But imitation, though it give most room to the display of judgment, does not exclude the exercise of the other faculty, invention. Nay, it requires the most dextrous, perhaps the most difficult, exertion of this faculty. For consider how the case stands. When we speak of an imitator, we do not speak, as the poet says, of
but of one, who, in aiming to be like, contends also to be equal to his original. To attain to this equality, it is not enough that he select the best of those stores which are ready prepared to his hand (for thus he would be rather a skilful borrower, than a successful imitator); but, in taking something from others, he must add much of his own: he must improve the expression, where it is defective or barely passable: he must throw fresh lights of fancy on a common image: he must strike out new hints from a vulgar sentiment. Thus, he will complete his original, where he finds it imperfect: he will supply its omissions: he will emulate, or rather surpass, its highest beauties. Or, in despair of this last, we shall find him taking a different route; giving us an equivalent in a beauty of another kind, which yet he extracts from some latent intimation of his author; or, where his purpose requires the very same representation, giving it a new form, perhaps a nobler, by the turn of his application.
But all this requires not only the truest judgment, but the most delicate operation of inventive genius. And, where they both meet in a supreme degree, we sometimes find an admired original, not only excelled by his imitator, but almost discredited. Of which, if there were no other, the sixth book of Virgil, I mean taking it in the light of an imitation, is an immortal instance.
Thus much I could not forbear saying on the merit of successful imitation. As to the necessity of the thing, hear the apology of a great Poet, for himself. “All that is left us, says this original writer, is to recommend our productions by the imitation of the ancients: and it will be found true, that, in every age, the highest character for sense and learning has been obtained by those who have been the most indebted to them. For, to say truth, whatever is very good sense, must have been common sense in all times; and what we call learning is but the knowledge of our predecessors. Therefore they who say our thoughts are not our own, because they resemble the ancients, may as well say, our faces are not our own, because they are like our fathers: and indeed it is very unreasonable, that people should expect us to be scholars, and yet be angry to find us so42.”
He adds, “I fairly confess, that I have served myself all I could by reading:” where the good sense of the practice, is as conspicuous, as the ingenuity, so becoming the greatness of his character, in confessing it. For, when a writer, who, as we have seen, is driven by so many powerful motives to the imitation of preceding models, revolts against them all, and determines, at any rate, to be original, nothing can be expected but an aukward straining in every thing. Improper method, forced conceits, and affected expression, are the certain issue of such obstinacy. The business is to be unlike; and this he may very possibly be, but at the expence of graceful ease and true beauty. For he puts himself, at best, into a convulsed, unnatural state; and it is well, if he be not forced, beside his purpose, to leave common sense, as well as his model, behind him. Like one who would break loose from an impediment, which holds him fast; the very endeavour to get clear of it throws him into uneasy attitudes, and violent contorsions; and, if he gain his liberty at last, it is by an effort, which carries him much further than the point he would wish to stop at.
And, that the reader may not suspect me of asserting this without experience, let me exemplify what has been here said in the case of a very eminent person, who, with all the advantages of art and nature that could be required to adorn the true poet, was ruined by this single error. The person I mean was Sir William D’Avenant; whose Gondibert will remain a perpetual monument of the mischiefs, which must ever arise from this affectation of originality in lettered and polite poets.
The great author, when he projected his plan of an heroic poem, was so far from intending to steer his course by example, that he sets out, in his preface, with upbraiding the followers of Homer, as a base and timorous crew of coasters, who would not adventure to launch forth on the vast ocean of invention. For, speaking of this poet, he observes, “that, as sea marks are chiefly used to coasters, and serve not those who have the ambition of discoverers, that love to sail in untried seas; so he hath rather proved a guide for those, whose satisfied wit will not venture beyond the track of others; than to them, who affect a new and remote way of thinking; who esteem it a deficiency and meanness of mind, to stay and depend upon the authority of example43.”
And, afterwards, he professedly makes his own merit to consist in “an endeavour to lead truth through unfrequented and new ways, and from the most remote shades; by representing nature, though not in an affected, yet in an unusual dress44.” These were the principles he went upon: let us now attend to the success of his endeavours.
