The works of Richard Hurd, volume 2 (of 8)

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?

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.

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,

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:

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:

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,

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,

But, especially, this other,

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,

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,

are but the affections raised by such forcible images as these,

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

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,

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 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,

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

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,

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.

Hence Mr. Waller,

Public care is the periphrasis of honour, and private passion, of love. For the rest you see—disjecti membra poetæ.

IV. An imitation is discoverable, when there is but the least particle of the original expression, “by a peculiar and no very natural arrangement of words.”

In Fletcher’s faithful Shepherdess, the speaker says,

The writer glanced, but very improperly on such an occasion, at Exod. xxxiii. 20. “Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live.”

V. An uncommon construction of words not identical, especially if the subject be the same, or the ideas similar, will look like imitation.

Milton says finely of the Swan,

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

The expression, you see, is very like. ’Tis true, the image in Milton is much nobler. It is taken from a barge of state in a public procession.

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

Milton’s calling a ray of light—a levell’d rule in Comus v. 340, is so particular that, when one reads in Euripides ἡλίου ΚΑΝΩΝ σαφὴς, Suppl. v. 650, one has no doubt that the learned poet translated the Greek word.

Again, Mr. Pope’s,

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

VII. An improper use of uncommon expression, in very exact writers, will sometimes create a suspicion. Milton had called the sight indifferently visual nerve and visual ray, P. L. iii. 620. xi. 415. Mr. Pope in his Messiah thought he might take the same liberty, but forgot that though the visual nerve might be purged from film, the visual ray could not. Had Mr. Pope invented this bold expression, he would have seen to apply his metaphor more properly.

VIII. Where the word or phrase is foreign, there is, if possible, still less doubt.

Most certainly from Tasso’s,

And that of Jonson in his Sejanus,

from Juvenal’s

IX. Conclude the same when the expression is antique, in the writer’s own language.

In Mr. Waller’s Panegyric on the Protector,

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 suspicious. He took it, as he found it in an older writer. There are many other marks of imitation, but we had needed no more than this to make the discovery:

X. You observe in most of the instances, here given, besides other marks, there is an identity of rhyme. And this circumstance of itself, in our poetry, is no bad argument of imitation, particularly when joined to a similarity of expression. And the reason is, the rhyme itself very naturally brings the expression along with it.

from Mr. Cowley in his translation of Hor. 1. ep. 10.

from Denham’s Cowper’s Hill,

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

Though these consonancies chyming in the writer’s head, he might not always be aware of the imitation.

XI. In the examples, just given, there was no reason to suspect 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 expression for the sake of rhyme, you may ev’n previously conclude that he has some precedent for it.”

In the famous lines,

I used to suspect that the phrase of preaching well so unlike the concise accuracy of Pope, would not have been hazarded by him, if some eminent writer, though perhaps of an older age and less correct taste than his own, had not set the example. But I had no doubt left when I happened on the following couplet in Mr. Waller.

Our great poet is more happy in the application of these rhymes on another occasion,

The reason is apparent. But here he glanced at the Duke of Buckingham’s,

XII. “The same pause and turn of expression are pretty sure symptoms of imitation.” These minute resemblances do not usually spring from Nature, which, when the sentiment is the same, hath a hundred ways of its own, of giving it to us.

1. That noble verse in the essay on criticism, v. 625.

is certainly fashion’d upon Shakespear’s,

2. The verses to Sir W. Trumbal in Past. 1.

from Waller’s Maid’s Tragedy alter’d,

XIII. When to these marks the same Rhyme is added, the case is still more evident.

Without all question from Sir Fulk Grevil,

XIV. The seeming quaintness and obscurity of an expression frequently indicates imitation. As when in Fletcher’s Pilgrim we read,

Had the idea been original, the poet had expressed it more plainly. In leaving it thus, he pays his reader the compliment to suppose, that he will readily call to mind,

which sufficiently explains it: As we may see from Mr. Cowley’s application of the same passage. “Aliena negotia centum per caput et centum saliunt latus. A hundred businesses of other men fly continually about his head and ears, and strike him in the face like Dorres.” Disc. of Liberty. And still more clearly, from Mr. Pope’s,

Learned writers of quick parts abound in these delicate allusions. It makes a principal part of modern elegancy to glance in this oblique manner at well-known passages in the classics.

