SECTION II.
In entering on this apology for professed imitators, I shall not be suspected of undervaluing the proper merits of invention, which unquestionably holds the first place in the virtutes of a poet, and is that power, which, of all others, enables him to give the highest entertainment to the reader. Much less will it be thought, that I am here pleading the cause of those base and abject spirits, who have not the courage or ability to attempt any thing of themselves, and can barely make a shift, as a great poet of our own expresses it, to creep servilely after the sense of some other. These I readily resign to the shame and censure, which have so justly followed them in all ages; as subscribing to the truth of that remark, “Imitatio per se ipsa non sufficit, vel quia pigri est ingenii, contentum esse iis, quae sunt ab aliis inventa.” My concern is only with those, whose talent of original genius is not disputed, but the degree of strength and vigour, with which it prevails in them, somewhat lowered in the general estimation, from this imputed crime of PLAGIARISM. And, with respect to such as these, something, I conceive, may be said, not undeserving the notice of the candid reader.
1. The most universal cause, inducing imitation in great writers, is, the force of early discipline and education. Were it true, that poets took their descriptions and images immediately from common nature, one might expect, indeed, a general similitude in their works, but such, as could seldom or never, in all its circumstances, amount to a strict and rigorous correspondency. The properties of things are so numerous, and the lights in which they shew themselves to a mind uninfluenced by former prejudices, so different, that some grace of novelty, some tincture of original beauty, would constantly infuse itself into all their delineations. But the case is far otherwise. Strong as the bent of the imagination may be to contemplate living forms, and to gaze with delight on this grand theatre of nature, its attention is soon taken off, and arrested, on all sides, by those infinite mirrors, and reflexions of things, which it every where meets with in the world of imitation. We are habituated to a survey of this secondary and derivative nature; as presented in the admired works of art, through the entire course of our education. The writings of the best poets are put into our hands, to instruct us in the knowledge of men and things, as soon as we are capable of apprehending them. Nay, we are taught to lisp their very words, in our tenderest infancy. Some quick and transient glances we cannot chuse but cast, at times, on the phænomena of living beauty; but its forms are rarely contemplated by us with diligence, but in these mirrors, which are the constant furniture of our schools and closets. And no wonder, were we even left to ourselves, that such should be our proper choice and determination. For, by the prodigious and almost magical operations of fancy on original objects, they even shew fairer, and are made to look more attractive, in these artificial representations, than in their own rude and native aspects. Thus, by the united powers of discipline and inclination, we are almost necessitated to see nature in the same light, and to know her only in the dress, in which her happier suitors and favourites first gave her to observation.
The effect of this early bias of the mind, which insensibly grows into the inveteracy of habit, needs not be insisted on. When the poet, thus tutored in the works of imitation, comes to address himself to invention, these familiar images, which he hath so often and so fondly admired, immediately step in and intercept his observation of their great original. Or, if he has power to hold them off, and turn his eye directly on the primary object, he still inclines to view it only on that side and in those lights, in which he has been accustomed to study it. Nor let it be said, that this is the infirmity, only, of weak minds. It belongs to our very natures, and the utmost vigour of genius is no security against it. Custom, in this as in every thing else, moulds, at pleasure, the soft and ductile matter of a minute spirit, and by degrees can even bend the elastic metal of the greatest.
And if the force of habit can thus determine a writer knowingly, to imitation, it cannot be thought strange, that it should frequently carry him into resemblance, when himself perhaps is not aware of it. Great readers, who have their memories fraught with the stores of ancient and modern poetry, unavoidably employ the sentiments, and sometimes the very words, of other writers, without any distinct remembrance of them, or so much as the suspicion of having seen them. At the least, their general cast of thinking or turn of expression will be much affected by them. For the most original writer as certainly takes a tincture from the authors in which he has been most conversant; as water, from the beds of earths or minerals, it hath happened to run over. Especially such authors, as are studied and even got by heart by us in our early youth, leave a lasting impression, which is hardly ever effaced out of the mind. Hence a certain constrained and unoriginal air, in some degree or other, in every genius, throughly disciplined by a course of learned education. Which, by the way, leads to a question, not very absurd in itself, however it may pass with most readers for paradoxical, viz. “Whether the usual forms of learning be not rather injurious to the true poet, than really assisting to him?” It should seem to be so for a natural reason. For the faculty of invention, as all our other powers, is much improved and strengthened by exercise. And great reading prevents this, by demanding the perpetual exercise of the memory. Thus the mind becomes not only indisposed, but, for want of use, really unqualified, to turn itself to other views, than such as habitual recollection easily presents to it. And this, I am persuaded, hath been the case with many a fine genius, and especially with one of our own country[34]; who, as appears from some original efforts in the sublime allegorical way, had no want of natural talents for the greater poetry; which yet were so restrained and disabled by his constant and superstitious study of the old classics, that he was, in fact, but a very ordinary poet.