The METHOD of his work is defective in many respects. To instance in the two following. Observing the large compass of the ancient epic, for which he saw no cause in nature, and which, he supposed, had been followed merely from a blind deference to the authority of the first model, he resolved to construct an heroic poem on the narrower and, as he conceived, juster plan of the dramatic poets. And, because it was their practice, for the purpose of raising the passions by a close accelerated plot, and for the convenience of representation, to conclude their subject in five acts, he affects to restrain himself within the same limits. The event was, that, cutting himself off, by this means, from the opportunity of digressive ornaments, which contribute so much to the pomp of the epic poetry; and, what is more essential, from the advantage of the most gradual and circumstantiated narration, which gives an air of truth and reality to the fable, he failed in accomplishing the proper end of this poem, ADMIRATION; produced by a grandeur of design and variety of important incidents, and sustained by all the energy and minute particularity of description.
2. It was essential to the ancient epos to raise and exalt the fable by the intervention of supernatural agency. This, again, the poet mistook for the prejudice of the affected imitators of Homer, “who had so often led them into heaven and hell, till, by conversation with gods and ghosts, they sometimes deprive us of those natural probabilities in story, which are instructive to human life45.” Here then he would needs be original; and so, by recording only the affairs of men, hath fairly omitted a necessary part of the epic plan, and that which, of all others, had given the greatest state and magnificence to its construction. Yet here, to do him justice, one thing deserves our commendation. It had been the way of the Italian romancers, who were at that time the best poets, to run very much into prodigy and enchantment. “Not only to exceed the work, but also the possibility of nature, they would have impenetrable armors, inchanted castles, invulnerable bodies, iron men, flying horses, and a thousand other such things, which are easily feigned by them that dare46.” These conceits, he rightly saw, had too slender a foundation in the serious belief of his age to justify a relation of them. And had he only dropped these, his conduct had been without blame. But, as it is the weakness of human nature, the observation of this extreme determined him to the other, of admitting nothing, however well established in the general opinion, that was supernatural.
And as here he did too much, so in another respect, it may be observed, he did too little. The romancers, before spoken of, had carried their notions of gallantry in ordinary life, as high, as they had done those of preternatural agency, in their marvellous fictions. Yet here this original genius, who was not to be held by the shackles of superstition, suffered himself to be entrapped in the silken net of love and honour. And so hath adopted, in his draught of characters, that elevation of sentiment which a change of manners could not but dispose the reader to regard as fantastic in the Gothic romance, at the same time that he rejected what had the truest grace in the ancient epic, a sober intermixture of religion.
The execution of his poem was answerable to the general method. His SENTIMENTS are frequently forced, and so tortured by an affectation of wit, that every stanza hath the air of an epigram. And the EXPRESSION, in which he cloaths them, is so quaint and figurative, as turns his description almost into a continued riddle.
Such was the effect of a studious affectation of originality in a writer, who, but for this misconduct, had been in the first rank of our poets. His endeavour was to keep clear of the models, in which his youth had been instructed, and which he perfectly understood. And in this indeed he succeeded. But the success lost him the possession of, what his large soul appears to have been full of, a true and permanent glory; which hath ever arisen, and can only arise, from the unambitious simplicity of nature; contemplated in her own proper form, or, by reflexion, in the faithful mirror of those very models, he so much dreaded.
In short, from what hath been here advanced, and especially as confirmed by so uncommon an instance, I think myself entitled to come at once to this general conclusion, which they, who have a comprehensive view of the history of letters, in their several periods, and a just discernment to estimate their state in them, will hardly dispute with me, “that, though many causes concur to produce a thorough degeneracy of taste in any country; yet the principal, ever, is, THIS ANXIOUS DREAD OF IMITATION IN POLITE AND CULTIVATED WRITERS.”
And, if such be the case, among the other uses of this Essay, it may perhaps serve for a seasonable admonition to the poets of our time, to relinquish their vain hopes of originality, and turn themselves to a stricter imitation of the best models. I say, a seasonable admonition; for the more polished a nation is, and the more generally these models are understood, the greater danger there is, as was now observed, of running into that worst of literary faults, affectation. But, to stimulate their endeavours to this practice, the judgment of the public should first be set right; and their readers prepared to place a just value upon it. In this respect, too, I would willingly contribute, in some small degree, to the service of letters. For the poet, whose object is fame, will always adapt himself to the humour of those, who confer it. And till the public taste be reduced, by sober criticism, to a just standard, strength of genius will only enable a writer to pervert it still further, by a too successful compliance with its vicious expectations.
A
DISSERTATION
ON
THE MARKS OF IMITATION.
I have said, in the discourse on Poetical Imitation, “that coincidencies of a certain kind, and in a certain degree, cannot fail to convict a writer of Imitation47.” You are curious, my friend, to know what these coincidencies are, and have thought that an attempt to point them out would furnish an useful Supplement to what I have written on this subject. But the just execution of this design would require, besides a careful examination of the workings of the human mind, an exact scrutiny of the most original and most imitative writers. And, with all your partiality for me, can you, in earnest, think me capable of fulfilling the first of these conditions; Or, if I were, do you imagine that, at this time o’ day, I can have the leisure to perform the other? My younger years, indeed, have been spent in turning over those authors which young men are most fond of; and among these I will not disown that the Poets of ancient and modern fame have had their full share in my affection. But you, who love me so well, would not wish me to pass more of my life in these flowery regions; which though you may yet wander in without offence, and the rather as you wander in them with so pure a mind and to so moral a purpose, there seems no decent pretence for me to loiter in them any longer.
Yet in saying this I would not be thought to assume that severe character; which, though sometimes the garb of reason, is oftener, I believe, the mask of dulness, or of something worse. No, I am too sensible to the charms, nay to the uses of your profession, to affect a contempt for it. The great Roman said well, Haec studia adolescentiam alunt; senectutem oblectant. We make a full meal of them in our youth. And no philosophy requires so perfect a mortification as that we should wholly abstain from them in our riper years. But should we invert the observation; and take this light food not as the refreshment only, but as the proper nourishment of Age; such a name as Cicero’s, I am afraid, would be wanting, and not easily found, to justify the practice.
Let us own then, on a greater authority than His, “That every thing is beautiful in its season.” The Spring hath its buds and blossoms: But, as the year runs on, you are not displeased, perhaps, to see them fall off; and would certainly be disappointed not to find them, in due time, succeeded by those mellow hangings, the poet somewhere speaks of.
I could alledge still graver reasons. But I would only say, in one word, that your friend has had his share in these amusements. I may recollect with pleasure, but must never live over again
Yet something, you insist, is to be done; and, if it amount to no more than a specimen or slight sketch, such as my memory, or the few notes I have by me, would furnish, the design, you think, is not totally to be relinquished.
I understand the danger of gratifying you on these terms. Yet, whatever it be, I have no power to excuse myself from any attempt, by which, you tell me at least, I may be able to gratify you. I will do my best, then, to draw together such observations, as I have sometimes thought, in reading the poets, most material for the certain discovery of Imitations. And I address them to YOU, not only as you are the properest judge of the subject; you, who understand so well in what manner the Poets are us’d to imitate each other, and who yourself so finely imitate the best of them; But as I would give you this small proof of my affection, and have perhaps the ambition of publishing to the world in this way the entire friendship, that subsists between us.
You tell me I have not succeeded amiss in explaining the difficulty of detecting Imitations. The materials of poetry, you own, lie so much in common amongst all writers, and the several ways of employing them are so much under the controul of common sense, that writings will in many respects be similar, where there is no thought or design of Imitating. I take advantage of this concession to conclude from it, That we can seldom pronounce with certainty of Imitations without some external proof to assist us in the discovery. You will understand me to mean by these external proofs, the previous knowledge we have, from considerations not respecting the Nature of the work itself, of the writer’s ability or inducements to imitate. Our first enquiry, then, will be, concerning the Age, Character, and Education of the supposed Imitator.
We can determine with little certainty, how far the principal Greek writers have been indebted to Imitation. We trace the waters of Helicon no higher than to their source. And we acquiesce, with reason, in the device of the old painter, you know of, who somewhat rudely indeed, but not absurdly, drew the figure of Homer with a fountain streaming out of his mouth, and the other poets watering at it.
The Greek writers then were, or, for any thing we can say, might be Original.
