagan ideas; all of them very
susceptible of poetical ornament, and conducive to the argument of the
Scene; but such as Shakespear had never dreamt of but for Virgil’s
Platonic hell; where, as we read,
aliae panduntur inanes
Suspensae ad ventos: aliis sub gurgite vasto,
Infectum eluitur scelus, aut exuritur igni.
Virg. l. vi.
2. A prodigiously fine passage in Milton may furnish another example of
this sort,
When Lust
By unchast looks, loose gestures, and foul talk,
But most by lewd and lavish act of Sin,
Lets in defilement to the inward parts,
The soul grows clotted by contagion,
Imbodies, and imbrutes, till she quite lose
The divine property of her first being.
Such are those thick and gloomy shadows damp,
Oft seen in charnel vaults and sepulchres,
Ling’ring, and sitting by a new-made grave,
As loth to leave the body, that it lov’d,
And linkt itself by carnal sensuality
To a degenerate and degraded state.
_Mask at Ludlow Castle._
This philosophy of _imbruted souls_ becoming _thick shadows_ is so
remote from any ideas entertained at present of the effects of Sin,
and at the same time is so agreeable to the notions of Plato (a double
favourite of Milton, for his own sake, and for the sake of his being
a favourite with his Italian Masters), that there is not the least
question of its being taken from the PHAEDO.
Ἡ τοιαύτη ψυχὴ βαρύνεταί τε καὶ ἕλκεται πάλιν εἰς τὸν ὁρατὸν τόπον,
φόβῳ τοῦ ἀειδοῦς τε καὶ ᾅδου, περὶ τὰ μνήματα καὶ τοὺς τάφους
κυλινδουμένη· περὶ ἃ δὴ καὶ ὤφθη ἄττα ψυχῶν σκιοειδῆ φαντάσματα, οἷα
παρέχονται αἱ τοιαῦται ψυχαὶ εἴδωλα, αἱ μὴ καθαρῶς ἀπολυθεῖσαι——
There is no wonder, now one sees the fountain Milton drew from, that,
in admiration of this poetical philosophy (which nourished the fine
spirits of that time, though it corrupted some), he should make the
other speaker in the scene cry out, as in a fit of extasy,
How charming is divine philosophy!
Not harsh, and crabbed, as dull fools suppose,
But musical as is Apollo’s lute,
And a perpetual feast of nectar’d sweets,
Where no crude surfeit reigns—
The very ideas which Lord SHAFTESBURY has employed in his encomiums
on the Platonic philosophy; and the very language which Dr. HENRY MORE
would have used, if he had known to express himself so soberly.
3. Having said so much of Plato, whom the Italian writers have
helped to make known to us, let me just observe one thing, to our
present purpose, of those Italian writers themselves. One of their
peculiarities, and almost the first that strikes us, is a certain
sublime mystical air which runs through all their fictions. We find
them a sort of philosophical fanatics, indulging themselves in strange
conceits “concerning the _Soul_, the _chyming of celestial orbs_, and
presiding _Syrens_.” One may tell by these marks, that they doted on
the fancies of Plato; if we had not, besides, direct evidence for this
conclusion. Tasso says of himself, and he applauds the same thing in
Petrarch, “Lessi già tutte l’opere di Platone, è mi rimassero molti
semi nella menta della sua dottrina.” I take these words from Menage,
who has much more to the same purpose, in his elegant observations on
the _Amintas_ of this poet.
One sees then where Milton had been for that imagery in the ARCADES,
then listen I
To the celestial Syrens’ harmony,
That sit upon the nine enfolded spheres
And sing to those that hold the vital shears,
And turn the adamantine spindle round,
On which the fate of Gods and men is wound.
The best comment on these verses is a passage in the x^{th} Book of
Plato’s Republic, where this whole system, of _Syrens quiring to the
fates_, is explained or rather delivered.
IV. We have seen a _Mark_ of Imitation, in the allusion of writers to
certain strange, and foreign tenets of philosophy. The observation may
be extended to all those passages (which are innumerable in our poets)
that allude to the _rites, customs, language, and theology of Paganism_.
It is true, indeed, this Species of Imitation is not that which is,
properly, the subject of this Letter. The most original writer is
allowed to furnish himself with poetical ideas from all quarters. And
the management of learned _Allusion_ is to be regarded, perhaps, as
one of the nicest offices of Invention. Yet it may be useful to see
from what sources a great poet derives his materials; and the rather,
as this detection will sometimes account for the _manner_ in which he
disposes of them. However, I will but detain you with a remark or two
on this class of Imitations.
