when our life is of so short duration, why we form such numerons designs? But Horace, as well as Tully, might discover that records are needful to preserve the memory of actions, and that no records were so durable as poems; either of them might find out that life is short, and that we consume it in unnecessary labour.

There are other flowers of fiction so widely scattered and so easily cropped, that it is scarcely just to tax the use of them as an act by which any particular writer is despoiled of his garland; for they may be said to have been planted by the ancients in the open road of poetry for the accommodation of their successors, and to be the right of every one that has art to pluck them without injuring their colours or their fragrance. The passage of Orpheus to hell, with the recovery and second loss of Eurydice, have been described after Boetius by Pope in such a manner as might justly leave him suspected of imitation, were not the images such as they might both have derived from more ancient writers. Quæ sontes agitant metu Ultrices scelerum deæ

Jam maste lacrymis madent,
Non Ixionium caput

Velox præcipitat rota.

The powers of vengeance, while they hear,
Touch'd with compassion, drop a tear;

Ixion's rapid wheel is bound,

Fix'd in attention to the sound.

Thy stone, O Sisyphus, stands still,
Ixion rests upon his wheel,

And the pale spectres dance!
The furies sink upon their iron beds.

Tandem vincimur, arbiter
Umbrarum, miserans, ait.
Donemus, comitem viro,
Emtam carmine, conjugem,

F. LEWIS.

Subdued at length, Hell's pitying monarch cried,

The song rewarding, let us yield the bride. F. LEWIS.
He sung, and hell consented
To hear the poet's prayer;
Stern Proserpine relented,
And gave him back the fair,

Heu, noctis prope terminos
Orpheus Eurydicen suam
Vidit, perdidit, occidit.

Nor yet the golden verge of day begun,
When Orpheus, her unhappy lord,

Eurydice to life restored,

At once beheld, and lost, and was undone, F. LEWIS.
But soon, too soon, the lover turns his eyes:

Again she falls, again she dies, she dies!

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 same ideas are conjoined without any natural series or necessary coherence, or where not only the thought but the words are copied. Thus it can scarcely be doubted, that in the first of the following passages Pope remembered Ovid, and that in the second he copied Crashaw.

Sæpe pater dixit, studium quid inutile tentas?
Mæonides nullas ipse reliquit opes-

Sponte sua carmen numeros veniebat ad aptos,
Et quod tentabam dicere, versus erat.
Quit, quit this barren trade, my father cried :
E'en Homer left no riches when he died.
In verse spontaneous flow'd my native strain,

OVID,

Forced by no sweat or labour of the brain. F. LEWIS.

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,

I lisp'd in numbers, for the numbers came.

--This plain floor,

Than many a braver marble can,

POPE.

Believe me, reader, can say more

Here lies a truly honest man.

CRASHAW.

This modest stone, what few vain marbles can,
May truly say, Here lies an honest man,

POPE.

Conceits, or thoughts not immediately impressed by sensible objects, or necessarily arising from a coalition or comparison of common sentiments, may be with great justice suspected whenever they are found a second time. Thus Waller probably owed to Grotius an elegant compliment.

Here lies the learned Savil's heir,
So early wise, and lasting fair,
That none, except her years they told,
Thought her a child, or thought her old.

Unica lux sæcli, genitoris, gloria, nemo

WALLER.

Quem puerum, nemo credidit esse senem. GROT.

The age's miracle, his father's joy!

Nor old you would pronounce him, nor a boy.

F. LEWIS.

And Prior was indebted for a pretty illustration to Alleyne's poetical history of Henry the Seventh; For nought but life itself itself can show,

And only kings can write what kings can do. ALLEYNE.

PRIOR.

Your music's power your music must disclose, For what light is 'tis only light that shows. And with yet more certainty may the same writer be censured, for endeavouring the clandestine appropriation of a thought which he borrowed, surely without thinking himself disgraced, from an epigram of Plato:

Τη Παφίη το κατοπτρον· επει τοιη μεν ορασθαι
Ουκ εθέλω, οιη δ' ην παρος, ου δυναμαι.

Venus, take my votive glass,

Since I am not what I was;
What from this day I shall be,
Venus, let me never see.

As not every instance of similitude can be considered as a proof of imitation, so not every imitation ought to be stigmatised as plagiarism. The adop

tion of a noble sentiment, or the insertion of a borrowed ornament, may sometimes display so much judgment as will almost compensate for invention; and an inferior genius may, without any imputation of servility, pursue the paths of the ancients, provided he declines to tread in their footsteps.

No. 144. SATURDAY, AUGUST 3, 1751.

Daphnidis arcum

Fregisti et calamos: quæ tu, perverse Menalca,
Et cum vidisti puero donata, dolebas;

Et si non aliqua nocuisses, mortuus esses.

The bow of Daphnis and the shafts you broke;
When the fair boy received the gift of right;

VIRG.

And but for mischief you had died for spite. DRYDEN.

It is impossible to mingle in conversation without observing the difficulty with which a new name makes its way into the world. The first appearance of excellence unites multitudes against it; unexpected opposition rises up on every side; the celebrated and the obscure join in the confederacy; subtlety furnishes arms to impudence, and invention leads on credulity.

The strength and unanimity of this alliance is not easily conceived. It might be expected that no man should suffer his heart to be inflamed with malice but by injuries; that none should busy himself in contesting the pretensions of another but when some right of his own was involved in the question; that at least hostilities commenced without cause should quickly cease; that the armies of malignity should soon disperse, when no common interest could be found to hold them together; and that the attack upon a rising character should be left to

those who had something to hope or fear from the

event.

The hazards of those that aspire to eminence would be much diminished if they had none but acknowledged rivals to encounter. Their enemies would then be few, and what is of yet greater importance, would be known. But what caution is sufficient to ward off the blows of invisible assailants, or what force can stand against unintermitted attacks and a continual succession of enemies? Yet such is the state of the world, that no sooner can any man emerge from the crowd, and fix the eyes of the public upon him, than he stands as a mark to the arrows of lurking calumny, and receives, in the tumult of hostility, from distant and from nameless hands, wounds not always easy to be cured.

It is probable that the onset against the candidates for renown is originally incited by those who imagine themselves in danger of suffering by their success; but when war is once declared, volunteers flock to the standard, multitudes follow the camp only for want of employment, and flying squadrons are dispersed to every part, so pleased with an opportunity of mischief that they toil without prospect of praise, and pillage without hope of profit.

When any man has endeavoured to deserve distinction, he will be surprised to hear himself censured where he could not expect to have been named; he will find the utmost acrimony of malice among those whom he never could have offended.

As there are to be found in the service of envy men of every diversity of temper, and degree of understanding, calumny is diffused by all arts and methods of propagation. Nothing is too gross or too refined, too cruel or too trifling to be practised; very little regard is had to the rules of honourable