But we can rarely affirm this of any other. And the reason is plain. When a taste for letters prevailed in any country, if it arose at first from the efforts of original thinking, it was immediately cherished and cultivated by the study of the old writers. You are too well acquainted with the progress of ancient and modern wit to doubt of this fact. Rome adorned itself in the spoils of Greece. And both assisted in dressing up the later European poetry. What else do you find in the Italian or French Wits, but the old matter, worked over again; only presented to us in a new form, and embellished perhaps with a conceit or two of mere modern invention?
But the English, you say, or rather your fondness for your Masters leads you to suppose, are original thinkers. ’Tis true, Nature has taken a pleasure to shew us what she could do, by the production of ONE Prodigy. But the rest are what we admire them for, not indeed without Genius, perhaps with a larger share of it than has fallen to the lot of others, yet directly and chiefly by the discipline of art and the helps of imitation.
The golden times of the English Poetry were, undoubtedly, the reigns of our two Queens. Invention was at its height, in the one; and Correctness, in the other. In both, the manners of a court refin’d, without either breaking or corrupting the spirit of our poets. But do you forget that Elizabeth read Greek and Latin almost as easily as our Professors? And can you doubt that what she knew so well, would be known, admired, and imitated by every other? Or say, that the writers of her time were, some of them, ignorant enough of the learned languages to be inventors; can you suppose, from what you know of the fashion of that age, that their fancies would not be sprinkled, and their wits refreshed by the essences of the Italian poetry?
I scarcely need say a word of our OTHER Queen, whose reign was unquestionably the æra of classic imitation and of classic taste. Even they, who had never been as far as Greece or Italy, to warm their imaginations or stock their memories, might do both to a tolerable degree in France; which, though it bowed to our country’s arms, had almost the ascendant in point of letters.
I mention these things only to put you in mind that hardly one of our poets has been in a condition to do without, or certainly be above, the suspicion of learned imitation. And the observation is so true, that even in this our age, when good letters, they say, are departing from us, the Greek or Roman stamp is still visible in every work of genius, that has taken with the public. Do you think one needed to be told in the title-page, that a late Drama, or some later Odes were formed on the ancient model?
The drift of all this, you will say, is to overturn the former discourse; for that now I pretend, every degree of likeness to a preceding writer is an argument of imitation. Rather, if you please, conclude that, in my opinion, every degree of likeness is exposed to the suspicion of imitation. To convert this suspicion into a proof, it is not enough to say, that a writer might, but that his circumstances make it plain or probable at least, that he did, imitate.
Of these circumstances then, the first I should think deserving our attention, is the AGE in which the writer lived. One should know if it were an age addicted to much study, and in which it was creditable for the best writers to make a shew of their reading. Such especially was the age succeeding to that memorable æra, the revival of letters in these western countries. The fashion of the time was to interweave as much of ancient wit as possible in every new work. Writers were so far from affecting to think and speak in their own way, that it was their pride to make the admired ancient think and speak for them. This humour continued very long, and in some sort even still continues: with this difference indeed, that, then, the ancients were introduced to do the honours, since, to do the drudgery of the entertainment. But several causes conspired to carry it to its height in England about the beginning of the last century. You may be sure, then, the writers of that period abound in imitations. The best poets boasted of them as their sovereign excellence. And you will easily credit, for instance, that B. Jonson was a servile imitator, when you find him on so many occasions little better than a painful translator.
I foresee the occasion I shall have, in the course of this letter, to weary you with citations: and would not therefore go out of my way for them. Yet, amidst a thousand instances of this sort in Jonson, the following, I fancy, will entertain you. The Latin verses, you know, are of Catullus.
It came in Jonson’s way, in one of his masks, to translate this passage; and observe with what industry he has secured the sense, while the spirit of his author escapes him.
—It was not thus, you remember, that Ariosto and Pope have translated these fine verses. But to return to our purpose:
To this consideration of the Age of a writer, you may add, if you please, that of his Education. Though it might not, in general, be the fashion to affect learning, the habits acquired by a particular writer might dispose him to do so. What was less esteemed by the enthusiasts of Milton’s time (of which however he himself was one of the greatest) than prophane or indeed any kind of learning? Yet we, who know that his youth was spent in the study of the best writers in every language, want but little evidence to convince us that his great genius did not disdain to stoop to imitation. You assent, I dare say, to Dryden’s compliment, though it be an invidious one, “That no man has so copiously translated Homer’s Grecisms, and the Latin elegancies of Virgil.” Nay, don’t you remember, the other day, that we were half of a mind to give him up for a shameless plagiary, chiefly because we were sure he had been a great reader.
