pictured FANCY and HUMAN-LOVE with Insect’s wings.
XIV. Thus then, whether the poet _prevaricates_, _enlarges_, or _adds_,
still we frequently find some latent circumstance, attending his
management, that convicts him of Imitation. Nay, he is not safe even
when he denies himself these liberties; I mean when he only _glances_
at his original. “For, in this case, the borrowed sentiment usually
wants something of that perspicuity which always attends the first
delivery of it.” This Rule may be considered as the Reverse of the
_last_. A writer, sometimes, takes a pleasure to _refine_ on a plain
thought: Sometimes (and that is usually when the original sentiment is
well known and fully developed) he does not so much as attempt to open
and _explain_ it.
A poet of the last age has the following lines, on the subject of
_Religion_:
Religion now is a young Mistress here,
For which each man will fight, and dye at least;
Let it alone awhile, and ’t will become
A kind of married wife; people will be
Content to live with it in quietness.
SUCKLING says this in his Tragedy of Brennoralt; which is a Satire
throughout on the rising troubles of that time. BUTLER has taken the
thought and applied it on the same occasion:
When hard words, jealousies, and fears
Set folks together by the ears,
And make them fight, like mad or drunk,
For dame Religion, as for Punk.
Setting aside the difference between the burlesque and serious style,
one easily sees that this sentiment is borrowed from Suckling. It has
not the clear and full exposition of an original thought. Butler only
represents men as drunk with Religion and fighting for it as for a
Punk. The _other_ gives the reason of the Debauch, namely, _fondness
for a new face_; and tells us, besides, how things would subside into
peace or indifference on a nearer and more familiar acquaintance. One
could expect no less from the _Inventor_ of this humorous thought; a
_Borrower_ might be content to allude to it.
XV. This last consideration puts me in mind of another artifice to
conceal a borrowed sentiment. Nothing lies more open to discovery than
a Simile in form, especially if it be a remarkable one. These are a
sort of _purpurei panni_ which catch all eyes; and, if the comparison
be not a writer’s own, he is almost sure to be detected. The way then
that refined Imitators take to conceal themselves, in such a case, is
to run the Similitude into Allegory. We have a curious instance in Mr.
Pope, who has succeeded so well in the attempt, that his plagiarism, I
believe, has never been suspected.
The verses, I have in my eye, are these fine ones, addressed to Lord
Bolingbroke,
Oh, while along the stream of time thy name
Expanded flies, and gathers all it’s fame,
Say, shall my little Bark attendant sail,
Pursue the triumph, and partake the Gale?
What think you, now, of these admired verses? Are they, besides their
other beauties, perfectly original? You will be able to resolve this
question, by turning to the following passage in a Poet, Mr. Pope was
once fond of, I mean STATIUS,
Sic ubi magna novum Phario de litore puppis
Solvit iter, jamque innumeros utrinque rudentes
Lataque veliferi porrexit brachia mali
Invasitque vias, in eodem angusta phaselus
Æquore, et immensi partem sibi vendicat Austri.
SILV. l. V. I. v. 242.
But, especially, this other,
—immensæ veluti CONNEXA carinæ
CYMBA MINOR, cum sævit hyems, pro parte, furentes
Parva receptat aquas, et EODEM VOLVITUR AUSTRO.
SILV. l. I. iv. v. 120.
XVI. I release you from this head of _Sentiments_, with observing that
we sometimes conclude a writer to have had a celebrated original in his
eye, when “without copying the peculiar thought, or stroke of imagery,
he gives us only a copy of the impression, it had made upon him.”
1. In delivering this rule, I will not dissemble that I myself am
copying, or rather stealing from a great critic: From _one_, however,
who will not resent this theft; as indeed he has no reason, for he is
so prodigiously rich in these things, as in others of more value, that
what he neglects or flings away, would make the fortune of an ordinary
writer. The person I mean is the late Editor of Shakespear, who, in an
admirable note on Julius Cæsar, taking occasion to quote that passage
of Cato,
O think what anxious moments pass between
The birth of plots, and their last fatal periods,
Oh, ’tis a dreadful interval of time,
Fill’d up with horror all, and big with death,
observes “that Mr. Addison was so struck and affected with the
_terrible graces_ of Shakespear (in the passage he is there
considering) that, instead of imitating his author’s sentiments,
he hath, before he was aware, given us only the copy of his own
impressions made by them. For,
Oh, ’tis a dreadful interval of time,
Fill’d up with horror all, and big with death,
are but the affections raised by such forcible images as these,
——All the Int’rim is
Like a Phantasma, or a hideous dream
——The state of man,
Like to a little kingdom, suffers then
The nature of an Insurrection.”