XV. I will trouble you with but one more note of imitated expression, and it shall be the very reverse of the last. When the passages glanced at are not familiar, the expression is frequently minute and circumstantial, corresponding to the original in the order, turn, and almost number of the words. The reasons are, that, the imitated passage not being known, the imitator may give it, as he finds it, with safety, or at least without offence; and that, besides, the force and beauty of it would escape us in a brief and general allusion. The following are instances:

from Manilius,

from Euripides in the Troad. v. 676.

3. But above all, that in Jonson’s Catiline,

from Seneca’s Hercules furens, A. III.

You have now, Sir, before you a specimen of those rules, which I have fancied might be fairly applied to the discovery of imitations, both in regard to the SENSE and EXPRESSION of great writers. I would not pretend that the same stress is to be laid on all; but there may be something, at least, worth attending to in every one of them. It were easy, perhaps, to enumerate still more, and to illustrate these I have given with more agreeable citations. Yet I have spared you the disgust of considering those vulgar passages, which every body recollects and sets down for acknowledged imitations. And these I have used are taken from the most celebrated of the ancient and modern writers. You may observe indeed that I have chiefly drawn from our own poets; which I did, not merely because I know you despise the pedantry of confining one’s self to learned quotations, but because I think we are better able to discern those circumstances, which betray an imitation, in our own language than in any other. Amongst other reasons, an identity of words and phrases, upon which so much depends, especially in the article of expression, is only to be had in the same language. And you are not to be told with how much more certainty we determine of the degree of evidence, which such identity affords for this purpose, in a language we speak, than in one which we only lisp or spell.

But you will best understand of what importance this affair of expression is to the discovery of imitations, by considering how seldom we are able to fix an imitation on Shakespear. The reason is, not, that there are not numberless passages in him very like to others in approved authors, or that he had not read enough to give us a fair hold of him; but that his expression is so totally his own, that he almost always sets us at defiance.

You will ask me, perhaps, now I am on this subject, how it happened that Shakespear’s language is every where so much his own as to secure his imitations, if they were such, from discovery; when I pronounce with such assurance of those of our other poets. The answer is given for me in the Preface to Mr. Theobald’s Shakespear; though the observation, I think, is too good to come from that critic. It is, that, though his words, agreeably to the state of the English tongue at that time, be generally Latin, his phraseology is perfectly English: An advantage, he owed to his slender acquaintance with the Latin idiom. Whereas the other writers of his age, and such others of an older date as were likely to fall into his hands, had not only the most familiar acquaintance with the Latin idiom, but affected on all occasions to make use of it. Hence it comes to pass, that, though he might draw sometimes from the Latin (Ben Jonson, you know, tells us, He had less Greek) and the learned English writers, he takes nothing but the sentiment; the expression comes of itself, and is purely English.

I might indulge in other reflexions, and detain you still further with examples taken from his works. But we have lain, as the Poet speaks, on these primrose beds, too long. It is time that you now rise to your own nobler inventions; and that I return myself to those, less pleasing, perhaps, but more useful studies from which your friendly sollicitations have called me. Such as these amusements are, however, I cannot repent me of them, since they have been innocent at least, and even ingenuous; and, what I am fondest to recollect, have helped to enliven those many years of friendship we have passed together in this place. I see indeed, with regret, the approach of that time, which threatens to take me both from it, and you. But, however fortune may dispose of me, she cannot throw me to a distance, to which your affection and good wishes, at least, will not follow me.

And for the rest,

The coming years of my life will not, I foresee, in many respects, be what the past have been to me. But, till they take me from myself, I must always bear about me the agreeable remembrance of our friendship.

I am,
Dear Sir,
Your most affectionate
Friend and Servant.
Cambridge,
Aug. 15, 1757.

INDEX
TO THE
TWO VOLUMES.

