Tully, might difcover that records are needful to preserve the memory of actions, and that no records were fo durable as poems; either of them might find out that life is fhort, and that we confume it in unnecessary labour. There are other flowers of fiction fo widely fcattered and fo eafily cropped, that it is fcarcely juft to tax the use of them as an act by which any particular writer is defpoiled of his garland; for they may be faid to have been planted by the ancients in the open road of poetry for the accommodation of their fucceffors, and to be the right of every one that has art to pluck them without injuring their colours or their fragance. The paffage of Orpheus to hell, with the recovery and fecond lofs of Eurydice, have been defcribed after Boetius by Pope, in fuch a manner as might juftly leave him suspected of imitation, were not the images fuch as they might both have derived from more ancient writers. Quæ fontes agitant metu fam mæfte lacrymis madent, Non Ixionium caput Velox præcipitat rota. The pow'rs of vengeance, while they hear, Touch'd with compaffion, drop a tear; Ixion's rapid wheel is bound, Fix'd in attention to the found. Thy ftone, O Syfiphus, ftands ftill, And the pale spectres dance! The furies fink upon their iron beds. F. LEWIS. Tandem, vincimur, arbiter Umbrarum, miferans, ait Donemus, comitem viro, Emtam carmine, conjugem. Subdu'd at length, Hell's pitying monarch cry'd, He fung, and hell confented To hear the poet's prayer; Heu, noctis prope terminos Nor yet the golden verge of day begun, Eurydice to life restor❜d, At once beheld, and loft, and was undone. F. LEWIS. But foon, too foon, the lover turns his eyes: No writer can be fully convicted of imitation, except there is a concurrence of more resemblance than can be imagined to have happened by chance; as where the fame ideas are conjoined without any natural series or neceffary coherence, or where not only the thought but the words are copied. Thus it can scarcely be doubted, that in the firft of the following paffages Pope remembered Ovid, and that in the fecond he copied Crafbaw. Sæpe pater dixit, ftudium quid inutile tentas? Sponte fuâ carmen numeros veniebat ad aptos, C 2 OVID. Quit, Quit, quit this barren trade, my father cry'd; In verse spontaneous flow'd my native strain, I left no calling for this idle trade; No duty broke, no father disobey'd; While yet a child, ere yet a fool to fame, This plain floor, Believe me, reader, can fay more Than many a braver marble can, Here lies a truly honeft man. PÓPE. This modeft ftone, what few vain marbles can, POPE. Conceits, or thoughts not immediately impreffed by fenfible objects, or neceffarily arifing from the coalition or comparison of common fentiments, may be with great juftice fufpected whenever they are found a fecond time. Thus Waller probably owed to Grotius an elegant compliment. Here lies the learned Savil's heir, So early wife, and lasting fair, That none, except her years they told, Thought her a child, or thought her old. WALLER. Unica lux fæcli, genitoris gloria, nemo The age's miracle, his father's joy! Nor old you wou'd pronounce him, nor a boy. GROT. F. LEWIS. And Prior was indebted for a pretty illuftration to Alleyne's poetical hiftory of Henry the feventh. For For nought but light itself, itself can show, ALLEYNE. Your mufick's power, your mufick must disclose, And with yet more certainty may the fame writer be cenfured, for endeavouring the clandeftine appropriation of a thought which he borrowed, furely without thinking himself disgraced, from an epigram of Plato. Τῆ Παφίῃ τὸ κάτοπτρον· ἔπει τοίη μὲν ὀρᾶσθαι Venus, take my votive glass, Since I am not what I was; As not every inftance of fimilitude can be confidered as a proof of imitation, so not every imitation ought to be ftigmatized as plagiarism. The adoption of a noble fentiment, or the infertion of a borrowed ornament, may fometimes display so much judgment as will almoft compenfate for invention; and an inferior genius may, without any imputation of fervility, pursue the path of the ancients, provided he declines to tread in their footsteps. C 3 NUMB. 144. SATURDAY, August 3, 1751. IT Daphnidis arcum Fregifti et calamos: quæ tu, perverfe Menalca, Et fi non aliqua nocuiffes, mortuus effes. The bow of Daphnis and the fhafts you broke; the VIRG. DRYDEN. ap T is impoffible to mingle in converfation without observing the difficulty with which a new name makes its way into the world. The first pearance of excellence unites multitudes against it; unexpected oppofition rifes up on every fide; the celebrated and the obfcure join in the confederacy; fubtilty furnishes arms to impudence, and invention leads on credulity. The ftrength and unanimity of this alliance is not easily conceived. It might be expected that no man fhould fuffer his heart to be inflamed with malice, but by injuries; that none fhould busy himself in contefting the pretenfions of another, but when some right of his own was involved in the queftion; that at least hoftilities commenced without cause, should quickly ceafe; that the armies of malignity should foon difperfe, when no common interest could be found to hold them together; and that the attack upon a rifing character should be left |