“Tempests of winds thus (as my storms of grief
Carry my tears which should relieve my heart)
Have hurried to the thankless ocean clouds
And show’rs, that needed not at all the courtesy.
When the poor plains have languish’d for the want,
And almost burnt asunder.”——
Brennoralt. A. III. S. 1.
I don’t stay to examine how far the fancy of tears relieving the heart is allowable. But admitting the propriety of the observation, in the sense the poet intended it, the simile is applied and expressed with the utmost beauty. It accordingly struck the best writers of that time. Sprat, in his history of the Royal Society, is taking notice of the misapplication of philosophy to subjects of Religion. “That shower, says he, has done very much injury by falling on the sea, for which the shepherd, and the ploughman, called in vain: The wit of men has been profusely poured out on Religion, which needed not its help, and which was only thereby made more tempestuous: while it might have been more fruitfully spent, on some parts of philosophy, which have been hitherto barren, and might soon have been made fertile.” p. 25.
You see what wire-drawing here is to make the comparison, so proper in its original use, just and pertinent to a subject to which it had naturally no relation. Besides, there is an absurdity in speaking of a shower’s doing injury to the sea by falling into it. But the thing illustrated by this comparison requiring the idea of injury, he transfers the idea to the comparing thing. He would soften the absurdity, by running the comparison into metaphorical expression, but, I think, it does not remove it. In short, for these reasons, one might easily have inferred an Imitation, without that parenthesis to apologize for it—“To use that metaphor which an excellent poet of our nation turns to another purpose—”
But a poet of that time has no better success in the management of this metaphor, than the Historian.
Love makes so many hearts the prize
Of the bright Carlisle’s conqu’ring eyes;
Which she regards no more, than they
The tears of lesser beauties weigh.
So have I seen the lost clouds pour
Into the Sea an useless show’r;
And the vex’d Sailors curse the rain,
For which poor Shepherds pray’d in vain.
Waller’s Poems, p. 25.
The Sentiment stands thus: “She regards the captive hearts of others no more than those others—the tears of lesser beauties.” Thus, with much difficulty, we get to tears. And when we have them, the allusion to lost clouds is so strained (besides that he makes his shower both useless and injurious), that one readily perceives the poet’s thought was distorted by imitation.
X. The charge of Plagiarism is so disreputable to a great writer that one is not surprized to find him anxious to avoid the imputation of it. Yet “this very anxiety serves, sometimes, to fix it upon him.”
Mr. Dryden, in the Preface to his translation of Fresnoy’s Art of Painting, makes the following observation on Virgil: “He pretends sometimes to trip, but ’tis only to make you think him in danger of a fall when he is most secure. Like a skilful dancer on the Rope (if you will pardon the meanness of the similitude) who slips willingly and makes a seeming stumble, that you may think him in great hazard of breaking his neck; while at the same time he is only giving you a proof of his dexterity. My late Lord Roscommon was often pleased with this reflexion, &c.” p. 50.
His apology for the use of this simile, and his concluding with Lord Roscommon’s satisfaction at his remark, betray, I think, an anxiety to pass for original, under the consciousness of being but an imitator. So that if we were to meet with a passage, very like this, in a celebrated ancient, we could hardly doubt of its being copied by Mr. Dryden. What think you then of this observation in one of Pliny’s Letters, “Ut quasdam artes, ità eloquentiam nihil magis quàm ancipitia commendant. Vides qui fune in summa nituntur, quantos soleant excitare clamores, cùm jam jamque casuri videntur.” L. ix. Ep. 26.
Prior, one may observe, has acted more naturally in his Alma, and by so doing, though the resemblance be full as great, one is not so certain of his being an Imitator. The verses are, of Butler: