Page images
PDF
EPUB

ftudy, and in which it was creditable for the best writers to make a fhew of their reading. Such especially was the age fucceeding to that memorable æra, the revival of letters: in these western countries. The fashion of the time was, to interweave as much of antient wit as poffible in every new work. Writers were fo far from affecting to think and speak in their own way, that it was their pride to make the admired antient think and fpeak for them. This humour continued very long, and in fome fort even ftill continues: with this difference indeed, that then the antients were introduced to do the honours, fince, to do the drudgery, of the entertainment. But feveral causes confpired to carry it to its height in England about the beginning of the last century. You may be fure then, the writers of that period abound in imitations. The best poets boafted of them as their fovereign excellence. And you will eafily credit, for inftance, that B. Jonfon was a fervile imitator, when you find him on fo many occafions little better than a painful translator.

[ocr errors]

t

I foresee the occafion I fhall have, in the course of this letter, to weary you with cita

tions

A

:

way for them.

tions; and would not therefore go out of iny Yet, amidst a thousand inftances of this fort in Jonfon, the following, I fancy, will entertain you. The Latin verfes, you know, are of Catullus:

Ut flos in feptis fecretus nafcitur hortis, Ignotus pecori, nullo convulfus aratro, Quem mulcent auræ, firmat fol, educat imber, Multi illum pueri, multæ optavere puellæ. Idem, quum tenui carptus defloruit ungui, Nulli illum pueri, nullæ optavere puellæ. It came in Jonfon's way, in one of his mafques, to tranflate this paffage; and observe with what industry he has fecured the fense, while the spirit of his author escapes him:

Look, how a flower that close in clofes grows,
Hid from rude cattle, bruised with no plows,
Which th'air doth ftroke, fun ftrengthen,
fhow'rs fhoot higher,

It many youths, and many maids defire;
The faine, when cropt by cruel hand is wither'd,
No youths at all, no maidens have defir'd.

-It was not thus, you remember, that Ari
ofto and Pope have tranflated thefe fine
verses. But to return to our purpose.

Το

1

in

To this confideration of the Age of a writer, you may add, if you please, that of his EDUCATION. Though it might not, general, be the fashion to affect learning, the habits acquired by a particular writer might dispose him to do so. What was less efteemed by the enthusiasts of Milton's time (of which however he himself was one of the greateft) than prophane or indeed any kind of learning? Yet we, who know that.his youth was spent in the ftudy of the best writers in every language, want but little evidence to convince us that his great genius did not difdain to ftoop to imitation. You affent, I dare fay, to Dryden's compliment, though it be an invidious one, "That no man "has fo copiously, tranflated Homer's Gre"cifms, and the Latin elegancies of Virgil." Nay, do not you remember, the other day, that we were half of a mind to give him up for a fhameless plagiary, chiefly because we were fure he had been a great reader.

But no good writer, it will be faid, has flourished out of a learned age, or at least without fome tincture of learning. It may be fo. Yet every writer is not difpofed to

make

[ocr errors]

make the most of thefe advantages. What

A poet, enamoured up for a great in

if we pay fome regard then to the CHARACTER of the writer? of himself, and who fets ventive genius, thinks much to profit by the fenfe of his predeceffors, and, even when he fteals, takes care to diffemble his thefts, and to conceal them as much as possible. You know I have inftanced in fuch a poet in Sir William D'Avenant. In detecting the imitations of fuch a writer one must then proceed with fome caution. But what if our concern be with one, whofe modefty leads him to revere the fenfe and even the expreffion of approved authors, whose taste enables him to felect the fineft paffages in their works, and whofe judgment determines him to make a free ufe of them? Suppofe. we know all this from common fame, and even from his own confeffion; would you fcruple to call that an imitation in him, which in the other might have paffed for refemblance only?

As the character is amiable, you will be pleased to hear me own, there are many modern poets to whom it belongs. Perhaps,

the

the first that occurred to my thoughts was -Mr. Addifon. But the obfervation holds of others, and of one, in particular, very much his fuperior in true genius. I know not whether you agree with me, that the famous line in the Efay of man;

An honeft man's the nobleft work of God,"

is taken from Plato's, Πάνων ἱερώτατόν ἐςιν ἄνε Operos ayatos. But I am fure you will, that the ftill more famous lines, which fhallow men repeat without understanding,

"For modes of Faith let gracelefs zealots fight, "His can't be wrong whofe life is in the right,'

are but copied, though with vaft improvement in the force and turn of expreffion, from the excellent, and, let it be no difparagement to him to fay, from the orthodox Mr. Cowley. The poet is fpeaking of his friend CRASHAW.

"His Faith perhaps in fome nice tenets might "Be wrong; his life, I'm fure, was in the right."

Mr. Pope, who found himself in the fame circumstances with Crafhaw, and had fuffered no doubt from the like uncharitable conítructions

« PreviousContinue »