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is, in the fame language, where the writer speaks entirely from himself, an almost impoffible thing. And you will be of this mind, if you reflect on the infinitely varied lights in which the fame image or sentiment presents itself to different writers; the in finitely varied purpose they have to ferve by it; or where it happens to ftrike precifely in the fame manner, and is directed precisely to the fame end, the infinite combinations of words in which it may be expreffed. To all which you may add, that the leaft imaginable variations either in the terms, or the ftructure of them, not only destroys the identity, but often disfigures the refemblance to that degree that we hardly know it to be a resemblance.

So that you fee, the marks of imitated or, if you will, derived expreffion are much less equivocal, than of fentiment. We may pronounce of the former with out hesitation, that it is taken, when correfponding marks in the latter would only authorize us to conclude that it was the fame or perhaps fimilar.

I need not use more words to convince you, that the diftinction of cafual and defign'd imitation is still of less fignificancy in this class of imitations, than the other.

And with this preamble, more particular perhaps and circumstantial than was neceffary, I now proceed to lay before you some of those signs of derived expreffion, which I conceive to be unequivocal. If they are fo, they will generally appear at first fight; fo that I fhall have little occafion to trouble you, as I

did

did before, with my comments. It will be fufficient to deliver the rule, and to exemplify it.

I. An identity of expreffion, especially if carried on through an intire sentence, is the most certain proof of imitation.

Mr. Waller of Sachariffa,

So little care of what is done below

Hath the bright dame, whom heav'n affecteth so, Paints her, 'tis true, with the fame hand which fpreads

Like glorious colours thro' the flow'ry meads;
When lavish nature with her beft attire

Cloaths the gay fspring, the feason of defire.

Mr. Fenton takes notice that the poet is copying from the Muiopotmos of Spenser,

To the gay gardens his unftaid defire

Him wholly carried to refresh his fprights,

There lavish Nature in her beft attire

Pours forth sweet odours and alluring fights.

We fhall fee presently, that befides the identity of expreffion, there is also another mark of imitation in this paffage.

II. But less than this will do, where the fimilarity of thought, and application of it, is ftriking.

Mr. Pope fays divinely well,

Shall

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Shall burning Ætna, if a fage requires,
Forget to thunder and recall its fires?
On air or fea new motions be impress'd,
Oh blameless Bethel! to relieve thy breast?
When the loose mountain trembles from on high,
Shall gravitation cease if you go by?

Or fome old temple nodding to its fall

For Chartres' head referve the hanging wall?

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Now turn to Mr. Wollafton, an eafy natural writer (where his natural manner is not stiffened by a mathematical pedantry) and abounding in fine fallies of the imagination; and fee if the poet did not catch his expreffion, as well as the fire of his conception in this place, from the philofopher.

"As to the course of Nature, if a good man be paffing by an infirm building, juft in the article of falling, can it be expected that God fhould fufpend the force of gravitation till he is gone by, in order to his deliverance; or can we think it would be increased, and the fall haftened, if a bad man was there, only that he might be caught, crushed, and made an example? If a man's fafety or profperity fhould depend upon winds or rains, muft new motions be impressed upon the atmosphere, and new directions given to the floating parts of it, by some extraordinary and new influence from God?"

III. Some

III. Sometimes the original expreffion is not taken but paraphrased; and the writer disguises himself in a kind of circumlocution. Yet this artifice does not conceal him, especially if fome fragments, as it were, of the inventor's phrase are found difperfedly in the imitation.

For in the fecret of her troubled thought

A doubtful combat love and honour fought.

Hence Mr. Waller,

Fairfax's Taffo. B.iv. S.70.

There public care and private paffion fought
A doubtful combat in his noble thought.
Poems p. 14.

Public care is the periphrafis of honour, and private paffion, of love. For the reft you fee➡ disječi membra poeta.

IV. An imitation is discoverable, when there is but the leaft particle of the original expreffion, " by a peculiar and no very natural arrangement of words."

In Fletcher's faithful Shepherdess the speaker says,

In thy face

Shines more awful majefty,
Than dull weak mortality
Dare with misty eyes behold,
AND LIVE

The

The writer glanc'd, but very improperly on such an occafion, at Deut. iv. 33. " Did ever people hear "the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the "fire, as thou haft heard, and live?"

V. An uncommon construction of words not identical, especially if the fubject be the fame, or the ideas fimilar, will look like imitation.

Milton fays finely of the Swan,

The Swan with arched neck Between her white wings mantling proudly Rows HER STATE

I fhould think he might probably have that line of Fletcher in his head,

How like a Swan fhe swIMS HER PACE!

The expreffion, you fee, is very like. 'Tis true the image in Milton is much nobler. It is taken from a barge, of state in a public proceffion.

VI. We may even pronounce that a fingle word is taken, when it is new and uncommon.

Milton's calling a ray of light—a levell'd rule in Comus 340, is so particular that, when one reads in Euripides, ηλία ΚΑΝΩΝ σαφής, Suppl. * 650. one has no doubt that the learned poet tranflated the Greek word.

Again, Mr. Pope's,

E

❝ Or

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