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if it be a remarkable one.

These are a

fort of purpurei panni, which catch all eyes; and, if the comparison be not a writer's own, he is almoft fure to be detected. The way then that refined Imitators take to conceal themselves in fuch a cafe is to run

the Similitude into Allegory. We have a curious inftance in Mr. Pope, who has fucceeded fo well in the attempt, that his plagiarism, I believe, has never been fufpected.

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The verfes I have in my eye are these fine ones, addreffed to Lord Bolingbroke: Oh, while along the ftream of time thy name Expanded flies, and gathers all it's fame, Say, fhall my little Bark attendant fail, Pursue the triumph, and partake the Gale ? What think you now of these admired verfes are they, befides their other beauties, perfectly original? You will be able to refolve this question, by turning to the following paffage 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

P 4

Invafitque

Invafitque vias, in eodem angufta phafelus
Aquore, et immenfi partem fibi vendicat Auftri,
SILV. lib. V. i. 242,

but especially this other,

immenfæ veluti CONNEXA carinæ

CYMBA MINOR, cum fævit hyems, pro parte,

furentes

Parva receptat aquas, et EODEM VOLVITUR

AUSTRO.

SILV. lib. I. iv. 120,

XVI. I release you from this head of Sentiments, with obferving that we fometimes 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 "impreffion it had made upon him."

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1. In delivering this rule, I will not dif femble that I myself am copying, or rather ftealing, from a great critic: from one, however, who will not resent this theft; as indeed he has no reafon, for he is fo prodigiously rich in thefe things, as in others of more value, that what he neglects or flings away would make the fortune of an ordi

nary

nary writer. The perfon I mean is the late Editor of Shakespeare, who, in an admirable note on Julius Cæfar, taking occafion to quote that paffage 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!

obferves that Mr. Addifon was fo ftruck "and affected with the terrible graces of

Shakespeare (in the paffage he is there "confidering), that, instead of imitating his "author's fentiments, he hath, before he ❝ was aware, given us only the copy of his "own impreffions 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 fuch for"cible images as these,

-All the Int'rim is

Like a Phantafma, or a hideous dream

-The ftate of inan,

Like to a little Kingdom, fuffers then
The nature of an Infurrection,"

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The obfervation is new and finely applied. Give me leave to fuppofe that the following is an inftance of the fame nature.

2. Milton on a certain occafion fays of Death, that the

"Grinn'd horrible a ghaftly fmile"

P. L. B. II. ver. 846.

This representation is fuppofed 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 fo flight an occafion, fuggefts that it might probably be copied from Spenfer's,

Grinning griefly

B. V. c. 12.

and there is the more likelihood in this conjecture, as the poet a little before had called death-the griefly terror-ver. 704. But after all, if he had any preceding writer in view, I fufpect it might be FLETCHER; who, in his Wife for a Month, has thefe remarkable lines,

The

The game of Death was never play'd more nobly, The meagre thief grew wanton in his mischiefs, And his fhrunk bollow eyes fmil'd on his ruin.

The word Ghaftly, I would observe, gives the precife 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 fimile, as he found it pictured in Fletcher.

THUS MUCH then may perhaps ferve for an illuftration of the first part of this Inquiry. We have found out feveral marks, and applied them to various paffages in the best writers, from which we may reasonably enough be allowed to infer an Imitation in point of Sentiment. For what respects the other part of Expreffion, this is an easier task, and will be dispatched in few words.

Only you will indulge me in an obfervation or two, to prevent your expecting from me more than I undertake to perform.

When I fpeak of Expreffion, then I mean to confine myself " to fingle words or fen"tences, or at most the structure of a paffage." When Imitation is carried fo far

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