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.
Ut flos in septis secretus nascitur hortis,
Ignotus pecori, nullo convulsus aratro,
Quem mulcent auræ, firmat sol, educat imber,
Multi illum pueri, multæ optavere puellæ.
Idem, quum tenui carptus defloruit ungui,
Nulli illum pueri, nullæ optavere puellæ.
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.
Look, how a flower that close in closes grows,
Hid from rude cattle, bruised with no plows,
Which th’ air doth stroke, sun strengthen, show’rs shoot high’r,
It many youths, and many maids desire;
The same, when cropt by cruel hand, is wither’d,
No youths at all, no maidens have desir’d.
—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?