The observation is new and finely applied. Give me leave to suppose
that the following is an instance of the same nature.
2. Milton on a certain occasion says of _Death_, that she
“Grinn’d horrible a ghastly smile—”
_P. L._ B. II. v. 846.
This representation is supposed by his learned Editor to be taken from
Homer, from Statius, or from the Italian poets. A certain friend of
ours, not to be named without honour, and therefore not at all on so
slight an occasion, suggests that it might probably be copied from
Spenser’s,
Grinning griesly—
B. V. c. 12.
And there is the more likelihood in this conjecture, as the poet a
little before had call’d _death—the griesly terror_—v. 704. But after
all, if he had any preceding writer in view, I suspect it might be
FLETCHER; who, in his _Wife for a Month_, has these remarkable lines,
The game of Death was never play’d more nobly,
The meagre thief grew _wanton_ in his mischiefs,
And _his shrunk hollow eyes smil’d_ on his ruin.
The word _Ghastly_, I would observe, gives the precise idea of _shrunk
hollow eyes_, and looks as if Milton, in admiration of his original,
had only looked out for an _epithet_ to Death’s smile, as he found it
pictured in Fletcher.
THUS MUCH, then, may perhaps serve for an illustration of the first
part of this Inquiry. We have found out several _marks_, and applied
them to various passages in the best writers, from which we may
reasonably enough be allowed to infer an Imitation in point of
_Sentiment_. For what respect the other part of _Expression_, this is
an easier task, and will be dispatched in few words.
Only you will indulge me in an observation or two, to prevent your
expecting from me more than I undertake to perform.
When I speak of _Expression_, then I mean to confine myself “to
single words of sentences, or at most the structure of a passage.”
When _Imitation_ is carried so far as to affect the general cast of
language, or what we call a _Style_, no great sagacity is, perhaps,
required to detect it. Thus the _Ciceroniani_, if they were not
ambitious of proclaiming themselves, are discoverable at the first
glance. And the later Roman poets, as well as the modern Latin
versifiers, are, to the best of their power, _Virgilian_. The thing is
perhaps still easier in a living language; especially if that language
be our own. Milton and Pope, if they have made but few poets, have made
many imitators; so many, that we are ready to complain there is hardly
an original poet left.
Another point seems of no importance in the present inquiry. I know, it
is asked, How far a writer casually or designedly imitates? that is,
whether he copies another from memory only, without recollecting, at
the time, the passage from which his expression is drawn, or purposely,
and with full knowledge of his original. And this consideration is
of much weight, as I have shewn at large, where the question is
concerning the _credit_ of the supposed imitator. For this is affected
by nothing but direct and _intended_ imitation. But as we are looking
at present only for those marks in the expression which shew it _not_
to be original, it is enough that the resemblance is such as cannot
well be accounted for but on the supposition of some sort of commerce;
whether immediately perceived by the writer himself, is not material.
’Tis true, this observation is applicable to _sentiments_ as well as
expression; and I have not pretended to give the preceding articles,
as proofs, or even presumptions, in all cases, that the later writer
copied intentionally from a former. But there is this difference in the
two cases. _Sentiments_ may be strikingly similar, or even identical,
without the least thought, or even effect, of a preceding original.
But the identity of _expression_, except in some few cases of no
importance, is, in the same language, where the writer speaks entirely
from himself, an almost impossible thing. And you will be of this mind,
if you reflect on the infinitely varied lights in which the same image
or sentiment presents itself to different writers; the infinitely
varied purpose they have to serve by it; or where it happens to strike
precisely in the same manner, and is directed precisely to the same
end, the infinite combinations of words in which it may be expressed.
To all which you may add, that the least imaginable variation, either
in the terms or the structure of them, not only destroys the identity,
but often disfigures the resemblance to that degree that we hardly know
it to be a resemblance.
So that you see, the _marks_ of imitated or, if you will, _derived
expression_ are much less equivocal, than of _sentiment_. We may
pronounce of the _former_ without hesitation, that it is taken, when
corresponding marks in the _latter_ would only authorise us to conclude
that it was the _same_ or perhaps _similar_.
I need not use more words to convince you, that the distinction of
_casual_ and _design’d_ imitation is still of less significancy in this
class of imitations, than the other.
