Part 15

2. The ingenious author of the _Observations on Spenser_ (from which fine specimen of his critical talents one is led to expect great things) directs us to another imitation of this sort.

Tasso had said,

Cosi a le belle lagrime le piume Si bagna Amore, e gode al chiaro lume.

On which short hint Spenser has raised the following luxuriant imagery,

The blinded archer-boy, Like lark in show’r of rain, Sate bathing of his wings, And glad the time did spend Under those crystal drops, Which fall from her fair eyes, And at their brightest beams Him proyn’d in lovely wise.

3. I will just add two more examples of the same kind; chiefly, because they illustrate an observation, very proper to be attended to on this subject; which is, “That in this display of a borrowed thought, the Imitation will generally fall short of the Original, even though the borrower be the greater Genius.”

The Italian poet, just now quoted, says sublimely of the _Night_,

—Usci la Notte, è sotto l’ali Menò il silentio— C. v. S. 79.

Milton has given a paraphrase of this passage, but very much below his original,

Now came still ev’ning on, and twilight gray Had in her sober livery all things clad; _Silence accompany’d_—

The striking part of Tasso’s picture, is, “_Night’s bringing in Silence under her wings_.” So new and singular an idea as this had detected an Imitation. Milton contents himself, then, with saying simply, _Silence accompany’d_. However, to make amends, as he thought, for this defect, _Night itself_, which the Italian had merely personized, the English poet not only _personizes_, but employs in a very becoming office:

Now came still ev’ning on, and twilight gray Had in her sober livery all things clad.

Every body will observe a little blemish, in this fine couplet. He should not have used the epithet _still_, when he intended to add,

_Silence_ accompanied—

But there is a worse fault in this _Imitation_. To hide it, he speaks of _Night’s livery_. When he had done that, to speak of her _wings_, had been ungraceful. Therefore he is forced to say obscurely as well as _simply_, _Silence accompany’d_: And so loses a more noble image for a less noble one. The truth is, they would not stand together. _Livery_ belongs to _human grandeur_; _wings_ to _divine_ or _celestial_. So that in Milton’s very attempt to surpass his original, he put it out of his power to employ the _circumstance_ that most recommended it.

He is not happier on another occasion. Spenser had said with his usual simplicity,

“Virtue gives herself light thro’ darkness for to wade,” F. Q. B. 1.

Milton catched at this image, and has run it into a sort of paraphrase, in those fine lines,

“Virtue could see to do what virtue would By her own radiant light, tho’ Sun and Moon Were in the flat sea sunk—” COMUS.

In Spenser’s line we have the idea of Virtue dropt down into a world, all over darkened with vice and error. Virtue excites the light of truth to see all around her, and not only dissipate the neighbouring darkness, but to direct her course in pursuing her victory and driving her enemy out of it; the arduousness of which exploit is well expressed by—_thro’ darkness for to_ WADE. On the contrary, Milton, in borrowing, substitutes the physical for the moral idea—_by her own radiant light_—and _tho’ Sun and Moon were in the flat sea sunk_. It may be asked, how this happened? Very naturally, Milton was caught with the obvious _imagery_, which he found he could display to more advantage; and so did not enough attend to the noble _sentiment_ that was couched under it.

XIII. These are instances of a paraphrastical licence in dilating on a famous Sentiment or Image. The _ground_ is the same, only flourished upon by the genius of the Imitator. At times we find him practising a different art; “not merely spreading, as it were, and laying open the same sentiment, but _adding_ to it, and by a new and studied device improving upon it.” In this case we naturally conclude that the refinement had not been made, if the plain and simple thought had not preceded and given rise to it. You will apprehend my meaning by what follows.

1. Shakespear had said of Henry IV^{th},

—He cannot long hold out these pangs; The incessant care and labour of his mind Hath wrought the mure, that should confine it in, So thin, that life look through, and will break out. HEN. IV. A. 4.

You have, here, the thought in its first simplicity. It was not unnatural, after speaking of the body, as a case or tenement of the Soul, _the mure that confines_ it, to say, that as that case wears away and grows thin, life looks through, and is ready to break out.

DANIEL, by refining on this sentiment, if by nothing else, shews himself to be the copyist. Speaking of the same Henry, he observes,

And Pain and Grief, inforcing more and more, Besieg’d the hold that could not long defend; Consuming so all the resisting store Of those provisions Nature deign’d to lend, As that the Walls, worn thin, permit the mind To look out thorough, and his frailty find.