1. I observe, that even Shakespear himself abounds in learned
Allusions. How he came by them, is another question; though not so
difficult to be answered, you know, as some have imagined. They, who
are in such astonishment at the learning of Shakespear, besides that
they certainly carry the notion of his illiteracy too far, forget that
the Pagan imagery was familiar to all the poets of his time—that
abundance of this sort of learning was to be picked up from almost
every English book, he could take into his hands—that many of the best
writers in Greek and Latin had been translated into English—that his
conversation lay among the most learned, that is, the most paganized
poets of his age—but above all, that, if he had never looked into
books, or conversed with bookish men, he might have learned almost all
the secrets of paganism (so far, I mean, as a poet had any use of them)
from the MASKS of B. Jonson; contrived by that poet with so pedantical
an exactness, that one is ready to take them for lectures and
illustrations on the ancient learning, rather than exercises of modern
wit. The taste of the age, much devoted to erudition, and still more,
the taste of the Princes, for whom he writ, gave a prodigious vogue to
these unnatural exhibitions. And the knowledge of antiquity, requisite
to succeed in them, was, I imagine, the reason that Shakespear was not
over-fond to try his hand at these elaborate trifles. Once indeed he
_did_, and with such success as to disgrace the very best things of
this kind we find in Jonson. The short Mask in the _Tempest_ is fitted
up with a classical exactness. But its chief merit lies in the beauty
of the _Shew_, and the richness of the _poetry_. Shakespear was so
sensible of his Superiority, that he could not help exulting a little
upon it, where he makes _Ferdinand_ say,
This is a most majestic _Vision_, and
Harmonious charming _Lays_—
’Tis true, another Poet, who possessed a great part of Shakespear’s
genius and all Jonson’s learning, has carried this courtly
entertainment to its last perfection. But the _Mask at Ludlow Castle_
was, in some measure, owing to the _fairy Scenes_ of his Predecessor;
who chose this province of _Tradition_, not only as most suitable to
the wildness of his vast creative imagination, but as the _safest_
for his unlettered Muse to walk in. For here he had much, you knew, to
expect from the popular credulity, and nothing to fear from the classic
superstition of that time.
2. It were endless to apply this _note_ of imitation to other poets
confessedly learned. Yet one instance is curious enough to be just
mentioned.
Mr. Waller, in his famous poem on the victory over the Dutch on June 3,
1665, has the following lines;
His flight tow’rds heav’n th’ aspiring BELGIAN took;
But fell, like PHAETON, with thunder strook:
From vaster hopes than his, he seem’d to fall,
That durst attempt the BRITISH Admiral:
From her broadsides a ruder flame is thrown,
Than from the fiery chariot of the Sun:
THAT, bears THE RADIANT ENSIGN OF THE DAY;
And SHE, the flag that governs in the Sea.
He is comparing the British Admiral’s _Ship_ to the _Chariot_ of the
Sun. You smile at the quaintness of the conceit, and the ridicule he
falls into, in explaining it. But that is not the question at present.
The _latter_, he says, bears _the radiant ensign of the day_: The
_other_, _the ensign of naval dominion_. We understand how properly the
_English Flag_ is here denominated. But what is that _other Ensign_?
The _Sun_ itself, it will be said. But who, in our days, ever expressed
the Sun by such a periphrasis? The image is apparently antique, and
easily explained by those who know that anciently the Sun was commonly
emblematized by a _starry or radiate figure_; nay, that such a figure
was placed aloft, as an _Ensign_, over the _Sun’s charioteer_, as we
may see in representations of this sort on ancient Gems and Medals.
From this original then Mr. Waller’s imagery was certainly taken;
and it is properly applied in this place where he is speaking of the
_Chariot of the Sun_, and _Phaeton’s fall_ from it. But to remove all
doubt in the case, we can even point to the very passage of a Pagan
poet, which Mr. Waller had in his eye, or rather translated.
Proptereà noctes hiberno tempore longæ
Cessant, dum veniat RADIATUM INSIGNE DIEI.
_Lucr._ l. v. 698.
Here, you see, the poet’s allusion to a classic idea has led us to the
discovery of the very passage from which it was taken. And this use
a learned reader will often make of the species of Imitation, here
considered.
V. Great writers, you find, sometimes forget the character of the
_Age_, they live in; the _principles_, and _notions_ that belong to it.
“Sometimes they forget _themselves_, that is, their own situation and
character.” Another sign of the influence of _Imitation_.
1. When we see such men, as STRADA and MARIANA, writers of fine talents
indeed, but of recluse lives and narrow observation, chusing to talk
like men of the world, and abounding in the most refined conclusions of
the cabinet, we are sure that this character, which we find so natural
in a Cardinal DE RETZ, is but assumed by these Jesuits. And we are not
surprized to discover, on examination, that their best reflexions are
copied from TACITUS.
