It may appear from this instance, with what reason a similarity of circumstance, in the other games, hath been objected. The subject-matter admitted not any material variation: I mean in the hands of so judicious a copier of Nature as Virgil. For,
“Homer and Nature were, he found, the same.”
So that we are not to wonder he kept close to his author, though at the expence of this false fame of Originality. Nay it appears directly from a remarkable instance that in the case before us, He unquestionably judged right.
A defect of natural ability is not that, which the critics have been most forward to charge upon Statius. A person of true taste, who, in a fanciful way, hath contrived to give us the just character of the Latin poets, in assigning to this poet the topmost station on Parnassus, sufficiently acknowledges the vigour and activity of his genius. Yet, in composing his Thebaid (an old story taken from the heroic ages, which obliged him to the celebration of funeral obsequies with the attending solemnities of public games) to avoid the dishonour of following too closely on the heels of Homer and Virgil, who had not only taken the same route, but pursued it in the most direct and natural course, he resolved, at all adventures, to keep at due distance from them, and to make his way, as well as he could, more obliquely to the same end. To accomplish this project, he was forced, though in the description of the same individual games, to look out for different circumstances and events in them; that so the identity of his subject, which he could not avoid, might, in some degree, be atoned for by the diversity of his manner in treating it. It must be owned, that great ingenuity as well as industry hath been used, in executing this design. Had it been practicable, the character, just given of this poet, makes it credible, he must have succeeded in it. Yet, so impossible it is, without deserting nature herself, to dissent from her faithful copiers, that the main objection to the sixth book of the Thebaid hath arisen from this fruitless endeavour of being original, where common sense and the reason of the thing would not permit it. “In the particular descriptions of each of these games (says the great writer before quoted, and from whose sentence in matters of taste, there lies no appeal) Statius hath not borrowed from either of his predecessors, and his poem is so much the worse for it.”
2. The case of DESCRIPTION is still clearer, and, after what has been so largely discoursed on the subjects of it, will require but few words. For it must have appeared, in considering them, that not only the objects themselves are necessarily obtruded on the poet, but that the occasions of introducing them are also restrained by many limitations. If we reflect a little, we shall find, that they grow out of the action represented, which, in the greater poetry, implies a great similarity, even when most different. What, for instance, is the purpose of the epic poet, but to shew his hero under the most awful and interesting circumstances of human life? To this end some general design is formed. He must war with Achilles, or voyage with Ulysses. And, to work up his fable to that magnificence, ΜΕΓΑΛΟΠΡΕΠΕΙΑΝ, which Aristotle rightly observes to be the characteristic of this poem, heaven and hell must also be interested in the success of his enterprise. And what is this, in effect, but to own, that the pomp of epic description, in its draught of battles, with its several accidents; of storms, shipwrecks, &c. of the intervention of gods, or machination of devils, is, in great measure, determined, not only as to the choice, but application of it, to the poet’s hands? And the like conclusion extends to still minuter particularities.
What concerns the delineation of characters may seem to carry with it more difficulty. Yet, though these are infinitely diversified by distinct peculiar lineaments, poetry cannot help falling into the same general representation. For it is conversant about the greater characters; such as demand the imputation of like manners, and who are actuated by the same governing passions. To set off these, the same combination of circumstances must frequently be imagined; at least so similar, as to bring on the same series of representation. The piety of one hero, and the love of his country, which characterizes another, can only be shewn by the influence of the ruling principle in each, constraining them to neglect inferior considerations, and to give up all subordinate affections to it. The more prevalent the affection, the greater the sacrifice, and the more strongly is the character marked. Hence, without doubt, the Calypso of Homer. And need we look farther than the instructions of common nature for a similar contrivance in a later poet? Not to be tedious on a matter, which admits no dispute, the dramatic writings of all times may convince us of two things, 1. “that the actuating passions of men are universally and invariably the same;” and 2. “that they express themselves constantly in similar effects.” Or, one single small volume, the characters of Theophrastus, will sufficiently do it. And what more is required to justify this consequence, “that the descriptions of characters, even in the most original designers, will resemble each other;” and “that the very contexture of a work, designed to evidence them in action, will, under the management of different writers, be, frequently, much the same?” A conclusion, which indeed is neither mine nor any novel one, but was long ago insisted on by a discerning ancient, and applied to the comic drama, in these words,
—Si personis isdem uti aliis non licet,
Qui magis licet currentis servos scribere,
Bonas matronas facere, meretrices malas,
Parasitum edacem, gloriosum militem,
Puerum supponi, falli per servum senem,
Amare, odisse, suspicari?
