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.