• A.
• Addison, Mr., his judgment of the double sense of verbs, i. 359.
• his Cato, defended, 102.
• not too poetical, ib.
• its real defects, ib.
• his criticism on Milton proceeds on just principles, 393.
• how far defective, 396.
• Aeneis, prefigured under the idea of a temple, i. 333.
• the destruction of Troy, an episode, why, i. 139.
• Aglaophon, his rude manner of painting; why preferred to Parrhasius and Zeuxis, i. 346.
• Allegory, the distinguished pride of ancient poetry, i. 343.
• a fine instance from Virgil, 333.
• Ancients, immoderately extolled, why, i. 346.
• Antigone, the chorus of it defended, i. 158.
• Aphorisms, condemned in the Roman writers, i. 184.
• why used so frequently by the Greeks, 185.
• Apollonius Rhodius, why censured by Aristophanes and Aristarchus, i. 267.
• Apotheosis, the usual mode of flattery in the Augustan age, i. 333.
• Aristotle, his opinion of Homer’s imitations, i. 67.
• of Euripides, 116.
• of the business of the chorus, 145.
• of the sententious manner, 186.
• his fine Ode, corrected, 188. n.
• translated, 189.
• of the origin of tragedy, 94.
• a passage in his poetics explained, 123.
• his censure of the Iphigenia at Aulis, considered, 131.
• he was little known at Rome in Cicero’s time, 191.
• why Horace differs from him in his account of Aeschylus’s inventions, 240.
• a supposed contradiction between him and Horace reconciled, 262.
• his judgment of moral pictures, 375.
• his admiration of an epithet in Homer, on what founded, ii. 126.
• Art and Nature, their provinces in forming a poet, i. 273.
• Atellane fable, a species of Comedy, i. 192.
• different from the satyric piece, 195.
• the Oscan language used in it, 198.
• why criticised by Horace, 206.
• in what sense Pomponius, the Inventor of it, 198.
• Athenaeus, of the moralizing turn of the Greeks, i. 187.
• Auctor ad Herennium, defines an aphorism, i. 184.
• Augustus, fond of the old Comedy, i. 228. n.
• B.
• Bacon, Lord, his idea of poetry, ii. 178.
• Balzac, Mr., his flattery of Louis le juste, i. 344, 345.
• Beauty, the idea of, how distinguished from the pathetic, i. 110.
• Bentley, Dr., corrections of his censured, i. 71, 72, 106, 142.
• an interpretation of his confuted, 110.
• a conjecture of his confirmed, 349.
• Bos, M. de, how he accounts for the effect of Tragedy, i. 119.
• for the degeneracy of taste and literature, 264.
• what he thought of modern imitations of the ancient poets, ii. 224.
• Bouhours, P., his merit as a critic, pointed out, i. 393.
• wherein censured, 395.
• Brumoy, P., his character, i. 133.
• commends the Athalie and Esther of Racine, 145.
• justifies the chorus, ib.
• accounts for the sententious manner of the Greek stage, 185.
• an observation of his on the imitation of foreign characters, 247.
• Bruyere, M. de la, an observation of his concerning the manners, ii. 135.
• Busiris, in what sense a ridiculous character, i. 208.
• C.
• Caesar, C. Julius, his judgment of Terence, i. 225.
• Casaubon, Isaac, his book on satyric poetry recommended, i. 194.
• an emendation of his confirmed, 208.
• Character, the object of comedy, ii. 56.
• of what sort, 40.
• of what persons, ib.
• plays of, in what faulty, 48.
• instances of such plays, 53.
• Characters, of comedy, general; of tragedy, particular, why, ii. 48.
• this matter explained at large, to 54.
• Chorus, its use and importance, i. 145.
• its moral character, 156.
• more easily conducted by ancient than modern poets, 161.
• improvements in the Latin tragic chorus, 179.
• Cicer, M. Tullius, of the use of old words, i. 89.
• of self-murder, 162.
• of poetic licence, 174.
• of the language of Democritus and Plato, 180.
• of the music of his time, 182.
• of the neglect of philosophy, 191.
• of the mimes, 205.
• of Plautus’s wit, 220.
• does not mention Menander, 229.
• mentions corporal infirmities as proper subjects for ridicule, 231.
• of a good poet, 249.
• of decorum, 251.
• of the use of philosophy, ib.
• Cid, of P. Corneille, its uncommon success, to what owing, i. 398.