On the other hand, when a man of the world took it into his head, the
other day, in a moping fit, to talk _Sentences_, every body concluded
that this was not the language of the writer or his situation, but that
he had been poaching in some pedant; perhaps in the _Stoical Fop_, he
affected so much contempt of, SENECA.
2. Sometimes we catch a great writer deviating from his _natural
manner_, and taking pains, as it were, to appear the very reverse of
his proper _character_. Would you wish a stronger proof of his being
seduced, at least for the time, by the charms of _imitation_?
Nothing is better known than the easy, elegant, agreeable vein of
VOITURE. Yet you have read his famous Letter to BALZAC, and have been
surprized, no doubt, at the forced, quaint, and puffy manner, in which
it is written. The secret is, Voiture is aping Balzac from one end of
this letter to the other. Whether to pay his court to him, or to laugh
at him, or that perhaps, in the instant of writing, he really fancied
an excellence in the style of that great man, is not easy to determine.
An eminent French critic, I remember, is inclined to take it for a
piece of mockery. At all events, we must needs esteem it an _imitation_.
3. This remark on the turn of a writer’s _genius_ may be further
applied to that of his _temper or disposition_.
The natural misanthropy of Swift may account for his thinking and
speaking very often in the spirit of ROCHEFOUCAULT, without any
thought of taking from his _Maxims_, though he was an admirer of them.
But if at any time we observe so humane and benevolent a man as Mr.
Pope giving into this language, we say of course, “This is not his own,
but an assumed manner.”
Or what say you to an instance that exemplifies both these observations
together? The natural unaffected turn of Mr. Cowley’s manner, and the
tender sensibility of his mind, are equally seen and loved in his
prose-works, and in such of his poems as were written after a good
model, or came from the heart. A clear sparkling fancy, softened with
a shade of melancholy, made him, perhaps, of all our poets the most
capable of excelling in the elegiac way, or of touching us in any way
where a vein of easy language and moral sentiment is required. Who
but laments then to see this fine genius perverted by the prevailing
pedantry of his age, and carried away, against the bias of his nature,
to an emulation of the rapturous, high-spirited Pindar?
I might give many more examples. But you will observe them in your
own reading. I take the first that come to hand only to explain my
meaning, which is, “That if you find a course of sentiments or cast of
composition different from that, to which the writer’s _situation_,
_genius_, or _complexion_ would naturally lead him, you may well
suspect him of imitation.”
Still it may be, these considerations are rather too general. I come to
others more particular and decisive.
VI. It may be difficult sometimes to determine whether a single
sentiment or image be derived or not. But when we see a cluster of them
in two writers, applied to the same subject, one can hardly doubt that
one of them has copied from the other.
A celebrated French moralist makes the following reflexions. “Quelle
chimere est-ce donc que l’homme? Quelle nouveautè, quel chaos, quel
sujet de contradiction? Juge de toutes choses, imbecile ver de terre;
depositaire du vrai, amas d’incertitude; gloire, et rebut de l’univers.”
Turn now to the _Essay on Man_, and tell me if Mr. Pope did not work up
the following lines out of these reflexions.
“Chaos of thought and passion, all confus’d;
Still by himself abus’d or disabus’d;
Created half to rise, and half to fall,
Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;
Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurl’d:
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world.”
2. This conclusion is still more certain, when, together with a general
likeness of sentiments, we find the same _disposition_ of the parts,
especially if that disposition be in no common form.
“Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet
With charm of earliest birds: pleasant the sun,
When first on this delightful land he spreads
His orient beams, on herb, tree, fruit, and flow’r,
Glist’ring with dew”——
and the rest of that fine speech in the IVth Book of _Paradise Lost_,
which you remember so perfectly that I need not transcribe more of it.
Milton’s fancy, as usual, is rich and exuberant; but the conduct and
application of his imagery shews, that the whole passage was shadowed
out of those charming but simpler lines in the DANAE of Euripides.
——φίλον μὲν φέγγος ἡλίου τόδε.
Καλὸν δὲ πόντου χεῦμ’ ἰδεῖν εὐήνεμον,
Γῆ τ’ ἠρινὸν θάλλουσα, πλούσιόν θ’ ὕδωρ,
Πολλῶν τ’ ἔπαινόν ἐστί μοι λέξαι καλῶν.
Ἀλλ’ οὐδὲν οὕτω λαμπρὸν, οὐδ’ ἰδεῖν, καλὸν,
Ὡς τοῖς ἄπαισι, καὶ πόθῳ δεδηγμένοις,
Παίδων νεογνῶν ἐν δόμοις ἰδεῖν φάος.
