hends a large fhare of them. Yet in all delineations of this fort two things are obfervable, 1. That in the latter, which are the pure refult of our reasonings concerning expediency, common fenfe, in given conjunctures, often leads to the fame meafures: As when Ulyffes in Homer difguifes himself, for the fake of coming at a more exact information of the ftate of his family; or, when Oreftes in Sophocles does the fame, to bring about the catastrophe of the Electra. 2. In refpect of the former (which is of principal confideration) the established modes and practices of life being the proper and only archetype, experience and common obfervation cannot fail of pointing, with the greatest certainty, to them, So that in the one cafe different writers may concur in treating the fame matter; in the other, they must. But this laft will bear a little further illuftration.

The critics on Homer have remarked, with admiration, in him, the almost infinite variety of images and pictures, taken from the intire circle of human arts. Whatever the wit of man had invented for the service

fervice or ornament of fociety in manual exercises and operations is found to have a place in his writings. Rural affairs, in their feveral branches; the mechanic, and all the polite arts of Sculpture, painting, and architecture, are occafionally hinted at in his poems; or, rather, their various imagery, fo far as they were known and practised in those times, is fully and largely difplayed. Now this, though it fhew the prodigious extent of his obfervation and diligent curiofity, which could fearch through all the ftorehouses and magazines of art, for materials of defcription, yet is not to be placed to the score of his fuperior inventive faculty; nor infers any thing to the disadvantage of fucceeding poets, whose fubjects might oblige them to the fame defcriptions; any more than his vaft acquaintance with natural scenery, in all its numberless appearances, implies a want of genius in later imitators, who, if they ventured, at all, into this province, were conftrained to give us the fame unvaried re

prefentations.

"

The truth, as every one fees, is, briefly, this. The restlefs and inquifitive mind of man had fucceeded in the discovery or improvement of the numberless arts of life. Thefe, for the convenience of method, are confidered as making a large part of those fenfible external effects, which fpring from our internal fentiments or reafonings. But, though they ultimately refpect thofe reafonings, as their fource, yet they, in no degree, depend on the actual exertion of them in the breaft of the poet. He copies only the customs of the times of which he writes, that is, the fenfible effects themselves. Thefe are permanent objects, and may, nay must be the fame, whatever be the ability or genius of the copier. In fhort, taken together, they make up what, in the largest fenfe of the word, we may call, with the painters, il coftumè; which though it be a real excellence fcrupulously to observe, yet it requires nothing more than exact obfervation and hiftorical knowledge of facts to do it..

And now having the various objects of poetical imitation before us (the greatest

part

part of which, as appears, muft, and the $ reft may, occur to the obfervation of the poet) we come to this conclufion, which, though it may ftartle the parallelift, there feems no method of eluding," that of any fingle image or fentiment, confidered fe

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parately and by itself, it can never be "affirmed certainly, hardly with any fhew "of reafon, merely on account of its agree"ment in fubject-matter with any other, "that it was copied from it." If there be any foundation of this inference, it must then be laid, not in the matter, but MANNER of imitation. But here, again, the fubject branches out into various particulars; which, to be feen diftinctly, will demand a new divifion, and require us to proceed with leifure and attention through it.

II.

The fum of the foregoing article is this. The objects of imitation, like the materials of human knowledge, are a common stock, which experience furnishes to all men. And it is in the operations of the mind upon them, that the glory of poetry, as of Science,

fcience, confifts. Here the genius of the poet hath room to fhew itself; and from hence alone is the praife of originality to be afcertained. The fondeft admirer of ancient art would never pretend that Palladio had copied Vitruvius, merely from his working with the fame materials of wood, Stone, or marble, which this great master had employed before him. But were the general defign of these two architects the fame in any buildings; were their choice and arrangement of the smaller members remarkably fimilar; were their works conducted in the fame style, and their ornaments finished in the fame tafte; every one would be apt to pronounce on first sight, that the one was borrowed from the other. Even a correspondency in any one of these points might create a fufpicion. For what likelihood, amidst an infinite variety of methods, which offer themfelves, as to each of thefe particulars, that there fhould be found, without defign, a fignal concurrence in any one? It is then in the ufage and dif pofition of the objects of poetry, that we are to feek for proofs and evidences of

plagiarism,