• Clowns, their character in Shakespear, i. 186.
• Comedy, Roman, three species of it, i. 192.
• —— the author’s idea of it, ii. 30.
• conclusions concerning its nature, from that idea, 37.
• attributes, common to it and tragedy, 42.
• attributes, peculiar to it, 45.
• its genius, considered at large, 57.
• M. de Fontenelle’s notion of it, considered, 75.
• idea of it enlarged since the time of Aristotle, 65.
• polite and heroic, what we are to think of it, 86.
• on high life, censured, ib.
• of modern invention, ib.
• accounted for, 87.
• why more difficult than tragedy, ib.
• Comparison, similarity of, in all writers, why necessary, ii. 194.
• why more so in the graver than lighter poetry, 198.
• Corneille, P., his objection to Euripides’s Medea, confuted, i. 163.
• his notion of comic action considered, ii. 41.
• Criticism, the uses of it, ii. 105.
• its aim, 391.
• when perfect, ib.
• D.
• Dacier, M., criticisms of his considered, i. 94, 168, 173, 174, 175, 240, 244, 245, 268, ibid.
• the author’s opinion of him, as a critic, 62, n. and 272.
• his account of the opening of the Epistle to Augustus censured, 326.
• Dance, the choral commended, i. 178.
• Davenant, Sir William, his Gondibert criticised, ii. 235.
• Demetrius Phalereus, characterizes the satyric piece, i. 193.
• Description, natural and moral, why similar in the form as well as matter in all poets, ii. 191, 192.
• Dialogue, Socratic, the genius of, i. 252.
• Dio Cassius, instances from him of the gross flattery paid to Caesar, i. 330.
• Diomedes, of the Satyric and Atellane fables, i. 195.
• of the use of the Satyric piece, 203.
• a passage in him corrected by Casaubon, 208.
• his character of the Atellanes, 234.
• distinguishes the different kinds of the Roman drama, 241.
• Dionysius, of Halicarnassus, of the use of words, i. 92.
• of Plato’s figurative style, 254.
• Doctus, the meaning of, explained, i. 350-352.
• Donatus, distinguishes the three forms of comedy, i. 192, 193.
• Drama, see Tragedy, Comedy, Farce.
• —— Peruvian, some account of, ii. 66, 67.
• Chinese, 67.
• Greek and Roman, its character, 69.
• the laws of, in what different from those of history, ii. 179.
• Dulce, its distinction from pulchrum, i. 109.
• Duport, Pr., his collection of moral parallelisms in Homer, and Sacred Writ, of what use? ii. 140.
• E.
• Electra, of Euripides, vindicated, i. 125.
• a circumstance in the two plays of that name by Euripides and Sophocles compared, 259.
• Elfrida, of Mr. Mason, i. 148.
• the best apology for the ancient chorus, ibid.
• Envy, how it operates in human nature, i. 329.
• how it operated in the case of Mr. Pope, 328.
• Epic Poetry, admits new words, i. 73.
• its plan how far to be copied by the tragic poet, 137.
• in what different from history, ii. 179.
• Episode, its character and laws, ii. 185.
• Epistle, didactic and elegiac, Intr. to vol. i. 17.
• Didactic, the offspring of the satyr, ibid.
• its three-fold character, 24.
• Elegiac, the difference of this from the didactic form, 23, 24.
• Eratosthenes, his idea of the end of poetry, ii. 4.
• Euripides, his character, i. 116.
• his Medea commended, 121.
• Electra vindicated, 125.
• Iphigenia in Aulis vindicated, 131.
• the decorum of his characters, 132.
• his Hippolytus led Seneca into mistakes, 150.
• an observation on the chorus of that play, 161.
• and of the Medea, 162.
• Quintilian’s character of him, 191.
• a circumstance in his Electra compared with Sophocles, 259.
• his genius resembling Virgil’s, ii. 152.
• Expression, why similar in different writers without imitation, ii. 204.
• F.
• Fable, why essential to both Dramas, ii. 42.
• why an unity and even simplicity in the fable, 43.
• a good one, why not so essential to comedy as tragedy, 45.
• Farce, the author’s idea of it, ii. 30.
• its laws, 96.
• its end and character, how distinguished from those of tragedy and comedy, 98.
• Feeling, rightly made the test of poetical merit, i. 390.
• Fenelon, of the use of old words, i. 91.
