Let Cæsar spread his conquests far. Less pleased to triumph than to spare. it is surely not necessary to suppose with a late critic, that one is copied from the other, since neither Virgil nor Horace can be supposed ignorant of the common duties of humanity, and the virtue of moderation in success. Cicero and Ovid have on very different occasions remarked how little of the honour of a victory belongs to the general, when his soldiers and his fortune bave made their deductions; yet why should Ovid be suspected to have owed to Tully an observation which perhaps occurs to every man that sees or hears of military glories? Tully observes of Achilles, that had not Homer written, his valour had been without praise. Nisi nias illa extitisset, idem tumulus qui corpus ejus contexerat, nomen ejus obruisset. Unless the Iliad had been published, his name had been lost in the tomb that covered his body. Horace tells us with more energy that there were brave men before the wars of Troy, but they were lost in oblivion for want of a poet: Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona Nocte, carent quia vate sacro. Heu, noctis prope terminos Orpheus Eurydicen suam Vidit, perdidit, occidit. Nor yet the golden verge of day begun, At once beheld, and lost, and was undone. F. LEWIS. F. LEWIS. But soon, too soon, the lover turns his eyes; No writer can be fully convicted of imitation, except there is a concurrence of more rescin Quid est quod in hoc tam exiguo vita curriculo et tam blance than can be imagined to have happened brevi, tantis nos in laboribus exerceamus? when our life is of so short duration, why we form such numerous designs? But Horace, as well as Tully, might discover that records are needful to preserve the memory of actions, and that no records were so durable as poems; either of them might find out that life is short, and that we consume it in unnecessary labour. There are other flowers of fiction so widely scattered and so easily cropped, that it is scarcely just to tax the use of them as an act by which any particular writer is despoiled of his garland; for they may be said to have been planted by the ancients in the open road of poetry for the accommodation of their successors, and to be the right of every one that has art to pluck them without injuring their colours or their fragrance. The passage of Orpheus to hell, with the recovery and second loss of Eurydice, have been described af by chance; as where the same ideas are conjoined without any natural series or necessary coherence, or where not only the thought but the words are copied. Thus it can scarcely be doubted, that in the first of the following pas sages Pope remembered Ovid, and that in the second he copied Crashaw : Sape pater dirit, studium quid inutile tentas? Venus take my votive glass, As not every instance of similitude can be considered as a proof of imitation, so not every imitation ought to be stigmatized as plagiarism. The adoption of a noble sentiment, or the insertion of a borrowed ornament, may sometimes display so much judgment as will almost compensate for invention: and an inferior genius may, without any imputation of servility, pursue the path of the ancients, provided he declines to tread in their footsteps. The strength and unanimity of this alliance is not easily conceived. It might be expected that no man should suffer his heart to be inflamed with malice, but by injuries; that none should busy himself in contesting the pretensions of another, but when some sight of his own was involv. ed in the question; that at least hostilities commenced without cause, should quickly cease; that the armies of malignity should soon disperse, when no common interest could be found to hold them together; and that the attack upon a rising character should be left to those who had something to hope or fear from the event. The hazards of those that aspire to eminence, would be much diminished if they had none but acknowledged rivals to encounter. Their enemies would then be few, and what is of yet greater importance, would be known. But what caution is sufficient to ward off the blows of invisible assailants, or what force can stand against unremitted attacks, and a continual succession of enemies? Yet such is the state of the world, that no sooner can any man emerge from the crowd, and fix the eyes of the public upon him, than he stands as a mark to the arrows of lurking calumny, and receives in the tumult of hostility, from distant and from nameless hands, wounds not always easy to be cured. It is probable that the onset against the candidates for renown is originally incited by those who imagine themselves in danger of suffering by their success; but, when war is once declar ed, volunteers flock to the standard, multitudes follow the camp only for want of employment, and flying squadrons are dispersed to every part, so pleased with an opportunity of mischief, that they toil without prospect of praise, and pillage without hope of profit. When any man has endeavoured to deserve distinction, he will be surprised to hear himself censured where he could not expect to have been named; he will find the utmost acrimony of inalice among those whom he never could have of fended. As there are to be found in the service of envy men of every diversity of temper and degree of understanding, calumny is diffused by all arts and methods of propagation. Nothing is too gross or too refined, too cruel or too trifling to be practised; very little regard is had to the rules of honourable hostility, but every weapon is accounted lawful, and those that cannot make a thrust at life are content to keep themselves in play with petty