Here we see, not simply that _Life_ is going to break through the infirm and much-worn habitation, but that the _Mind_ looks through and _finds_ his frailty, that it discovers, that Life will soon make his escape. I might add, that the four first lines are of the nature of the _Paraphrase_, considered in the last article: And that the _expression_ of the others is too much the same to be original. But we are not yet come to the head of _expression_. And I choose to confine myself to the single point of view we have before us.

Daniel’s improvement, then, looks like the artifice of a man that would outdo his Master. Though he fails in the attempt: for his ingenuity betrays him into a false thought. The mind, looking through, does not find _its own frailty_, but the frailty of the _building_ it inhabits. However, I have endeavoured to rectify this mistake in my explanation.

The truth is, Daniel was not a man to improve upon Shakespear. But now comes a writer, that knew his business much better. He chuses to employ this well-worn image, or rather to alter it a little and then employ it, for the conveyance of a very new fancy. If the mind could look through a _thin_ body, much more one that was _cracked_ and battered. And if it be for looking through at all, he will have it look to good purpose, and find, not its frailty only, but much other useful knowledge.

The lines are Mr. Waller’s, and in the best manner of that very _refined_ writer.

Stronger by weakness, _wiser_, men become As they draw near to their eternal home. The Soul’s dark cottage, batter’d and decay’d, Lets in new light thro’ chinks that time has made.

2. After all, these conceits, I doubt, are not much to your taste. The instance I am going to give, will afford you more pleasure. Is there a passage in Milton you read with more admiration, than this in the _Penseroso_?

Entice the dewy-feather’d sleep; And let some strange mysterious dream Wave at his wings in airy stream; Of lively portraiture display’d Softly on my eye-lids laid.

Would you think it possible now that the ground-work of this fine imagery should be laid in a passage of Ben Jonson? Yet so we read, or seem to read, in his _Vision of Delight_.

Break, Phant’sy, from thy cave of cloud, And spread thy purple wings: Create of airy forms a stream, And tho’ it be a waking dream, Yet let it like an odour rise To all the senses here, And fall like sleep upon their eyes Or musick in their ear.

It is a delicate matter to analyze such passages as these; which, how exquisite soever in the poetry, when estimated by the _fine phrenzy_ of a Genius, hardly look like sense when given in plain prose. But if you give me leave to take them in pieces, I will do it, at least, with reverence. We find then, that _Fancy_ is here employed in one of her nicest operations, the production of a _day-dream_; which both poets represent as an _airy form_, or forms _streaming_ in the air, gently falling on the eye-lids of her entranced votary. So far their imagery agrees. But now comes the _mark_ of imitation I would point out to you. Milton carries the idea still further, and improves finely upon it, in the _conception_ as well as expression. Jonson evokes fancy out of her _cave of cloud_, those cells of the mind, as it were, in which during her intervals of rest, and when unemploy’d, fancy lies hid; and bids her, like a Magician, _create_ this stream of forms. All this is just and truly poetical. But Milton goes further. He employs the _dewy-feather’d sleep_ as his Minister in this machinery. And the mysterious day-dream is seen _waving at his wings in airy stream_. Jonson would have Fancy _immediately_ produce this Dream. Milton more poetically, because in more distinct and particular imagery, represents Fancy as doing her work by means of _sleep_; that soft composure of the mind abstracted from outward objects, in which it yields to these phantastic impressions.

You see then a wonderful improvement in this addition to the original thought. And the notion of _dreams waving at the wings of sleep_ is, by the way, further justified by what Virgil feigns of their _sticking_ or rather fluttering on the leaves of his magic tree in the infernal regions. But it is curious to observe how this improvement itself arose from hints suggested by his original. From Jonson’s dream, _falling, like sleep upon their eyes_, Milton took his _feather’d sleep_, which he impersonates so properly; And from _Phant’sy’s spreading her purple wings_, a circumstance, not so immediately connected with Jonson’s design _of creating of airy forms a stream_, he catched the idea of _Sleep spreading her wings_; and to good purpose, since the airy stream of forms was to _wave at them_.

However, Jonson’s image is, in itself, incomparable. It is taken from a _winged_ insect breaking out of its Aurelia state, its _cave of cloud_, as it is finely called: Not unlike that of Mr. Pope,

So spins the Silk-worm small its slender store, And labours till it _clouds_ itself all o’er. IV. _Dunc._ v. 253.

And nothing can be juster than this allusion. For the ancients always pictured FANCY and HUMAN-LOVE with Insect’s wings.

XIV. Thus then, whether the poet _prevaricates_, _enlarges_, or _adds_, still we frequently find some latent circumstance, attending his management, that convicts him of Imitation. Nay, he is not safe even when he denies himself these liberties; I mean when he only _glances_ at his original. “For, in this case, the borrowed sentiment usually wants something of that perspicuity which always attends the first delivery of it.” This Rule may be considered as the Reverse of the _last_. A writer, sometimes, takes a pleasure to _refine_ on a plain thought: Sometimes (and that is usually when the original sentiment is well known and fully developed) he does not so much as attempt to open and _explain_ it.