But no good writer, it will be said, has flourished out of a learned age, or at least without some tincture of learning. It may be so. Yet every writer is not disposed to make the most of these advantages. What if we pay some regard then to the CHARACTER of the writer? A poet, enamoured of himself, and who sets up for a great inventive genius, thinks much to profit by the sense of his predecessors, and even when he steals, takes care to dissemble his thefts, and to conceal them as much as possible. You know I have instanced in such a poet in Sir William D’Avenant. In detecting the imitations of such a writer, one must then proceed with some caution. But what if our concern be with one, whose modesty leads him to revere the sense and even the expression of approved authors, whose taste enables him to select the finest passages in their works, and whose judgment determines him to make a free use of them? Suppose we know all this from common fame, and even from his own confession; would you scruple to call that an imitation in him, which in the other might have passed for resemblance only?
As the character is amiable, you will be pleased to hear me own, there are many modern poets to whom it belongs. Perhaps, the first that occurred to my thoughts was Mr. Addison. But the observation holds of others, and of one, in particular, very much his superior in true genius. I know not whether you agree with me, that the famous line in the Essay on Man;
is taken from Plato’s, Πάντων ἱερώτατόν ἐστιν ἄνθρωπος ὁ ἀγαθός. But I am sure you will that the still more famous lines, which shallow men repeat without understanding,
are but copied, though with vast improvement in the force and turn of expression, from the excellent and, let it be no disparagement to him to say, from the orthodox Mr. Cowley. The poet is speaking of his friend Crashaw.
Mr. Pope, who found himself in the same circumstances with Crashaw, and had suffered no doubt from the like uncharitable constructions of graceless zeal, was very naturally tempted to adopt this candid sentiment, and to give it the further heightening of his own spirited expression.
Let us see then how far we are got in this inquiry. We may say of the old Latin poets, that they all came out of the Greek schools. It is as true of the moderns in this part of the world, that they, in general, have had their breeding in both the Greek and Latin. But when the question is of any particular writer, how far and in what instances you may presume on his being a professed imitator, much will depend on the certain knowledge you have of his Age, Education, and Character. When all these circumstances meet in one man, as they have done in others, but in none perhaps so eminently as in B. Jonson, wherever you find an acknowledged likeness, you will do him no injustice to call it imitation.
Yet all this, you say, comes very much short of what you require of me. You want me to specify those peculiar considerations, and even to reduce them into rule, from which one may be authorised, in any instance to pronounce of imitations. It is not enough, you pretend, to say of any passage in a celebrated poet, that it most probably was taken from some other. In your extreme jealousy for the credit of your order, you call upon me to shew the distinct marks which convict him of this commerce.
In a word, You require me to turn to the poets; to gather a number of those passages I call Imitations; and to point to the circumstances in each that prove them to be so. I attend you with pleasure in this amusing search. It is not material, I suppose, that we observe any strict method in our ramblings. And yet we will not wholly neglect it.
Perhaps then we shall find undoubted marks of Imitation, both in the Sentiment, and Expression of great writers.
To begin with such considerations as are most GENERAL.
I. An identity of the subject-matter of poetry is no sure evidence of Imitation: and least of all, perhaps, in natural description. Yet where the local peculiarities of nature are to be described, there an exact conformity of the matter will evince an imitation.
Descriptive poets have ever been fond of lavishing all the riches of their fancy on the Spring. But the appearances of this prime of the year are so diversified with the climate, that descriptions of it, if taken directly from nature, must needs be very different. The Greek and Latin, and, since them, the Provencial poets, when they insist, as they always do, on the indulgent softness of this season, its genial dews and fostering breezes, speak nothing but what is agreeable to their own experience and feeling.
Venus, or the spirit of love, is represented by those poets as brooding o’er this delicious season;
and a great deal more to the same purpose, which every one recollects in the old classic and in the Provencial poets.
But when we hear this language from the more Northern, and particularly our English bards, who perhaps are shivering with the blasts of the North-east, at the very time their imagination would warm itself with these notions, one is certain this cannot be the effect of observation, but of a sportful fancy; enchanted by the native loveliness of these exotic images, and charmed by the secret insensible power of imitation.
