Men would be tyrants, tyrants would be Gods.
Works, Lond. 1633. p. 73.
XIV. The seeming quaintness and obscurity of an expression frequently indicates imitation. As when in Fletcher’s Pilgrim we read,
“Hummings of higher nature vex his brains.”
A. II. S. 2.
Had the idea been original, the poet had expressed it more plainly. In leaving it thus, he pays his reader the compliment to suppose, that he will readily call to mind,
aliena negotia centum
Per caput, et circa saliunt latus;
which sufficiently explains it: As we may see from Mr. Cowley’s application of the same passage. “Aliena negotia centum per caput et centum saliunt latus. A hundred businesses of other men fly continually about his head and ears, and strike him in the face like Dorres.” Disc. of Liberty. And still more clearly, from Mr. Pope’s,
“A hundred other men’s affairs,
Like bees, are humming in my ears.”
Learned writers of quick parts abound in these delicate allusions. It makes a principal part of modern elegancy to glance in this oblique manner at well-known passages in the classics.
XV. I will trouble you with but one more note of imitated expression, and it shall be the very reverse of the last. When the passages glanced at are not familiar, the expression is frequently minute and circumstantial, corresponding to the original in the order, turn, and almost number of the words. The reasons are, that, the imitated passage not being known, the imitator may give it, as he finds it, with safety, or at least without offence; and that, besides, the force and beauty of it would escape us in a brief and general allusion. The following are instances:
1. “Man never is, but always to be blest.”
Essay on Man, Ep. I. v. 69.