• Fiction, poetical, when credible, ii. 130.
• the soul of poetry, ii. 11.
• Flattery of the Roman Emperors excessive, i. 330.
• imported from the Asiatic provinces, 331.
• Fontenelle, M. de, his opinion of the origin of comedy, i. 244.
• his notion of the drama, ii. 75, &c.
• his comedies criticised, 90.
• his pastorals censured, ibid.
• his opinion of the uses of criticism, 105.
• G.
• Geddes, J. Esq., his notion of the most essential principles of Eloquence, i. 381.
• Gellius, Aulus, his opinion of Laberius, i. 206.
• Genius, original, a proof of, in the particularity of description, ii. 126.
• similarity of, in two writers, its effects, 225.
• Georgic, the form of this poem, what, ii. 183.
• Greeks, their most ancient writers falsely supposed to be the best, i. 347.
• H.
• Heinsius, his idea of true criticism, i. 65.
• his explanation of a passage in Horace, 148.
• thought one part of the Epistle to the Pisos inexplicable, 269.
• his transposition of the Epistle censured, 272.
• Hippolytus, of Euripides; an observation on the chorus, i. 161.
• of Seneca, censured, 149.
• Hobbes, Mr., his censure of the Italian romancers in their unnatural fiction, ii. 238.
• Hoeslinus, his opinion of the fourth book of the Aeneis, ii. 154.
• Homer, first invented dramatic imitations, i. 42.
• his excellence in painting the effects of the manners, ii. 157.
• Horace, explained and illustrated, passim.
• his Epistle to the Pisos, a criticism on the Roman drama, Introd. to vol. i. 15.
• the character of his genius, 24.
• his Epistle to Augustus, an apology for the Roman poets, 325.
• design and character of his other critical works, 407.
• what may be said for his flattery of Augustus, 330.
• fond of the old Latin poets, 349.
• his knowledge of the world, 379.
• Hume, David, Esq., his account of the pathos in tragedy, considered, i. 118.
• his judgment of Fontenelle’s discourse on pastoral poetry, 218.
• Humour, the end of comedy, ii. 57.
• two species of humour, 59.
• one of these not much known to the ancients, ibid.
• neither of them in that perfection on the ancient as modern stage, 60.
• may subsist without ridicule, 62.
• yet enlivened by it, 64.
• Hymns, profane and sacred, why similar, ii. 138.
• I. and J.
• Invention, in poetry, what, ii. 111.
• principally displayed in the manner of imitation, 158.
• Jester, a character by profession amongst the Greeks, i. 235.
• Imitation, primary and secondary, what, ii. 113.
• the latter not easily distinguishable from the former, ibid.
• shewn at large in respect of the matter of poetry, 115 to 176.
• of the manner, 176 to 215.
• in painting, sooner detected than in poetry, why, 162.
• how it may be detected, 208 and Letter to Mr. Mason, throughout.
• Why no rules delivered for it in the Discourse on imitation, 214.
• confessed, no certain proof of an inferiority of genius, 215, 216.
• accounted for from habit, 217.
• from authority, 221.
• from judgment, 222.
• from similarity of genius, 224.
• from the nature of the subject, 226.
• its singular merit, 228.
• not to be avoided by literate writers without affectation, 234.
• Incolumi gravitate, a learned critic’s interpretation of these words, i. 201.
• Innovation, in words, why allowed to old writers, and not to others, i. 88.
• Intrigue, when faulty in comedy, ii. 39.
• Jonson, Ben, a criticism on his Catiline, i. 135.
• his Every man out of his humour censured, ii. 52.
• his Alchymist and Volpone criticized, 101.
• the character of his genius and comedy, 103.
• Iphigenia at AULIS, of Euripides, vindicated, i. 131.
• Julius Pollux, shews the Tibia to have been used in the chorus, i. 177.
• Junctura Callida, explained, i. 74.
• exemplified from Shakespear, 77.
• K.
• Knowledge of the world, what, i. 379.
• L.
• Laberius, his mimes, what, i. 205.
• Lambin, his comment on communia supported, i. 133.
• Landskip-painting, wherein its beauty consists, i. 71.
• Lex Talionis, i. 127.
• Licence, of particular seasons in Greece and Rome, its effect on taste, i. 234, 235.