2. But were early habit of less power to incline the mind to imitation, than it really is, yet the high hand of authority would compel it. For the first originals in the several species of poetry, like the Autocthones of old, were deemed to have come into the world by a kind of miracle. They were perfect prodigies, at least reputed so by the admiring multitude, from their first appearance. So that their authority, in a short time, became sacred; and succeeding writers were obliged, at the hazard of their fame, and as they dreaded the charge of a presumptuous and prophane libertinism in poetry, to take them for their guides and models. Which is said even without the licence of a figure; at least of one of them; whom Cicero calls the fountain and origin of all DIVINE institutions[35]; and another, of elder and more reverend estimation, pronounces to be ὁ θεὸς καὶ θεῶν προφήτης[36]·
And what is here observed of the influence of these master spirits, whom the admiration of antiquity hath placed at the head of the poetic world, will, with some allowance, hold also, of that of later, though less original writers, whose uncommon merits have given them a distinguished rank in it.
3. Next, (as it usually comes to pass in other instances) what was, at first, imposed by the rigour of authority, soon grew respectable in itself, and was chosen for its own sake, as a virtue, which deserved no small commendation. For, when sober and enlightened criticism began to inspect, at leisure, these miracles of early invention, it presently acknowledged them for the best, as well as the most ancient, poetic models, and accordingly recommended, or more properly enjoined them by rule, to the imitation of all ages. The effect of this criticism was clearly seen in the works of all succeeding poets in the same language. But, when a new and different one was to be furnished with fresh models, it became much more conspicuous. For, besides the same or a still higher veneration of their inventions, which the distance of place and time insensibly procured to them, the grace of novelty, which they would appear to have in another language, was, now, a further inducement to copy them. Hence we find it to be the utmost pride of the Roman writers, such I mean as came the nearest to them in the divinity of their genius, to follow the practice, and emulate the virtues, of the Grecian.
Libera per vacuum posui vestigia princeps,
Non aliena meo pressi pede—
says one of the best of those writers, who yet was only treading in the footsteps of his Grecian masters.
But another was less reserved, and seemed desirous of being taken notice of, as an express imitator, without so much as laying in his claim to this sort of originality, in a new language—in multis versibus Virgilius fecit—non surripiendi causâ, sed palam imitandi, hoc animo ut vellet agnosci. Sen. Suasor. III.
And, on the revival of these arts in later times and more barbarous languages, the same spirit appeared again, or rather superior honours were paid to successful imitation. So that what a polite French writer declares on this head is, now, become the fixed opinion of the learned in all countries. “C’est même donner une grace à ses ouvrages, que de les orner de fragmens antiques. Des vers d’Horace et de Virgile bien traduits, et mis en œuvre à propos dans un poëme François, y font le même effet que les statuës antiques font dans la gallerie de Versailles. Les lecteurs retrouvent avec plaisir, sous une nouvelle forme, la pensée, qui leur plût autrefois en Latin[37].”
It should, further, be added, that this praise of borrowing from the originals of Greece and Rome is now extended to the imitation of great modern authors. Every body applauds this practice, where the imitation is of approved writers in different languages. And even in the same languages, when this liberty is taken with the most ancient and venerable, it is not denied to have its grace and merit.
4. But, besides these several incitements, similarity of genius, alone, will, almost necessarily determine a writer to the studious emulation of some other. For, though it is with the minds, as the faces of men, that no two are exactly and in every feature alike; yet the general cast of their genius, as well as the air and turn of the countenance, will frequently be very similar in different persons. When two such spirits approach, they run together with eagerness and rapidity: the instinctive bias of the mind towards imitation being now quickened by passion. This is chiefly said in respect of that uniformity of style and manner, which, whenever we observe it in two writers, we almost constantly charge to the account of imitation. Indeed, where the resemblance holds to the last degree of minuteness, or where the peculiarities, only, of the model are taken, there is ground enough for this suspicion. For every original genius, however consonant, in the main, to any other, has still some distinct marks and characters of his own, by which he may be distinguished; and to copy peculiarities, when there is no appearance of the same original spirit, which gave birth to them, is manifest affectation. But the question is put of such, whose manner hath only a general, though strong, resemblance to that of some other, and whose true genius is above the suspicion of falling into the trap of what Horace happily calls, EXEMPLAR VITIIS IMITABILE. And of these it is perhaps juster to say, that a previous correspondency of character impelled to imitate, than that imitation itself produced that correspondency of character. At least (which is all my concern it present) it will be allowed to incline a writer strongly to imitation; and where a congenial spirit appears to provoke him to it, a candid critic will not be forward to turn this circumstance to the dishonour of his invention.