And to shew the certainty of this conclusion, Shakespear, we may observe, who had none of this classical or Provencial bias on his mind, always describes, not a Greek, or Italian, or Provencial, but an English Spring; where we meet with many unamiable characters; and, among the rest, instead of Zephyr or Favonius, we have the bleak North-east, that nips the blooming infants of the Spring.
But there are other obvious examples. In Cranmer’s prophetic speech, at the end of Henry VIII. when the poet makes him say of Queen Elizabeth, that,
and of King James, that,
It is easy to see that his Vine and Cedar are not of English growth, but transplanted from Judæa. I do not mention this as an impropriety in the poet, who, for the greater solemnity of his prediction, and even from a principle of decorum, makes his Arch-bishop fetch his imagery from Scripture. I only take notice of it as a certain argument that the imagery was not his own, that is, not suggested by his own observation of nature.
The case you see, in these instances, is the same as if an English landskip-painter should choose to decorate his Scene with an Italian sky. The Connoisseur would say, he had copied this particular from Titian, and not from Nature. I presume then to give it for a certain note of Imitation, when the properties of one clime are given to another.
II. You will draw the same conclusion whenever you find “The Genius of one people given to another.”
1. Plautus gives us the following true picture of the Greek manners:
You are better acquainted with the modern Italian writers than I am; but if ever you find any of them transferring this placability of temper into an eulogy of his countrymen, conclude without hesitation, that the sentiment is taken.
2. The late Editor of Jonson’s works observes very well the impropriety of leaving a trait of Italian manners in his Every man in his humour, when he fitted up that Play with English characters. Had the scene been laid originally in England, and that trait been given us, it had convicted the poet of Imitation.
3. This attention to the genius of a people will sometimes shew you, that the form of composition, as well as particular sentiments, comes from Imitation. An instance occurs to me as I am writing. The Greeks, you know, were great haranguers. So were the ancient Romans, but in a less degree. One is not surprized therefore that their historians abound in set speeches; which, in their hands, become the finest parts of their works. But when you find modern writers indulging in this practice of speech-making, you may guess from what source the habit is derived. Would Machiavel, for instance, as little of a Scholar as, they say, he was, have adorned his fine history of Florence with so many harangues, if the classical bias, imperceptibly, it may be, to himself, had not hung on his mind?
Another example is remarkable. You have sometimes wondered how it has come to pass that the moderns delight so much in dialogue-writing, and yet that so very few have succeeded in it. The proper answer to the first part of your enquiry will go some way towards giving you satisfaction as to the last. The practice is not original, has no foundation in the manners of modern times. It arose from the excellence of the Greek and Roman dialogues, which was the usual form in which the ancients chose to deliver their sentiments on any subject.
Still another instance comes in my way. How happened it, one may ask, that Sir Philip Sydney in his Arcadia, and afterwards Spenser in his Fairy Queen, observed so unnatural a conduct in those works; in which the Story proceeds, as it were, by snatches, and with continual interruptions? How was the good sense of those writers, so conversant besides in the best models of antiquity, seduced into this preposterous method? The answer, no doubt, is, that they were copying the design, or disorder rather, of Ariosto, the favourite poet of that time.
III. Of near akin to this contrariety to the genius of a people is another mark which a careful reader will observe “in the representation of certain Tenets, different from those which prevail in a writer’s country or time.”
1. We seldom are able to fasten an imitation, with certainty, on such a writer as Shakespear. Sometimes we are, but never to so much advantage as when he happens to forget himself in this respect. When Claudio, in Measure for Measure, pleads for his life in that famous speech,
It is plain that these are not the Sentiments which any man entertained of Death in the writer’s age or in that of the speaker. We see in this passage a mixture of Christian and Pagan ideas; all of them very susceptible of poetical ornament, and conducive to the argument of the Scene; but such as Shakespear had never dreamt of but for Virgil’s Platonic hell; where, as we read,
2. A prodigiously fine passage in Milton may furnish another example of this sort,
This philosophy of imbruted souls becoming thick shadows is so remote from any ideas entertained at present of the effects of Sin, and at the same time is so agreeable to the notions of Plato (a double favourite of Milton, for his own sake, and for the sake of his being a favourite with his Italian Masters), that there is not the least question of its being taken from the Phaedo.