And with this preamble, more particular perhaps and circumstantial than
was necessary, I now proceed to lay before you some of those _signs_
of derived expression, which I conceive to be _unequivocal_. If they
are so, they will generally appear at first sight; so that I shall have
little occasion to trouble you, as I did before, with my comments. It
will be sufficient to deliver the _rule_, and to _exemplify_ it.
I. An identity of expression, especially if carried on through an
intire sentence, is the most certain proof of imitation.
Mr. Waller of Sacharissa,
So little care of what is done below
Hath the bright dame, whom heav’n affecteth so;
Paints her, ’tis true, with the same hand which spreads
Like glorious colours thro’ the flow’ry meads;
_When lavish nature with her best attire_
Cloaths the gay spring, the season of desire.
Mr. Fenton takes notice that the poet is copying from the _Muiopotmos_
of Spenser.
To the gay gardens his unstaid desire
Him wholly carried to refresh his sprights:
_There lavish Nature, in her best attire,_
Pours forth sweet odours and alluring sights.
We shall see presently that, besides the identity of expression, there
is also another mark of imitation in this passage.
II. But less than this will do, where the similarity of thought, and
application of it, is striking.
Mr. Pope says divinely well,
Shall burning Ætna, if a sage requires,
Forget to thunder and recall its fires?
On _air_ or sea _new motions be impress’d_,
Oh blameless Bethel! to relieve thy breast?
When the loose mountain trembles from on high,
Shall _gravitation cease if you go by_?
Or some old temple nodding to its fall
For Chartres’ head reserve the hanging wall?
_Essay_ IV. v. 123.
Now turn to Mr. Wollaston, an easy natural writer (where his natural
manner is not stiffened by a mathematical pedantry) and abounding in
fine sallies of the imagination; and see if the poet did not catch his
_expression_, as well as the fire of his conception in this place,
from the philosopher:
“As to the course of Nature, if a good man be passing by an infirm
building, just in the article of falling, can it be expected that God
should _suspend the force of gravitation till he is gone by_, in order
to his deliverance; or can we think it would be increased, and the
fall hastened, if a bad man was there, only that he might be caught,
crushed, and made an example? If a man’s safety or prosperity should
depend upon winds or rains, must _new motions be impressed upon the
atmosphere_, and new directions given to the floating parts of it, by
some extraordinary and new influence from God?”
III. Sometimes the original expression is not taken but paraphrased;
and the writer disguises himself in a kind of circumlocution. Yet this
artifice does not conceal him, especially if some fragments, as it
were, of the inventor’s phrase are found dispersedly in the imitation.
For in the secret of her troubled thought
A doubtful combat love and honour fought.
_Fairfax’s Tasso_, B. IV. S. 70.
Hence Mr. Waller,
There public care and private passion _fought_
_A doubtful combat_ in his noble _thought_.
_Poems_, p. 14.
_Public care_ is the periphrasis of _honour_, and _private passion_, of
_love_. For the rest you see—_disjecti membra poetæ_.
IV. An imitation is discoverable, when there is but the least particle
of the original expression, “by a peculiar and no very natural
arrangement of words.”
In Fletcher’s _faithful Shepherdess_, the speaker says,
— — — — — — — In thy face
Shines more awful majesty,
Than dull weak mortality
Dare with misty eyes behold,
AND LIVE—
The writer glanced, but very improperly on such an occasion, at _Exod._
xxxiii. 20. “Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me,
_and live_.”
V. An uncommon _construction_ of words not identical, especially if the
subject be the same, or the ideas similar, will look like imitation.
Milton says finely of the _Swan_,
— — — — —The Swan with arched neck
Between her white wings mantling proudly ROWS
HER STATE—
I should think he might probably have that line of Fletcher in his head,
How like a Swan she SWIMS HER PACE!
The expression, you see, is very like. ’Tis true, the _image_ in
Milton is much nobler. It is taken from a barge of state in a public
procession.
VI. We may even pronounce that a _single word_ is taken, when it is new
and uncommon.
Milton’s calling a ray of light—a levell’d _rule_ in Comus v. 340,
is so particular that, when one reads in Euripides ἡλίου ΚΑΝΩΝ σαφὴς,
Suppl. v. 650, one has no doubt that the learned poet translated the
Greek word.
Again, Mr. Pope’s,
“Or ravish’d with the _whistling_ of a name,”
is for the same reason, if there were no other points of likeness,
copied from Mr. Cowley’s
“Charm’d with the foolish _whistlings_ of a name.”
