Break, Phant'fy, from thy cave of cloud, And fall like fleep upon their eyes, It is a delicate matter to analyze fuch paffages as thefe; which, how exquifite foever in the poetry, when eftimated by the fine phrenzy of a genius, hardly look like fenfe when given in plain profe. But, if you give me leave to take them in pieces, I will do it at least with reverence. We find then, that Fancy is here employed in one of her niceft operations, the production of a day dream; which both poets reprefent as an airy form, or forms ftreaming in the air, gently falling on the eye-lids of her entranced votary. So far their imagery agrees. But now comes the mark of imita tion I would point out to you. Milton carries the idea ftill further, and improves finely upon it, in the conception as well as expreffion. Jonfon evokes Fancy out of her her cave of cloud, thofe cells of the mind, as it were, in which, during her intervals of reft, and when unemployed, Fancy lies hid; and bids her, like a Magician, create this ftream of forms. All this is juft, and truly poetical. But Milton goes further. He employs the dewy-feather'd fleep as his Minifter in this machinery. And the myfterious day-dream is feen waving at his wings in airy ftream. Jonfon would have Fancy immediately produce this Dream. Milton more poetically, because in more diftinct and particular imagery, reprefents Fancy as doing her work by means of Лleep; that foft compofure of the mind abftracted from outward objects, in which it yields to these phantaftic impreffions. You see then a wonderful improvement in this addition to the original thought. And the notion of dreams waving at the wings of fleep is, by the way, further juftified by what Virgil feigns of their sticking, or rather fluttering, on the leaves of his magic tree in the infernal regions. But it is curious to obferve how this improvement itself arose from hints suggested by his original, P 2 212 ginal. From Jonfon's dream, falling like Jeep upon their eyes, Milton took his fea ther'd fleep, which he imperfonates fo properly; and from Phant'fy's spreading her purple wings, a circumftance not fo immediately connected with Jonfon's defign of creating of airy forms a stream, he catched the idea of Sleep Spreading her wings, and to good purpose, fince the airy ftream of forms was to wave at them. However, Jonson's image is in itself incomparable. It is taken from a winged infect breaking out of its Aurelia ftate, its cave of cloud, as it is finely called: not unlike that of Mr. Pope, So fpins the Silk-worm small it's flender store, IV. Dunc. ver. 253. and nothing can be jufter than this allufion. For the antients always pictured FANCY and HUMAN-LOVE with Infects' wings. XIV. Thus then, whether the poet pre varicates, enlarges, or adds, ftill we frequently find fome latent circumstance at tending tending 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 cafe, the borrowed fentiment "ufually wants fomething of that perfpi"cuity which always attends the first deliσε very of it." This Rule may be confidered as the Reverse of the last. A writer fometimes takes a pleasure to refine on a plain thought: fometimes (and that is ufually when the original fentiment is well known, and fully developed) he does not fo much as attempt to open and explain it. A poet of the last age has the following lines, on the fubject of Religion: Religion now is a young Mistress here, SUCKLING fays this in his Tragedy of Brennoralt; which is a Satire throughout on the rifing troubles of that time. BUTLER has P 3 taken taken the thought, and applied it on the fame occafion : When hard words, jealoufies, and fears, And made them fight, like mad or drunk, Setting afide the difference between the burlefque and serious style, one easily fees that this fentiment is borrowed from Suckling. It has not the clear and full expofition 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, be fides, how things would fubfide into peace or indifference on a nearer and more familiar acquaintance. One could expect no lefs from the Inventor of this humorous thought; a Borrower might be content to allude to it. XV. This laft confideration puts me in mind of another artifice to conceal a bor rowed fentiment. Nothing lies more open to discovery than a fimile in form, especially if |