Ἡ τοιαύτη ψυχὴ βαρύνεταί τε καὶ ἕλκεται πάλιν εἰς τὸν ὁρατὸν τόπον, φόβῳ τοῦ ἀειδοῦς τε καὶ ᾅδου, περὶ τὰ μνήματα καὶ τοὺς τάφους κυλινδουμένη· περὶ ἃ δὴ καὶ ὤφθη ἄττα ψυχῶν σκιοειδῆ φαντάσματα, οἷα παρέχονται αἱ τοιαῦται ψυχαὶ εἴδωλα, αἱ μὴ καθαρῶς ἀπολυθεῖσαι——
There is no wonder, now one sees the fountain Milton drew from, that, in admiration of this poetical philosophy (which nourished the fine spirits of that time, though it corrupted some), he should make the other speaker in the scene cry out, as in a fit of extasy,
The very ideas which Lord Shaftesbury has employed in his encomiums on the Platonic philosophy; and the very language which Dr. Henry More would have used, if he had known to express himself so soberly.
3. Having said so much of Plato, whom the Italian writers have helped to make known to us, let me just observe one thing, to our present purpose, of those Italian writers themselves. One of their peculiarities, and almost the first that strikes us, is a certain sublime mystical air which runs through all their fictions. We find them a sort of philosophical fanatics, indulging themselves in strange conceits “concerning the Soul, the chyming of celestial orbs, and presiding Syrens.” One may tell by these marks, that they doted on the fancies of Plato; if we had not, besides, direct evidence for this conclusion. Tasso says of himself, and he applauds the same thing in Petrarch, “Lessi già tutte l’opere di Platone, è mi rimassero molti semi nella menta della sua dottrina.” I take these words from Menage, who has much more to the same purpose, in his elegant observations on the Amintas of this poet.
One sees then where Milton had been for that imagery in the Arcades,
The best comment on these verses is a passage in the xth Book of Plato’s Republic, where this whole system, of Syrens quiring to the fates, is explained or rather delivered.
IV. We have seen a Mark of Imitation, in the allusion of writers to certain strange, and foreign tenets of philosophy. The observation may be extended to all those passages (which are innumerable in our poets) that allude to the rites, customs, language, and theology of Paganism.
It is true, indeed, this Species of Imitation is not that which is, properly, the subject of this Letter. The most original writer is allowed to furnish himself with poetical ideas from all quarters. And the management of learned Allusion is to be regarded, perhaps, as one of the nicest offices of Invention. Yet it may be useful to see from what sources a great poet derives his materials; and the rather, as this detection will sometimes account for the manner in which he disposes of them. However, I will but detain you with a remark or two on this class of Imitations.
1. I observe, that even Shakespear himself abounds in learned Allusions. How he came by them, is another question; though not so difficult to be answered, you know, as some have imagined. They, who are in such astonishment at the learning of Shakespear, besides that they certainly carry the notion of his illiteracy too far, forget that the Pagan imagery was familiar to all the poets of his time—that abundance of this sort of learning was to be picked up from almost every English book, he could take into his hands—that many of the best writers in Greek and Latin had been translated into English—that his conversation lay among the most learned, that is, the most paganized poets of his age—but above all, that, if he had never looked into books, or conversed with bookish men, he might have learned almost all the secrets of paganism (so far, I mean, as a poet had any use of them) from the Masks of B. Jonson; contrived by that poet with so pedantical an exactness, that one is ready to take them for lectures and illustrations on the ancient learning, rather than exercises of modern wit. The taste of the age, much devoted to erudition, and still more, the taste of the Princes, for whom he writ, gave a prodigious vogue to these unnatural exhibitions. And the knowledge of antiquity, requisite to succeed in them, was, I imagine, the reason that Shakespear was not over-fond to try his hand at these elaborate trifles. Once indeed he did, and with such success as to disgrace the very best things of this kind we find in Jonson. The short Mask in the Tempest is fitted up with a classical exactness. But its chief merit lies in the beauty of the Shew, and the richness of the poetry. Shakespear was so sensible of his Superiority, that he could not help exulting a little upon it, where he makes Ferdinand say,