Transl. of Virgil’s _O! fortunati nimium_, &c.
VII. An improper _use_ of uncommon expression, in very exact writers,
will sometimes create a suspicion. Milton had called the _sight_
indifferently _visual nerve_ and _visual ray_, P. L. iii. 620. xi. 415.
Mr. Pope in his Messiah thought he might take the same liberty, but
forgot that though the _visual nerve_ might be purged from film, the
_visual ray_ could not. Had Mr. Pope _invented_ this bold expression,
he would have seen to apply his _metaphor_ more properly.
VIII. Where the word or phrase is _foreign_, there is, if possible,
still less doubt.
— — — —at last his sail-broad _vans_
He spreads for flight.
Milton, P. L. ii. v. 927.
Most certainly from Tasso’s,
—Spiega al grand volo i _vanni_. ix.
And that of Jonson in his _Sejanus_,
O! what is it proud slime will not believe
Of his own worth, to hear it _equal prais’d_
_Thus with the Gods_—
A. 1.
from Juvenal’s
------nihil est quod credere de se
Non possit, cum _laudatur Diis æqua_ potestas.
IX. Conclude the same when the expression is _antique_, in the writer’s
own language.
In Mr. Waller’s Panegyric on the Protector,
So, when a Lion shakes his dreadful mane,
And angry grows, if he _that first took pain_
To tame his youth, approach the haughty beast,
He bends to him, but frights away the rest.
The antique formality of the phrase _that first took pain_, for, _that
first took the pains_, in so pure and modern a speaker, as this poet,
looks suspicious. He took it, as he found it in an older writer. There
are many other marks of imitation, but we had needed no more than this
to make the discovery:
So when a lion shakes his dreadful mane,
And beats his tail, with courage proud, and wroth,
If his commander come, _who first took pain_
To tame his youth, his lofty crest down go’th.
Fairfax’s _Tasso_, B. VIII. S. 83.
X. You observe in most of the instances, here given, besides other
marks, there is an identity of rhyme. And this circumstance of itself,
in our poetry, is no bad argument of imitation, particularly when
joined to a similarity of expression. And the reason is, the rhyme
itself very naturally brings the expression along with it.
1. “Stuck o’er with titles, and hung round with strings,
That thou mayst be _by Kings, or whores of Kings_.”
Essay on Man, E. IV. v. 205.
from Mr. Cowley in his translation of _Hor._ 1. _ep._ 10.
“To Kings, or to the favourites of Kings.”
2. “Such is the world’s great harmony, that _springs_
From order, union, full _consent of things_.”
Ep. III. 295.
from Denham’s _Cowper’s Hill_,
“Wisely she knew the _harmony of things_
As well as that of sounds from discord _springs_.”
3. “Far as the solar walk, or milky way.”
Essay on Man, Ep. I. v. 102.
from Mr. Dryden’s Pindaric Poem to the memory of K. Charles II.
“Out of the solar walk, or heav’n’s high way.”
Though these consonancies chyming in the writer’s head, he might not
always be aware of the imitation.
XI. In the examples, just given, there was no reason to suspect the
poet was imitating, till you met with the original. Then indeed the
rhyme leads to the discovery. But “if an exact writer falls into a
_flatness of expression_ for the sake of rhyme, you may ev’n previously
conclude that he has some precedent for it.”
In the famous lines,
Let modest Foster, if he will, excell
Ten metropolitans _in preaching well_.
Ep. to Satires, v. 131.
I used to suspect that the phrase of _preaching well_ so unlike the
concise accuracy of Pope, would not have been hazarded by him, if some
eminent writer, though perhaps of an older age and less correct taste
than his own, had not set the example. But I had no doubt left when I
happened on the following couplet in Mr. Waller.
Your’s sounds aloud, and tells us you _excell_
No less in courage, than _in singing well_.
Poem to Sir W. D’Avenant.
Our great poet is more happy in the application of these rhymes on
another occasion,
Let such teach others, who themselves _excell_,
And censure freely, who have written _well_.
Essay on Crit. v. 15.
The reason is apparent. But here he glanced at the Duke of Buckingham’s,
“Nature’s chief master-piece is _writing well_.”
XII. “The same pause and turn of expression are pretty sure symptoms
of imitation.” These minute resemblances do not usually spring from
Nature, which, when the sentiment is the same, hath a hundred ways of
its own, of giving it to us.