5. Lastly, were every other consideration out of the way, yet, oftentimes, the very nature of the poet’s theme would oblige him to a diligent imitation of preceding writers. I do not mean this of such subjects, as suggest and produce a necessary conformity of description, whether purposely intended or not. This hath been fully considered. But my meaning is, that, when the greater provinces of poetry have been, already, occupied, and its most interesting scenes exhausted; or, rather, their application to the uses of poetry determined by great masters, it becomes, thenceforward, unavoidable for succeeding writers to draw from their sources. The law of probability exacts this at their hands; and one may almost affirm, that to copy them closely is to paint after nature. I shall explain myself by an instance or two.
With regard to the religious opinions and ceremonies of the Pagan world, the writings of Homer, it is said and very truly, were “the standard of private belief, and the grand directory of public worship[38].” Whatever liberty might have been taken with the rites and gods of Paganism before his time, yet, when he had given an exact description of both, and had formed, to the satisfaction of all, the established religion into a kind of system, succeeding poets were obliged, of course, to take their theology from him; and could no longer be thought to write justly and naturally of their Gods, than whilst their descriptions conformed to the authentic delineations of Homer. His relations, and even the fictions, which his genius had raised on the popular creed of elder Paganism, were now the proper archetype of all religious representations. And to speak of these, as given truly and originally, is, in effect, to say, that they were borrowed or rather transcribed from the page of that poet.
And the same may be observed of historical facts, as of religious traditions. For not unfrequently, where the subject is taken from authentic history, the authority of a preceding poet is so prevalent, as to render any account of the matter improbable, which is not fashioned and regulated after his ideas. A succeeding writer is neither at liberty to relate matters of fact, which no one thinks credible, nor to feign afresh for himself. In this case, again, all that the most original genius has to do, is to imitate. We have been told that the second book of the Aeneis was translated from Pisander[39]. Another thinks, it was taken from the LITTLE ILIAD[40]. Or, why confine him to either of these, when Metrodorus, Syagrus, Hegesianax, Aratus, and others, wrote poems on the taking of Troy? But granting the poet (as is most likely) to have had these originals before him, what shall we infer from it? Only this, that he took his principal facts and circumstances (as we see he was obliged to do for the sake of probability) from these writers. And why should this be thought a greater crime in him, than in Polygnotus; who, in his famous picture on this subject, was under the necessity, and for the same reason, of collecting his subject-matter from several poets[41]?
It follows, from these considerations, that we cannot justify ourselves in thinking so hardly, as we commonly do, of the class of imitators; which is, now, by the concurrence of various circumstances, become the necessary character of almost all poets. Nor let it be any concern to the true poet, that it is so. For imitations, when real and confessed, may still have their merit; nay, I presume to add, sometimes a greater merit, than the very originals on which they are formed: And, with the reader’s leave (though I am hastening to a conclusion of this long discourse), I will detain him, one moment, with the reasons of this opinion.
After all the praises that are deservedly given to the novelty of a subject, or the beauty of design, the supreme merit of poetry, and that which more especially immortalizes the writers of it, lies in the execution. It is thus that the poets of the Augustan age have not so properly excelled, as discredited, all the productions of their predecessors; and that those of the age of Louis XIVth not only obscure, but will in process of time obliterate, the fame and memory of the elder French writers. Or, to see the effect of masterly execution in single instances, hence it is, that Lucilius not only yields to Horace, but would be almost forgotten by us, if it had not been for the honour his imitator has done him. And nobody needs be told the advantage which Pope is likely to have over all our older satirists, excellent as some of them are, and more entitled than he to the honour of being inventors. We have here, then, an established fact. The first essays of genius, though ever so original, are overlooked; while the later productions of men, who had never risen to such distinction but by means of the very originals they disgrace, obtain the applause and admiration of all ages.
The solution of this fact, so notorious, and, at the same time, so contrary, in appearance, to the honours which men are disposed to pay to original invention, will open the mystery of that matter we are now considering.
The faculties, or, as we may almost term them, the magic powers, which ope the palace of eternity to great writers, are a confirmed judgment, and ready invention.
Now the first is seen to most advantage, in selecting, out of all preceding stores, the particulars that are most suited to the nature of a poet’s work, and the ends of poetry. When true genius has exhausted, as it were, the various manners, in which a work of art may be conducted, and the various topics which may be employed to adorn it, judgment is in its province, or rather sovereignty, when it determines which of all these is to be preferred, and which neglected. In this sense, as well as others, it will be most true, Quòd artis pars magna contineatur imitatione.
Nay, by means of this discernment, the very topic or method, which had no effect, or perhaps an ill one, under one management, or in one situation, shall charm every reader, in another. And by force of judging right, the copier shall almost lose his title, and become an inventor:
Tantum de medio sumptis accedit honoris.
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
A barren-spirited fellow, one who feeds
On abject orts, and imitations—
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 so[42].”
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 example[43].”
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 dress[44].” 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 life[45].” 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 dare[46].” 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.