But if at any time we observe so humane and benevolent a man as Mr. Pope giving into this language, we fay of courfe, "This is not his own, but an affumed manner."

Or what say you to an inftance that exemplifies both thefe obfervations together? The natural unaffected turn of Mr. Cowley's manner, and the tender fenfibility of his mind, are equally feen and loved in his profe-works, and in fuch of his poems as were written after a good model, or came from the heart. A clear sparkling fancy, foftened with a fhade of melancholly, 'made him, perhaps, of all our poets the moft capable of excelling in the elegiac way, or of touching us in any way where a vein of eafy language and moral fentiment is required. Who but laments then to fee this fine genius perverted by the prevailing pedantry of his age, and carried away, against the bias of his nature, to an emulation of the rapturous, high-fpirited Pindar ?

I might give many more examples. But you will obferve them in your own reading. I take the first that come to hand only to explain my meaning, which is, "That if you find a course of fentiments or cast of compofition different from that, to which the writer's fituation, genius, or complexion would naturally lead him, you may well fufpect him of imitation.

Still it may be, thefe confiderations are rather too general, I come to others more particular and decifive.

VI. It

VI. It may be difficult fometimes to determine whether a fingle fentiment or image be derived or not. But when we see a clufter of them in two writers, applied to the same subject, one can hardly doubt that one of them has copied from the other.

A celebrated French moralift makes the following reflections. "Quelle chimere eft-ce donc que l'homme? "Quelle nouveautè, quel cahos, quel fujet de con"tradiction? Juge de toutes chofes, imbecile ver de "terre; depofitaire du vrai, amas d'incertitude; "gloire, èt rebut de l'univers."

Turn now to the Essay on Man, and tell me if Mr. Pope did not work up the following lines out of thefe reflexions.

"Chaos of thought and paffion, all confus'd;
"Still by himself abus'd or difabus'd;
"Created half to rife, and half to fall,
“Great Lord of all things, yet a prey to all;
"Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurl❜d :
“The glory, jeft, and riddle of the world.”

2. This conclufion is ftill more certain, when, together with a general likeness of fentiments, we find the fame difpofition of the parts, especially if that difpofition be in no common form.

"Sweet is the breath of morn, her rifing sweet "With charm of earlieft birds: pleafant the fun, "When first on this delightful land he fpreads "His orient beams, on herb, tree, fruit, and flow'r, "Gliftring with dew

and

and the rest of that fine fpeech in the IVth Book of Paradife loft, which you remember fo perfectly that I need not transcribe more of it.

Milton's fancy, as usual, is rich and exuberant; but the conduct and application of his imagery fhews, that the whole paffage was fhadowed out of those charming but fimpler lines in the DANAE of Euripides.

· Φίλον μὲν φέγγος ἡλίς τόδε.

Καλὸν δὲ πόνια χευμ ̓ ἰδεῖν ἐυήνεμον,
Γῆ τ' ἠρινὸν θάλλασα, πλέσιον θ ̓ ὕδωρ,

Τ

T

Πολλῶν τ ̓ ἔπαινον ἐσί μοι λέξαι καλῶν.
̓Αλλ ̓ ἐδὲν ὅτω λαμπρὸν, ἐδ ̓ ἰδεῖν, καλὸν,
Ως τοῖς ἄπαισι, καὶ πόθῳ δεδηγμένοις,
Πάιδων νεογνῶν ἐν δόμοις ἰδεῖν φάος.

VII. There is little doubt in fuch cafes as thefe. There need not perhaps be much in the cafe, fometimes, of fingle fentiments or images. As where we find a fentiment or image in two writers precisely "the fame, yet new and unufual."

1. Thus we are told very reasonably, that Milton's cluft'ring locks is the copy of Apollonius' ПAOXMOI BOTPTOENTEZ. Obf. on Spencer, p. 8o. For tho' the metaphor be a just one and very natural, yet there is perhaps no other authority for the use of it, but in these two poets. And Milton had certainly read Apollonius.

2. What

2. What the fame critic obferves of Milton's,

"In ringlets quaint”

And curl the grove

being taken from Johnson's,

"When was old Sherwood's head more quaintly curl'd?

is ftill more unquestionable. For here is a combination of figns to convict the former of imitation: Not only the fingularity of the image, but the identity of expreffion, and, what I lay the most stress, upon, the boldness of the figure, as employed by Milton. Johnfon fpeaks of old Sherwood's head, as curl'd. Milton, as confcious of his authority, drops the preparatory idea, and says at once, The grove curl'd.

Let me add to thefe, two more inftances from the fame poet.

3. Spenfer tells us of,

"A little glooming light, much like a shade.

F. Q. c. II. S. 14.

Can you imagine that Milton did not take his idea from hence, when he said, in his Penferofo,

-glowing embers thro' the room Teach light to counterfeit a gloom?

4. Again, in his description of Paradife,

"Flow'rs of all hues, and without thorn the rofe.

Every

Every poet of every time is lavifh of his flowers on fuch occafions. But the rofe without thorn is a rarity. And, tho' it was fine to imagine fuch an one in Paradife, could only be an Italian refinement. Tasso, you will think, is the original, when you have read the following lines;

Senza quei fuoi pungenti ifpidi dumi
Spiegò le foglie la purpurea Rosa.

5. Another instance, still more remarkable, may be taken from Mr. Pope. One of the most striking paffages in the Essay on Man is the following,

Superior Beings, when of late they faw
A mortal man unfold all nature's law,
Admir'd fuch wifdom in an earthly shape,
And fhew'd a NEWTON, as we fhew an ape.
Ep. ii. . 31.

Can you doubt, from the fingularity of this fentiment,
that the great poet had his eye on Plato? who makes
Socrates fay, in allufion to a remark of Heraclitus,
Ὅτι ανθρώπων ὁ σοφώτατος προς θεόν πίθηκος φανείται.
Hipp. Major.

The application indeed is different. And it could not be otherwife. For the obfervation, which the Philofopher refers gos ev, is in the Poet given to fuperior Beings only. The confequence is, that the Ape is an object of derifion in the former cafe, of admiration, in the latter.