1. That noble verse in the essay on criticism, v. 625.
“For fools rush in, where angels dare not tread,”
is certainly fashion’d upon Shakespear’s,
——————————“the world is grown so bad
That wrens make prey, where angels dare not perch.”
_Rich._ III. A. I. S. III.
2. The verses to Sir W. Trumbal in Past. 1.
“And carrying with you all the world can boast,
To all the world illustriously are lost.”
from Waller’s _Maid’s Tragedy_ alter’d,
Happy he that from the world retires
And carries with him what the world admires.
p. 215. Lond. 1712.
XIII. When to these marks the same _Rhyme_ is added, the case is still
more evident.
“Men would be angels, angels would be Gods.”
Essay on Man, Ep. I. v. 126.
Without all question from Sir Fulk Grevil,
Men would be tyrants, tyrants would be _Gods_.
Works, _Lond._ 1633. p. 73.
XIV. The seeming quaintness and obscurity of an expression frequently
indicates imitation. As when in Fletcher’s _Pilgrim_ we read,
“_Hummings_ of higher nature vex his brains.”
A. II. S. 2.
Had the idea been original, the poet had expressed it more plainly. In
leaving it thus, he pays his reader the compliment to suppose, that he
will readily call to mind,
aliena negotia centum
Per caput, et circa saliunt latus;
which sufficiently explains it: As we may see from Mr. Cowley’s
application of the same passage. “Aliena negotia centum per caput et
centum saliunt latus. A hundred businesses of other men fly continually
about his head and _ears_, and strike him in the face like Dorres.”
_Disc. of Liberty._ And still more clearly, from Mr. Pope’s,
“A hundred other men’s affairs,
Like bees, are _humming_ in my ears.”
Learned writers of quick parts abound in these delicate allusions. It
makes a principal part of modern elegancy to glance in this oblique
manner at well-known passages in the classics.
XV. I will trouble you with but one more note of _imitated expression_,
and it shall be the very reverse of the last. When the passages
glanced at are not familiar, the expression is frequently minute and
circumstantial, corresponding to the original in the order, turn, and
almost number of the words. The reasons are, that, the imitated passage
not being known, the imitator may give it, as he finds it, with safety,
or at least without offence; and that, besides, the force and beauty of
it would escape us in a brief and general allusion. The following are
instances:
1. “Man never is, but always to be blest.”
Essay on Man, Ep. I. v. 69.
from Manilius,
Victuros agimus semper, nec vivimus unquam.
2. —“Hope never comes,
That comes to all.”—
MILTON, P. L. I. v. 66.
from Euripides in the Troad. v. 676.
—οὐδ’, ὃ πᾶσι λείπεται βροτοῖς,
Ξύνεστιν ἐλπὶς.—
3. But above all, that in Jonson’s Catiline,
“He shall die:
_Shall_ was too slowly said: He’s _dying_: That
Is still too slow: He’s _dead_.”
from Seneca’s _Hercules furens_, A. III.
“Lycus Creonti debitas poenas _dabit_:
Lentum est, dabit; _dat_: hoc quoque est lentum; _dedit_.”
You have now, Sir, before you a specimen of those rules, which I have
fancied might be fairly applied to the discovery of imitations, both
in regard to the SENSE and EXPRESSION of great writers. I would not
pretend that the same stress is to be laid on _all_; but there may be
something, at least, worth attending to in every one of them. It were
easy, perhaps, to enumerate still more, and to illustrate these I have
given with more agreeable citations. Yet I have spared you the disgust
of considering those vulgar passages, which every body recollects and
sets down for acknowledged imitations. And these I have used are taken
from the most celebrated of the ancient and modern writers. You may
observe indeed that I have chiefly drawn from our own poets; which I
did, not merely because I know you despise the pedantry of confining
one’s self to learned quotations, but because I think we are better
able to discern those circumstances, which betray an imitation, in our
own language than in any other. Amongst other reasons, an _identity_
of words and phrases, upon which so much depends, especially in the
article of _expression_, is only to be had in the _same_ language. And
you are not to be told with how much more certainty we determine of the
degree of evidence, which such identity affords for this purpose, in a
language we speak, than in one which we only lisp or spell.
But you will best understand of what importance this affair of
_expression_ is to the discovery of imitations, by considering how
seldom we are able to fix an imitation on Shakespear. The reason is,
not, that there are not numberless passages in him very like to others
in approved authors, or that he had not read enough to give us a fair
hold of him; but that his expression is so totally his own, that he
almost always sets us at defiance.