"Or ravish'd with the whistling of a name.

is for the fame reason, if there were no other points of likeness, copied from Mr. Cowley's

❝ Charm'd with the foolish whistlings of a name.

Transl, of Virgil's O! fortunati nimium, &c.

VII. An improper ufe of uncommon expreffion, in very exact writers, will fometimes create a fufpicion. Milton had called the fight indifferently visual nerve and visual ray, P. L. 111. 620. xi. 415. Mr. Pope in his Meffiah thought he might take the fame liberty, but forgot that though the visual nerve might be purged from film, the visual ray could not. Had Mr. Pope invented this bold expreffion, he would have seen to apply his metaphor more properly.

VIII. Where the word or phrase is foreign, there is, if poffible, ftill lefs doubt.

at laft his fail-broad vans

He fpreads for flight.

Milton P. L. 11..927.

Most certainly from Taffo's,

·Spiega al grand volo i vanni. ix.

And that of Johnson in his Sejanus,

O! what is it proud flime will not believe
Of his own worth, to hear it equal prais'd
Thus with the Gods-

A. 1.

from

from Juvenal's

nihil eft quod credere de fe

Non poffit, cum laudatur Diis æqua poteftas.

IX. Conclude the fame when the expreffion is antique, in the writer's own language.

In Mr. Waller's Panegyric on the Protector,

So, when a Lion shakes his dreadful mane,
And angry grows, if he that firft took pain
To tame his youth, approach the haughty beaft,
He bends to him, but frights away the rest.

The antique formality of the phrase that first took pain, for, that first took the pains, in so pure and modern a speaker, as this poet, looks fufpicious. He took it, as he found it in an old writer. There are many other marks of imitation, but we had needed no more than this to make the discovery.

So when a lion shakes his dreadful mane,

And beats his tail, with courage proud, and wroth,
If his commander come, who first took pain
To tame his youth, his lofty creft down go'th.

Fairfax's Taffo, B. VIII. S. 83.

X. You obferve in moft of the inftances, here given, befides other marks, there is an identity of rhyme. And this circumftance of itself, in our poetry, is no bad argument of imitation, particularly when

joined to a fimilarity of expreffion. And the reason is, the rhyme itself very naturally brings the expreffion along with it.

I. "Stuck o'er with titles, and hung round with
ftrings,

That thou may'st be by Kings, or whores of Kings."
Effay on man, E. Iv †. 205.

from Mr. Cowley in his tranflation of Hor. 1. ep. 10. "To Kings, or to the favourites of Kings.

2. Such is the world's great harmony, that Springs From order, union, full consent of things.

from Denham's Cowper's Hill.

66

Ep. 111. 295.

Wifely she knew the harmony of things
As well as that of founds from difcord Springs."

3.

"Far as the folar walk, or milky way.

Effay on man, Ep. 1. ✈ 102.

from Mr. Dryden's Pindaric Poem to the memory of K. Charles II.

"Out of the folar walk, or heav'ns high way."

Though thefe confonancies chyming in the wrier's head, he might not always be aware of the imi

ion.

XI.

: XI. In the examples, just given, there was no reafon to fufpect the poet was imitating, till you met with the original. Then indeed the rhyme leads to the discovery. But "if an exact writer falls into a flatness of expreffion for the fake of rhyme, you may ev'n previously conclude that he has fome precedent for it,"

In the famous lines

Let modest Fofter, if he will, excell
Ten metropolitans in preaching well.
Ep. to Satires,

131.

I used to fufpect that the phrafe of preaching well fo unlike the concise accuracy of Pope, would not have been hazarded by him, if fome eminent writer, tho' perhaps of an older age and lefs correct tafte than his own, had not fet the example. But I had no doubt left when I happened on the following couplet in Mr. Waller.

Your's founds aloud, and tells us you excell
No lefs in courage, than in finging well.

Poem to Sir W. D'Avenant.

Our great poet is more happy in the application of thefe rhymes on another occafion,

Let fuch teach others, who themselves excell,
And cenfure freely, who have written well.

The reafon is apparent. But here he glanced at the Duke of Buckingham's,

"Nature's chief master-piece is writing well.

XII. "The fame paufe and turn of expreffion are pretty fure fymptoms of imitation." Thefe minute refemblances do not ufually fpring from Nature, which, when the fentiment is the fame, hath a hundred ways of its own, of giving it to us.

I. That noble verfe in the effay on criticism, 625. "For fools rufh in, where angels dare not tread, is certainly fashion'd upon Shakespear's,

"the world is grown fo bad

"That wrens make prey, where eagles dare not Rich. III. A. I. S. III.

perch.

2. The verses to Sir W. Trumbal in Paft. I.

"And carrying with you all the world can boast, To all the world illuftrioufly are lost.”

from Waller's Maid's Tragedy alter'd,

Happy is he that from the world retires
And carries with him what the world admires.

XIII. When to thefe marks the fame Rhyme is

added, the cafe is ftill more evident.

"Men