Chapter VI: Section I (3)

The truth is, the _nature_ of the two subjects, which the Greek poet had taken upon himself to adorn, was such, that it led him through every circumstance and situation of human life; which his quick attentive observation readily found the means of shewing to advantage under the cover of the most fit and proper imagery. Succeeding writers, who had _not_ contemplated his pictures, yet, drawing from one common original, have unknowingly hit upon the very same. And those, who _had_, with all their endeavours after _novelty_, and the utmost efforts of genius to strike out original lights, have never been able to succeed in their attempts. Our _Milton_, who was most ambitious of this fame of _invention_, and whose vast and universal genius could not have missed of new _analogies_, had nature’s self been able to furnish them, is a glaring instance to our purpose. He was so averse from resting in the old imagery of Homer, and the other epic poets, that he appears to have taken infinite pains in the investigation of new _allusions_, which he picked up out of the rubbish of every silly legend or romance, that had come to his knowledge, or extracted from the dry and rugged materials of the sciences, and even the mechanic arts. Yet, in comparison of the genuine treasures of nature, which he found himself obliged to make use of, in common with other writers, his own proper stock of _images_, imported from the regions of _art_, is very poor and scanty; and, as might be expected, makes the least agreeable part of his divine work.

What is here said of the epic holds, as I hinted, of all the more serious kinds of poetry. In works of a lighter cast, there is greater liberty and a larger field of allusion permitted to the poet. All the appearances in _art_ and _nature_, betwixt which there is any resemblance, may be employed here to surprize and divert the fancy. The further and more remote from vulgar apprehension these analogies lie, so much the fitter for his purpose, which is not so much to illustrate his ideas, as to place them in new and uncommon lights, and entertain the mind by that odd fantastic conjunction, or opposition of ideas, which we know by the name of _wit_. Nay, the _lowest_, as well as the least obvious imagery will be, oftentimes, the most proper; his view being not to ennoble and raise his subject by the means of _allusion_, but to sink and debase it by every art, that hath a tendency to excite the mirth and provoke the ridicule of the reader. Here then we may expect a much more original air, than in the higher designs of invention. When all nature is before the poet, and the genius of his work allows him to seize her, as the shepherd did Proteus, in every dirty form, into which she can possibly twist herself, it were, indeed, a wonder, if he should _chance_ to coincide, in his imagery, with any other, from whom he had not expressly copied. They who are conversant in works of _wit and humour_, more especially of these later times, will know this to be the case, in _fact_. There is not perhaps a single comparison in the inimitable TELEMAQUE, which had not, before, been employed by some or other of the poets. Can any thing, like this, be said of RABELAIS, BUTLER, MARVEL, SWIFT, &c.?

III. It only remains to consider the EXPRESSION. And in this are to be found the surest and least equivocal marks of _imitation_. We may regard it in _two_ lights; either 1. as it respects the _general_ turn or manner of writing, which we call a _style_; or 2. the peculiarities of _phrase and diction_.

1. A _style_ in writing, if not formed in express imitation of some certain _model_, is the pure result of the disposition of the mind, and takes its character from the predominant _quality_ of the writer. Thus a _short and compact_, and a _diffused and flowing_ expression are the proper consequences of certain corresponding characters of the human genius. One has a vigorous comprehensive conception, and therefore collects his sense into few words. Another, whose imagination is more languid, contemplates his objects leisurely, and so displays their beauties in a greater compass of words, and with more circumstance and parade of language. A polite and elegant humour delights in the grace of ease and perspicuity. A severe and melancholic spirit inspires a forcible but involved expression. There are many other nicer differences and peculiarities of _manner_, which, though not reducible, perhaps, to general heads, the critic of true taste easily understands.

2. As men of different tempers and dispositions assume a different cast of expression, so may the same observation be applied, still more _generally_, to different _countries and times_. It may be difficult to explain the _efficient causes_ of this diversity, which I have no concern with at present. The _fact_ is, that the eloquence of the _eastern_ world has, at all times, been of another strain from that of the _western_. And, also, in the several provinces of _each_, there has been some peculiar _note_ of variation. The _Asiatic_, of old, had its proper stamp, which distinguished it from the _Attic_; just as the _Italian_, _French_, and _Spanish_ wits have, each, their several characteristic manners of expression.