• of ancient wit, to what owing, 231.
• Lipsius, his extravagant flattery, i. 332.
• Longinus, his opinion of imitators without genius, i. 250.
• accounts for the decline of the arts, 265.
• his opinion of the mutual assistance of art and nature, 273.
• his method of criticizing, scientific, 392.
• wherein defective, 394.
• Love, subjects of, a defect in modern tragedy, why, ii. 34.
• passion of, how described by Terence and Shakespear, ii. 144.
• by Catullus and Ovid, 151.
• by Virgil, 152.
• Lucian, the first of the ancients who has left us any considerable specimens of comic humour, i. 225.
• his ΑΛΕΚΤΡΥΩΝ and ΛΑΠΙΘΑΙ, 235.
• M.
• Machinery, essential to the epic poetry, why, ii. 166.
• Malherbe, M., the character and fortune of his poetry, i. 358.
• Manners, why imperfect in both dramas, ii. 60.
• description of, whence taken, 129.
• Markland, Mr., an emendation of his confirmed, i. 71.
• Marks, of Imitation, ii. Letter to Mr. Mason.
• Mason, his Elfrida, commended, i. 148.
• Medea, of Euripides, commended, i. 121.
• its chorus vindicated, 162.
• of Seneca, censured, 122.
• Menage, his judgment of ancient wit, i. 230.
• his intended discourse on imitation, 405.
• Menander, why most admired after the Augustan age, i. 223.
• did not excel in comic humour, 225.
• his improvements of comedy, ii. 72.
• Milton, his angels, whence taken, ii. 116.
• his attention to the effects of the manners, 158.
• Mimes, the character of them, i. 205.
• defined by Diomedes, 206.
• Moderns, bad imitators of Plato, i. 234.
• Moliere, his comedies farcical, ii. 100.
• his Misanthrope and Tartuffe commended, 101.
• Money, love of, the bane of the ancient arts, i. 264.
• Morning, descriptions of, in the poets compared, ii. 123.
• when most original, 126.
• Music, old, why preferred by the Greek writers, i. 181.
• why by the Latin, 182.
• —— of the stage, its rise and progress at Rome, i. 168.
• defects of the old music, 182.
• N.
• Narration, oratorial, the credibility of, on what it depends, ii. 130. n.
• Novels, modern, criticized, ii. 18.
• O.
• Ode, its character, i. 94.
• its end, 270.
• the poet’s own odes, apologized for, ibid.
• Opinion, popular, of writings, under what circumstances to be regarded, i. 355.
• D’Orville, Mr., his defence of the double sense of verbs examined, i. 358.
• Osci, their language used in the Atellanes, i. 196.
• Otway, his Orphan censured, i. 68.
• Ovid, the character of his genius, Introd. to i. 23, 24.
• a conjecture concerning his Medea, i. 143.
• makes the satyrs to be a species of the tragic drama, 192.
• his account of the mimes, 205.
• P.
• Painting, Landskip, wherein its beauty consists, i. 71.
• Portrait, its excellence, ii. 49.
• difference between the Italian and Flemish schools, i. 256.
• its moral efficacy, 375.
• inferior to poetry, in what, ii. 130.
• wherein superior to poetry, 146.
• expresses the general character, 160.
• hath an advantage in this respect over poetry, 162.
• unable to represent moral and œconomical sentiments, 168.
• Passions, the way to paint them naturally, ii. 131.
• Pastoral poetry, its genius, and fortunes, i. 214.
• Pathos, the supreme excellence of tragedy, i. 116., 397.
• how far to be admitted into comedy, ii. 73.
• the pleasure arising from, how to be accounted for, i. 119.
• Paterculus, Velleius, an admirer of Menander, i. 229.
• his character of Pomponius, 197.
• Pausanias, describes two pictures of Polygnotus, ii. 161.
• Perron, Cardinal, his manner of criticizing Ronsard, i. 394.
• Plato, his opinion of Homer’s imitations, i. 67.
• commends the Aegyptian policy in retaining the songs of Isis, 181.
• his Symposium criticized, 235.
• his manner of writing, characterised, 255.
• his Phaedrus censured, ibid.
• his objection to poetry answered, 256.
• Plautus, why Cicero commends his wit, and Horace condemns it, i. 220.
• copied from the middle comedy, 228.
• his apology for the Amphitruo, why necessary, ii. 42.