3. In truth, so far as direct and immediate description is concerned, the matter is so plain, that it will hardly be called into question. The difficulty is to account for the similarity of metaphor and COMPARISON (that is, of imagery, which comes in obliquely, and for the purpose of illustrating some other, and, frequently, very remote and distinct subject) observable in all writers. Here it may not seem quite so easy to make out an original claim; for, though descriptions of the same object, when it occurs, must needs be similar, yet it remains to shew how the same object comes, in this case, to occur at all. Before an answer can be given to this question, it must be observed 1. that there is in the mind of man, not only a strong natural love of imitation, but of comparison. We are not only fond of copying single objects, as they present themselves, but we delight to set two objects together, and contemplate their mutual aspects and appearances. The pleasure we find in this exercise of the imagination is the main source of that perpetual usage of indirect and allusive imagery in the writings of the poets; for I need not here consider the necessity of the thing, and the unavoidable introduction of sensible images into all language. 2. This work of comparison is not gone about by the mind causelessly and capriciously. There are certain obvious and striking resemblances in nature, which the poet is carried necessarily to observe, and which offer themselves to him on the slightest exercise and exertion of his comparing powers. It may be difficult to explain the causes of this established relationship in all cases; or to shew distinctly, what these secret ties and connexions are, which link the objects of sense together, and draw the imagination thus insensibly from one subject to another. The most obvious and natural is that of actual similitude, whether in shape, attitude, colour, or aspect. As when heroes are compared to gods,—a hero in act to strike at his foe, to a faulcon stooping at a dove,—blood running down the skin, to the staining of ivory,—corn waving with the wind, to water in motion. Sometimes the associating cause lies in the effect. As when the return of a good prince to his country is compared to the sun—a fresh gale to mariners, to the timely coming of a general to his troops, &c. more commonly, in some property, attribute, or circumstance. Thus an intrepid hero suggests the idea of a rock, on account of its firmness and stability;—of a lion, for his fierceness,—of a deer encompassed with wolves, for his situation when surrounded with enemies. In short, for I pretend not to make a complete enumeration of the grounds of connexion, whatever the mind observes in any object, that bears an analogy to something in any other, becomes the occasion of comparison betwixt them; and the fancy, which is ever, in a great genius, quick at espying these traits of resemblance, and delights to survey them, lets dip no opportunity of setting them over against each other, and producing them to observation.
But whatever be the causes, which associate the ideas of the poet, and how fantastic soever or even casual, may sometimes appear to be the ground of such association, yet, in respect of the greater works of genius, there will still be found the most exact uniformity of allusion, the same ideas and aspects of things constantly admonishing the poet of the same resemblances and relations. I say, in the greater works of genius, which must be attended to; for the folly of taking resemblances for imitations, in this province of allusion, hath arisen from hence; that the poet is believed to have all art and nature before him, and to be at liberty to fetch his hints of similitude and correspondence from every distant and obscure corner of the universe. That is, the genius of the epic, dramatic, and universally, of the greater, poetry hath not been comprehended, nor their distinct laws and characters distinguished from those of an inferior species.
The mutual habitudes and relations (at least what the mind is capable of regarding as such), subsisting between those innumerable objects of thought and sense, which make up the entire natural and intellectual world, are indeed infinite; and if the poet be allowed to associate and bring together all those ideas, wherein the ingenuity of the mind can perceive any remote sign or glimpse of resemblance, it were truly wonderful, that, in any number of images and allusions, there should be found a close conformity of them with those of any other writer. But this is far from being the case. For 1. the more august poetry disclaims, as unsuited to its state and dignity, that inquisitive and anxious diligence, which pries into nature’s retirements; and searches through all her secret and hidden haunts, to detect a forbidden commerce, and expose to light some strange unexpected conjunction of ideas. This quaint combination of remote, unallied imagery, constitutes a species of entertainment, which, for its novelty, may amuse and divert the mind in other compositions; but is wholly inconsistent with the reserve and solemnity of the graver forms. There is too much curiosity of art, too solicitous an affectation of pleasing, in these ingenious exercises of the fancy, to suit with the simple majesty of the epos or drama; which disclaims to cast about for forced and tortured allusions, and aims only to expose, in the fairest light, such as are most obvious and natural. And here, by the way, it may be worth observing, in honour of a great Poet of the last century, I mean Dr. Donne, that, though agreeably to the turn of his genius, and taste of his age, he was fonder, than ever poet was, of these secret and hidden ways in his lesser poetry; yet when he had projected his great work “On the progress of the soul” (of which we have only the beginning) his good sense brought him out into the freer spaces of nature and open day-light.