A different state of _times_ has produced the like effect; which a late writer accounts for, not unaptly, from what he calls a _progression of life and manners_. That which cannot be disputed is, that the _modes_ of writing undergo a perpetual change or variation in every country. And it is further observable, that these _changes_ in one country, under similar circumstances, have a signal correspondence to those, which the incessant rotation of taste brings about in every other.

Of near affinity to this last consideration is _another_ arising from the _corresponding genius_ of two people, however remote from each other in time and place. And, as it happens, the application may be made directly to ourselves in a very important instance. “Languages, says one, always take their character from the genius of a people. So that two the most distant states, thinking and acting with the same generous love of mankind, must needs have very near the same combinations of ideas.—And it is our boast that in this conformity we approach the nearest to ancient Greece and Italy.” I quote these words from a tract[32], which the author perhaps may consider with the same neglect, as Cicero did his earlier compositions on _Rhetoric_; but which the curious will regard with reverence, as a fine essay of his genius, and a prelude to the great things he was afterwards seen capable of producing. But to come to the use we may make of this fine observation. The corresponding state of the English and Roman people has produced very near the same _combinations of ideas_. May we not carry the conclusion still further on the same principle, that it produced very near the same _combinations of words_? The fact is, as the same writer observes, That “we have a language that is brief, comprehensive, nervous, and majestic.” The very character which an old Roman would give us of his own language. And when the same general character of language prevails, is it any thing strange that the different modifications of it, or _peculiar styles_, arising from the various turns and dispositions of writers (which, too, in such circumstances will be corresponding) should therefore be very similar in the productions of the two states? Or, in other words, can we wonder that some of our best writers bear a nearer resemblance, I mean independently of direct imitation, to the Latin classics, than those of any other people in modern times?

But let it suffice to leave these remarks without further comment or explanation.

The use the discerning reader will make of them is, that if different writers agree in the same _general disposition_, or in the same _national character_; live together in the _same period of time_; or in corresponding periods of the _progression of manners_, or are under the influence of a corresponding genius of _policy and government_; in every of these cases, some _considerable similarity_ of expression may be occasioned by the agency of _general principles_, without any suspicion of studied or designed _imitation_.

II. An _identity of phrase and diction_, is a much surer note of _plagiarism_. For considering the vast variety of _words_, which any language, and especially the more copious ones furnish, and the infinite possible combinations of them into all the forms of _phraseology_, it would be very strange, if two persons should hit on the same identical _terms_, and much more should they agree in the same precise arrangement of them in whole sentences.

There is no defending _coincidences_ of this kind; and whatever writers themselves may pretend, or their friends for them, no one can doubt a moment of such _identity_ being a clear and decisive proof of _imitation_.

Yet this must be understood with some limitations.

For 1. There are in every language some current and authorized forms of speech, which can hardly be avoided by a writer without affectation. They are such as express the most obvious sentiments, and which the ordinary occasions of life are perpetually obtruding on us. Now these, as by common agreement, we chuse to deliver to one another in the same _form_ of words. Convenience dictates this to one set of writers, and politeness renders it sacred in another. Thus it will be true of certain _phrases_ (as, universally, of the _words_, in any language), that they are left in common to all writers, and can be claimed as matter of _property_, by none. Not that such phraseology will be frequent in nobler compositions, as the familiarity of its usage takes from their natural reserve and dignity. Yet on certain _occasions_, which justify this negligence, or in certain _authors_, who are not over-sollicitous about these indecorums, we may expect to meet with it. Hamlet says of his father,

_He was a man, take him for all in all_;
I shall not look upon his like again.

which may be suspected of being stolen from Sophocles, who has the following passage in the TRACHINIAE.

Πάντων ἄριστον ἄνδρα τῶν ἐπὶ χθονὶ
Κτείνασ’, ΟΠΟΙΟΝ ΑΛΛΟΝ ΟΥΚ ΟΨΕΙ ΠΟΤΕ. v. 824.

The sentiment being one of the commonest, that offers itself to the mind, the sole ground of suspicion must lie in the _expression_, “_I shall not look upon his like again_,” to which the Greek so exactly answers. But these were the ordinary expressions of such sentiment, in the two languages; and neither the characters of the great poets, nor the situation of the speakers, would suffer the _affectation_ of departing from common usage.