A poet of the last age has the following lines, on the subject of _Religion_:

Religion now is a young Mistress here, For which each man will fight, and dye at least; Let it alone awhile, and ’t will become A kind of married wife; people will be Content to live with it in quietness.

SUCKLING says this in his Tragedy of Brennoralt; which is a Satire throughout on the rising troubles of that time. BUTLER has taken the thought and applied it on the same occasion:

When hard words, jealousies, and fears Set folks together by the ears, And make them fight, like mad or drunk, For dame Religion, as for Punk.

Setting aside the difference between the burlesque and serious style, one easily sees that this sentiment is borrowed from Suckling. It has not the clear and full exposition of an original thought. Butler only represents men as drunk with Religion and fighting for it as for a Punk. The _other_ gives the reason of the Debauch, namely, _fondness for a new face_; and tells us, besides, how things would subside into peace or indifference on a nearer and more familiar acquaintance. One could expect no less from the _Inventor_ of this humorous thought; a _Borrower_ might be content to allude to it.

XV. This last consideration puts me in mind of another artifice to conceal a borrowed sentiment. Nothing lies more open to discovery than a Simile in form, especially if it be a remarkable one. These are a sort of _purpurei panni_ which catch all eyes; and, if the comparison be not a writer’s own, he is almost sure to be detected. The way then that refined Imitators take to conceal themselves, in such a case, is to run the Similitude into Allegory. We have a curious instance in Mr. Pope, who has succeeded so well in the attempt, that his plagiarism, I believe, has never been suspected.

The verses, I have in my eye, are these fine ones, addressed to Lord Bolingbroke,

Oh, while along the stream of time thy name Expanded flies, and gathers all it’s fame, Say, shall my little Bark attendant sail, Pursue the triumph, and partake the Gale?

What think you, now, of these admired verses? Are they, besides their other beauties, perfectly original? You will be able to resolve this question, by turning to the following passage 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 Invasitque vias, in eodem angusta phaselus Æquore, et immensi partem sibi vendicat Austri. SILV. l. V. I. v. 242.

But, especially, this other,

—immensæ veluti CONNEXA carinæ CYMBA MINOR, cum sævit hyems, pro parte, furentes Parva receptat aquas, et EODEM VOLVITUR AUSTRO. SILV. l. I. iv. v. 120.

XVI. I release you from this head of _Sentiments_, with observing that we sometimes 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 impression, it had made upon him.”

1. In delivering this rule, I will not dissemble that I myself am copying, or rather stealing from a great critic: From _one_, however, who will not resent this theft; as indeed he has no reason, for he is so prodigiously rich in these things, as in others of more value, that what he neglects or flings away, would make the fortune of an ordinary writer. The person I mean is the late Editor of Shakespear, who, in an admirable note on Julius Cæsar, taking occasion to quote that passage 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,

observes “that Mr. Addison was so struck and affected with the _terrible graces_ of Shakespear (in the passage he is there considering) that, instead of imitating his author’s sentiments, he hath, before he was aware, given us only the copy of his own impressions 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 such forcible images as these,

——All the Int’rim is Like a Phantasma, or a hideous dream ——The state of man, Like to a little kingdom, suffers then The nature of an Insurrection.”

The observation is new and finely applied. Give me leave to suppose that the following is an instance of the same nature.

2. Milton on a certain occasion says of _Death_, that she

“Grinn’d horrible a ghastly smile—” _P. L._ B. II. v. 846.

This representation is supposed 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 so slight an occasion, suggests that it might probably be copied from Spenser’s,

Grinning griesly— B. V. c. 12.

And there is the more likelihood in this conjecture, as the poet a little before had call’d _death—the griesly terror_—v. 704. But after all, if he had any preceding writer in view, I suspect it might be FLETCHER; who, in his _Wife for a Month_, has these remarkable lines,

The game of Death was never play’d more nobly, The meagre thief grew _wanton_ in his mischiefs, And _his shrunk hollow eyes smil’d_ on his ruin.

The word _Ghastly_, I would observe, gives the precise 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 smile, as he found it pictured in Fletcher.

THUS MUCH, then, may perhaps serve for an illustration of the first part of this Inquiry. We have found out several _marks_, and applied them to various passages in the best writers, from which we may reasonably enough be allowed to infer an Imitation in point of _Sentiment_. For what respect the other part of _Expression_, this is an easier task, and will be dispatched in few words.