• preferred to Terence in the Augustan age, i. 228.
• Plots, double, in the Latin comedies, admired, why, i. 354.
• Plutarch, his admiration of Menander, i. 229.
• Poetry, the art of, wherein it consists, ii. 3.
• the knowledge of its several species, necessary to the dramatic poet, i. 94.
• more philosophic than history, 257.
• tragic, its peculiar excellence, 397.
• hath the advantage of all other modes of imitation, in what, ii. 172.
• —— descriptive, an identity in the subject of, no proof of imitation, ii. 118.
• —— pure, the proper language of Passion, i. 104.
• Poets, old, much esteemed by Horace, i. 349.
• their apology, 380.
• bad soldiers, 384.
• dramatic, a rule for their observance, i. 105.
• bad, characterized by Milton, 378.
• Polygnotus, his simple manner, why admired, under the emperors, i. 346.
• his expedient to explain the design of his pictures, ii. 161.
• Pomponius, in what sense Inventor of the Atellane poem, i. 198.
• Pope, Mr., honoured after death, by whom, i. 329.
• his censure of a passage in the Iliad, defended, 359.
• his judgment of the 6th book of the Thebaid, ii. 191.
• his censure of the comparisons in Virgil considered, 201.
• his opinion of imitation, 234.
• Poussin, Gaspar, his landskips, in what excellent, i. 70.
• Prodigies, inquiry into, the author’s opinion of that discourse, ii. 206.
• an observation quoted from it, ib.
• Pulchrum, how distinguished from Dulce, i. 109.
• Q.
• Quintilian, his judgment of new words, i. 88, 93.
• of Varius’ tragedy of Thyestes, 95.
• of the pathetic vein of Euripides, 116.
• of Ovid’s Medea, 144.
• of the state of Music in his time, 182.
• of Euripides’ use of sentences, 190.
• of the old Greek comic writers, 223.
• of Terence’s wit, 225.
• and elegance, 226.
• of the licentious feasts of Bacchus, &c., 235.
• of Aeschylus, 239.
• of the false fire of bad writers, 250.
• his opinion of the necessary inferiority of a copy to its original, how far to be admitted, ii. 114.
• his rule for oratorial narration, 130. n.
• R.
• Randolph, his Muse’s Looking-glass, censured, ii. 53.
• Rhyme, how far essential to modern poetry, ii. 11.
• Riccoboni, L., his observation of the difference betwixt the Greek and French drama, ii. 43. n.
• a good critic, though a mere player, ib.
• Robortellus, his explanation of a passage, inforced, i. 110.
• Romans, much addicted to spectacles, i. 389.
• Ruisdale, his waters, i. 71.
• S.
• Salmasius, what he thought of the method of the Epistle to the Pisos, Intr. to vol. i. 25. n.
• Saperet, the meaning of this word in A. P., i. 169.
• Satyrs, a species of the tragic drama, i. 192.
• distinct from the Atellane fables, 195.
• —— of elder Greece, what, i. 194.
• —— why Horace enlarges upon them, i. 202, 203.
• their double purpose, 200.
• style, 210.
• measure, 219.
• Scaliger, J., what he thought of the Epistles of Horace, Intr. to i. 24. n.
• of the ancient Mimes, i. 205.
• his wrong interpretation of the Art of Poetry, to what owing, Intr. to i. 16.
• Scene, of comedy, laid at home; of tragedy, abroad; the reason of this practice, ii. 55.
• Scholars, their pretensions to public honours and preferments, on what founded, i. 399.
• Scholia, of the Greeks, i. 187.
• Aristotle’s translated, 189.
• Seneca, the philosopher, his account of the mimes of Laberius, i. 206.
• —— his Medea, censured, i. 121, 143.
• his Hippolytus censured, 149.
• his Aphorisms quaint, 191.
• Sentences, why so frequent in the Greek writers, i. 185.
• Sentiments, religious, moral, and œconomical, why the descriptions of, similar in all poets, ii. 136, 145.
• Sermo, the meaning of this word, i. 327.
• Shaftesbury, E., of, his opinion of Homer’s imitations, i. 67.
• of the writings of Plato, 252.
• his Platonic manner liable to censure, 253.
• Shakespear, excels in the callida junctura, i. 77.
• how he characterizes his clowns, 200.
• his want of a learned education, 248.
• advantages of it, ib.
• his excellence in drawing characters, wherein it consists, ii. 53.
• his power in painting the passion of grief, 133.