What is here said of the _situation of the speakers_ reminds me of another _class_ of expressions, which will often be _similar_ in all poets. _Nature_, under the _same_ conjunctures, gives birth to the _same_ conceptions; and if they be of such a kind, as to exclude all thought of artifice, and the tricks of eloquence (as on occasions of deep anxiety and distress) they run, of themselves, into the _same_ form of expression. The wretched Priam, in his lamentation of Hector, lets drop the following words:

οὗ μ’ ἄχος ὀξὺ κατοίσεται ἄïδος εἴσω:

“This line, says his translator, is particularly tender, and almost, word for word, the same with that of the Patriarch _Jacob_; who, upon a like occasion, breaks out in the same complaint, and tells his children, that, if they deprive him of his son _Benjamin, they will bring down his grey hairs with sorrow to the grave_.”

We may, further, except, under this head, certain privileged forms of speech, which the peculiar idioms of _different_ languages make necessary in them, and which poetry consecrates in _all_. But this is easily observed, and its effect is not very considerable.

2. In pleading this _identity of expression_, regard must be had to the _language_, from which the _theft_ is supposed to be made. If from the _same_ language (setting aside the exceptions, just mentioned) _the same arrangement of the same words_ is admitted as a certain argument of _plagiarism_: nay, less than this will do in some instances, as where the _imitated expression_ is pretty _singular_, or so remarkable, on any account, as to be _well known_, &c. But if from _another_ language, the matter is not so easy. It can rarely happen, indeed, but by design, that there should be the _same order or composition_ of words, in two languages. But that which passes even for _literal translation_, is but _a similar composition of corresponding words_. And what does this imply, but that the writers conceived of their _object_ in the same _manner_, and had occasion to set it in the same light? An occasion, which is perpetually recurring to all authors. As may be gathered from that frequent and strong resemblance in the _expression_ of moral sentiments, observable in the writers of every age and country. Can there be a commoner reflexion, or which more constantly occurs to the mind under the same appearance, than _that_ of our great poet, who, speaking of the state after death, calls it

_That undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns_.

Shall we call this a translation of the Latin poet;

_Nunc it per_ iter tenebricosum
Illuc, unde negant redire quenquam.
CATUL. III. v. 11.

Or, doth it amount to any more than this, that the terms employed by the two writers in expressing the same obvious thought are _correspondent_? But _correspondency_ and _identity_ are different things. The _latter_ is only, where the words are _numerically_ the same, which can only happen in one and the same language: the other is effected by _different sets of words_, which are numerous in every language, and are therefore no convincing proof (abstractedly from other circumstances) of _imitation_.

From these general reflexions on _language_, without refining too far, or prying too curiously into the mysteries of it, the same conclusion meets us, as before. The _expression_ of two writers may be _similar_, and sometimes even _identical_, and yet be _original_ in both. Which shews the necessity there was to lead the reader through this long investigation of the general sources of _similitude_ in works of INVENTION, in order to put him into a condition of judging truly and equitably of those of IMITATION. For if _similarity_, even in this province of _words_, which the reason of the thing shews to be most free from the constraint of general rules, be no argument of _theft_ in all cases; much less can it be pretended of the other _subjects_ of this inquiry, which from the necessary uniformity of _nature_ in all her appearances, and of _common sense_ in its operations upon them, must give frequent and unavoidable occasion to such _similarity_. But then this is all I would insinuate.

For, after the proper allowances, which candid criticism requires to be made on this head, it will still be true (and nothing in this Essay attempts to contradict it) “that coincidences of a certain _kind_, and in a certain _degree_, cannot fail to convict a writer of _imitation_.” What these _are_, the impatient reader, I suppose, is ready to enquire. And, not entirely to disappoint him, I have thrown together, at the close of this volume, some remarks which, perhaps, will be of use in solving that difficult question[33]. In the mean time, it seemed of importance to free the mind from the perversion of that early prejudice, which is so prompt to mistake _resemblance_ universally for _imitation_. And what other method of effecting this, than by taking a view of the extent and influence of the genuine powers of _nature_, which, when rightly apprehended, make it an easier task to detect, in particular instances, the intervention of _design_?

Allowing then (what this previous inquiry not only no way contradicts but even assists us in perceiving more clearly) that certain _resemblances_ may be urged as undoubted proofs of _imitation_, it remains only to the integrity of this discourse, to satisfy that other question, “_how far the credit of the imitator is concerned in the discovery_;” or, in other words, (since the praise of _invention_ is of the highest value to the poet) “how far the concession of his having borrowed from others, may be justly thought to detract from him in that respect.” An _inquiry_, which, though for its consequences to the fame of all great writers, since the time of Homer, of much importance, may yet be dispatched in few words.