VII. There is little doubt in such cases as these. There needs not
perhaps be much in the case, sometimes, of _single_ sentiments or
images. As where we find “a sentiment or image in two writers precisely
the same, yet new and unusual.”
1. Thus we are told very reasonably, that _Milton’s clust’ring locks_
is the copy of Apollonius’ ΠΛΟΚΑΜΟΙ ΒΟΤΡΥΟΕΝΤΕΣ. _Obs. on Spenser_, p.
80. For though the metaphor be a just one and very natural, yet there
is perhaps no other authority for the use of it, but in these two
poets. And Milton had certainly read Apollonius.
2. What the same critic observes of Milton’s
——“And _curl_ the grove
In ringlets _quaint_”—
being taken from Jonson’s
When was old Sherwood’s head more _quaintly curl’d_?
is still more unquestionable. For here is a combination of signs to
convict the former of imitation: Not only the _singularity of the
image_, but the _identity of expression_, and, what I lay the most
stress upon, the _boldness of the figure_, as employed by Milton.
Jonson speaks of old Sherwood’s _head_, as curl’d. Milton, as conscious
of his authority, drops the preparatory idea, and says at once, The
_grove_ curl’d.
Let me add to these, two more instances from the same poet.
3. _Spenser_ tells us of
A little _glooming light_, much like a shade.
F. Q. c. II., s. 14.
Can you imagine that Milton did not take his idea from hence, when he
said, in his _Penseroso_,
—glowing embers thro’ the room
Teach _light_ to counterfeit a _gloom_?
4. Again, in his description of Paradise,
Flow’rs of all hues, and without thorn the rose.
Every poet of every time is lavish of his flowers on such occasions.
But _the rose without thorn_ is a rarity. And, though it was fine to
imagine such an one in Paradise, could only be an Italian refinement.
Tasso, you will think, is the original, when you have read the
following lines;
Senza quei suoi pungenti ispidi dumi
Spiegò le foglie la purpurea Rosa.
5. Another instance, still more remarkable, may be taken from Mr.
Pope. One of the most striking passages in the _Essay on Man_ is the
following,
Superior Beings, when of late they saw
A mortal man unfold all nature’s law,
Admir’d such wisdom in an earthly shape,
And shew’d a NEWTON, as we shew an ape.
Ep. ii. v. 31.
Can you doubt, from the _singularity_ of this sentiment, that the
great poet had his eye on Plato? who makes Socrates say, in allusion
to a remark of Heraclitus, Ὅτι ἀνθρώπων ὁ σοφώτατος πρὸς θεὸν πίθηκος
φανεῖται. _Hipp. Major._
The application indeed is different. And it could not be otherwise. For
the observation, which the Philosopher refers πρὸς θεὸν, is in the Poet
given to _superior Beings_ only. The consequence is, that the _Ape_ is
an object of _derision_ in the former case, of _admiration_, in the
latter.
To conclude this head, I will just observe to you, that, though the
_same uncommon sentiment_ in two _writers_ be usually the effect of
imitation, yet we cannot affirm this of _Actors_ in real life. The
reason is, when the situation of two men is the same, _Nature_ will
dictate the same sentiments more invariably than _Genius_. To give a
remarkable instance of what I mean.
Tacitus relates, in the _first_ book of his _Annals_, what passed
in the senate on its first meeting after the death of Augustus. His
politic successor carried it, for some time, with much apparent
moderation. He wished, besides other reasons, to get himself solemnly
recognized for Emperor by that Body, before he entered on the exercise
of his new dignity. _Dabat famæ_, says the historian, _ut vocatus
electusque potiùs à Republicâ videretur, quàm per uxorium ambitum
et senili adoptione irrepsisse_. One of his courtiers would not be
wanting to himself on such an occasion. When therefore several motions
had been made in the Senate, concerning the honours to be paid to the
memory of their late Prince, VALERIUS MESSALLA moved RENOVANDUM PER
ANNOS SACRAMENTUM IN NOMEN TIBERII; in other words, that the oath of
allegiance should be taken to Tiberius. This was the very point that
Tiberius drove at. And the consciousness of it made him suspect that
this motion might be thought to proceed from himself. He therefore
asked Messalla, “_Num, se mandante, eam sententiam promsisset?_” His
answer is in the following words. “Spontè _dixisse, respondit; neque
in iis, quæ ad rempublicam pertinerent_, consilio nisi suo usurum, vel
cum periculo offensionis.” _Ea_, concludes the historian, _sola species
adulandi supererat_.
Now it is very remarkable, that we find in Ludlow’s memoirs, one of
Cromwell’s officers, on the very same occasion, answering the Protector
in the very same species of flattery.