• his description of œconomical sentiments, original, 144.
• Statius, his character, ii. 190.
• his book of games criticized, 191.
• Shirley, a fine passage from one of his plays, i. 86.
• Sidney, Sir Philip, his character, i. 116.
• his encomium on the pathos of tragedy, 397.
• Socrates, his office in the symposia of Xenophon and Plato, i. 236. n.
• his judgment of moral paintings, 375.
• Sophocles, the chorus of his Antigone defended, i. 158, 163. n.
• a satyric tragedy ascribed to him, 193.
• a circumstance in his Electra compared with Euripides, 259.
• Stephens, H., his observations on the refinement of the French language, i. 90.
• Strabo, a passage from him to prove the Tuscan language used in the Atellanes, i. 198.
• Style, of poetry, defined, ii. 10.
• Subjects, public, how to acquire a property in them, i. 219.
• domestic, why fittest for the stage, 247.
• real, succeed best in tragedy; feigned, in comedy, why, ii. 46.
• T.
• Tacitus, a bold expression of his, justified, i. 103.
• Telemaque, why no new similes in this work, ii. 203.
• Telephus, a tragedy of Euripides, i. 107.
• another tragedy of that name glanced at by Horace, 108.
• Tempe, Aelian’s description of, translated, ii. 119.
• Temple, Sir William, his sentiments on the passion of avarice, i. 265.
• his notion of religious description in modern poets, ii. 166.
• Terence, why his plays ill received, i. 224.
• fell short of Menander in the elegance of his expression, 225.
• a remarkable instance of humour in the Hecyra, ii. 62.
• the characteristic of his comedies, his Hecyra vindicated, i. 354, 355.
• a passage in his Andrian compared with one in Shakespear’s Twelfth-Night, ii. 144.
• his opinion of the necessary uniformity of moral description, 194.
• Tragedy, the Author’s idea of, ii. 30.
• conclusions, concerning its nature, from this idea, 31.
• attributes, common to it and comedy, 42.
• attributes peculiar to it, 45.
• —— admits pure poetry, i. 101.
• why its pathos pleases, 119.
• on low life, censured, ii. 84.
• a modern refinement, 86.
• accounted for, 87.
• Trapp, Dr., his interpretation of communia, i. 134.
• his judgment of the chorus, 146.
• Truth in Poetry, what, i. 255.
• may be followed too closely in works of imitation, ib.
• U.
• Varro, M. Terentius, assigns the distinct merit of Cæcilius and Terence, i. 353.
• Vatry, Abbé, his defence of the ancient chorus, i. 148.
• Victorius, of the satyric Metre, i. 219.
• Virgil, his method in conducting the Aeneis justified, i. 139.
• his address in his flattery of Augustus, 332.
• his introduction to the third Georgic explained, 333.
• three verses in the same, spurious, 341. n.
• his moral character, vindicated, 403.
• his poetical, vol. ii. Discourse on poetical imitation, throughout;
• his book of games defended from the charge of plagiarism, 187.
• why few comparisons in his works, but what are to be found in Homer, 201.
• Uncti, the meaning of, in the Epistle to Augustus, i. 349.
• Voltaire, M. de, his judgment of machinery, what, ii. 166. n.
• Upton, Mr., his criticism on the satyrs, examined, i. 202.
• W.
• Warburton, Mr., his edition of Mr. Pope; Intr. to i. 26.
• and of Shakespear, Ded. to Epistle to Augustus, 287. and 80.
• his judgment of the intricacy of the comic plot, ii. 39.
• of the scene of the drama, 55.
• of comic humour, 61.
• of the double sense in writing, i. 365.
• of the similarity in religious rites, ii. 165.
• Whole, its beauty consists not in the accurate finishing, but in the elegant disposition, of the parts, i. 69.
• Wit, ancient, licentious, i. 230.
• why, 231.
• Words, old ones, their energy, how revived, i. 89.
• X.
• Xenophon, an elegant inaccuracy in a speech in the Cyropaedia, i. 99. n.
• his fine narration of a circumstance in the story of Panthea, unsuited to the stage, 143.
• his symposium explained, 235. n.
• a conversation on painting from the Memorabilia, translated, 375.
• Z.
• Zeuxis, his pictures, in what repute under the Emperors, i. 346.