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

When I speak of _Expression_, then I mean to confine myself “to single words of sentences, or at most the structure of a passage.” When _Imitation_ is carried so far as to affect the general cast of language, or what we call a _Style_, no great sagacity is, perhaps, required to detect it. Thus the _Ciceroniani_, if they were not ambitious of proclaiming themselves, are discoverable at the first glance. And the later Roman poets, as well as the modern Latin versifiers, are, to the best of their power, _Virgilian_. The thing is perhaps still easier in a living language; especially if that language be our own. Milton and Pope, if they have made but few poets, have made many imitators; so many, that we are ready to complain there is hardly an original poet left.

Another point seems of no importance in the present inquiry. I know, it is asked, How far a writer casually or designedly imitates? that is, whether he copies another from memory only, without recollecting, at the time, the passage from which his expression is drawn, or purposely, and with full knowledge of his original. And this consideration is of much weight, as I have shewn at large, where the question is concerning the _credit_ of the supposed imitator. For this is affected by nothing but direct and _intended_ imitation. But as we are looking at present only for those marks in the expression which shew it _not_ to be original, it is enough that the resemblance is such as cannot well be accounted for but on the supposition of some sort of commerce; whether immediately perceived by the writer himself, is not material. ’Tis true, this observation is applicable to _sentiments_ as well as expression; and I have not pretended to give the preceding articles, as proofs, or even presumptions, in all cases, that the later writer copied intentionally from a former. But there is this difference in the two cases. _Sentiments_ may be strikingly similar, or even identical, without the least thought, or even effect, of a preceding original. But the identity of _expression_, except in some few cases of no importance, is, in the same language, where the writer speaks entirely from himself, an almost impossible thing. And you will be of this mind, if you reflect on the infinitely varied lights in which the same image or sentiment presents itself to different writers; the infinitely varied purpose they have to serve by it; or where it happens to strike precisely in the same manner, and is directed precisely to the same end, the infinite combinations of words in which it may be expressed. To all which you may add, that the least imaginable variation, either in the terms or the structure of them, not only destroys the identity, but often disfigures the resemblance to that degree that we hardly know it to be a resemblance.

So that you see, the _marks_ of imitated or, if you will, _derived expression_ are much less equivocal, than of _sentiment_. We may pronounce of the _former_ without hesitation, that it is taken, when corresponding marks in the _latter_ would only authorise us to conclude that it was the _same_ or perhaps _similar_.

I need not use more words to convince you, that the distinction of _casual_ and _design’d_ imitation is still of less significancy in this class of imitations, than the other.

And with this preamble, more particular perhaps and circumstantial than was necessary, I now proceed to lay before you some of those _signs_ of derived expression, which I conceive to be _unequivocal_. If they are so, they will generally appear at first sight; so that I shall have little occasion to trouble you, as I did before, with my comments. It will be sufficient to deliver the _rule_, and to _exemplify_ it.

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

Mr. Waller of Sacharissa,

So little care of what is done below Hath the bright dame, whom heav’n affecteth so; Paints her, ’tis true, with the same hand which spreads Like glorious colours thro’ the flow’ry meads; _When lavish nature with her best attire_ Cloaths the gay spring, the season of desire.

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

To the gay gardens his unstaid desire Him wholly carried to refresh his sprights: _There lavish Nature, in her best attire,_ Pours forth sweet odours and alluring sights.

We shall see presently that, besides the identity of expression, there is also another mark of imitation in this passage.

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

Mr. Pope says divinely well,

Shall burning Ætna, if a sage requires, Forget to thunder and recall its fires? On _air_ or sea _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 some old temple nodding to its fall For Chartres’ head reserve the hanging wall? _Essay_ IV. v. 123.

Now turn to Mr. Wollaston, an easy natural writer (where his natural manner is not stiffened by a mathematical pedantry) and abounding in fine sallies of the imagination; and see if the poet did not catch his _expression_, as well as the fire of his conception in this place, from the philosopher:

“As to the course of Nature, if a good man be passing by an infirm building, just in the article of falling, can it be expected that God should _suspend 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 hastened, if a bad man was there, only that he might be caught, crushed, and made an example? If a man’s safety or prosperity should depend upon winds or rains, must _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. Sometimes the original expression is not taken but paraphrased; and the writer disguises himself in a kind of circumlocution. Yet this artifice does not conceal him, especially if some fragments, as it were, of the inventor’s phrase are found dispersedly in the imitation.

For in the secret of her troubled thought A doubtful combat love and honour fought. _Fairfax’s Tasso_, B. IV. S. 70.

Hence Mr. Waller,