malevolence, to teaze with feeble blows and impotent disturbance. But as the industry of observation has divided the most miscellaneous and confused assemblages into proper classes, and ranged the insects of the summer, that torment us with their drones of stings, by their several tribes; the persecutors of merit, notwithstanding their numbers may be likewise commodiously distinguished into Roar èrs, Whisperers, and Moderators. The Roarer is an enemy rather terrible than dangerous. He has no other qualification for a champion of controversy than a hardened front and strong voice. Having seldom so much desire to confute as to silence, he depends rather upon vociferation than argument, and has very little care to adjust one part of his accusation to another, to preserve decency in his language, or probability in his narratives. He has always a store of reproachful epithets and contemptuous | can say that he is wholly what he endeavours to appellations, ready to be produced as occasion appear? The author he knows to be a man of may require, which by constant use he pours out diligence, who perhaps does not sparkle with the with resistless volubility. If the wealth of a trader fire of Homer, but who has the judgment to disis mentioned, he without hesitation devotes him cover his own deficiencies, and to supply them by to bankruptcy; if the beauty and elegance of a the help of others; and, in his opinion, modesty lady be commended, he wonders how the town is a quality so amiable and rare, that it ought to can fall in love with rustic deformity; if a new find a patron wherever it appears, and may justly performance of genius happens to be celebrated, be preferred by the public suffrage to petulant he pronounces the writer a hopeless idiot, without wit and ostentatious literature. knowledge of books or life, and without the understanding by which it must be acquired. His exaggerations are generally without effect upon those whom he compels to hear them; and though it will sometimes happen that the timorous are awed by his violence, and the credulous mistake his confidence for knowledge, yet the opinions which he endeavours to suppress soon recover their former strength, as the trees that bend to the tempest erect themselves again when its force is past. The Whisperer is more dangerous. He easily gains attention by a soft address, and excites curiosity by an air of importance. As secrets are not to be made cheap by promiscuous publication, he calls a select audience about him, and gratifies their vanity with an appearance of trust by communicating his intelligence in a low voice. Of the trader he can tell that, though he seems to manage an extensive commerce, and talks in high terms of the funds, yet his wealth is not equal to his reputation: he has lately suffered much by an expensive project, and had a greater share than is acknowledged in the rich ship that perished by the storm. Of the beauty he has little to say, but that they who see her in a morning do not discover all those graces which are admired in the park. Of the writer he affirms with great certainty, that though the excellence of the work be incontestable, he can claim but a small part of the reputation; that he owed most of the images and sentiments to a secret friend; and that the accuracy and equality of the style was produced by the successive correction of the chief critics of the age. As every one is pleased with imagining that he knows something not yet commonly divulged, secret history easily gains credit; but it is for the most part believed only while it circulates in whispers; and when once it is openly told, is openly confuted. The most pernicious enemy is the man of Moderation. Without interest in the question, or any motive but honest curiosity, this impartial and zealous inquirer after truth is ready to hear either side, and always disposed to kind interpretations and favourable opinions. He has heard the trader's affairs reported with great variation, and, after a diligent comparison of the evidence, concludes it probable that the splendid superstructure of business, being originally built upon a narrow basis, has lately been found to totter; but between dilatory payment and bankruptcy there is a great distance; many merchants have supported themselves by expedients for a time, without any final injury to their creditors; and what is lost by one adventure may be recovered by another. He believes that a young lady pleased with admiration, and desirous to make perfect what is already excellent, may heighten her charms by artificial improvements, but surely most of her beauties must be genuine, and who He who thus discovers failings with unwillingness, and extenuates the faults which cannot be denied, puts an end at once to doubt or vindication; his hearers repose upon his candour and veracity, and admit the charge without allowing the excuse. Such are the arts by which the envious, the idle, the peevish, and the thoughtless, obstruct that worth which they cannot equal, and by artifices thus easy, sordid, and detestable, is industry defeated, beauty blasted, and genius depressed. No. 145.] TUESDAY, AUG. 6, 1751. Non, si priores Maonius tenet HOR FRANCIS. Nor hides the plaintive Cæan lyre: Alcæus strikes the tyrant soul with dread, Nor yet is grave Stesichorus unread. Ir is allowed that vocations and employments of least dignity are of the most apparent use; that the meanest artisan or manufacturer contributes more to the accommodation of life than the profound scholar and argumentative theorist; and that the public would suffer less present inconvenience from the banishment of philosophers than from the extinction of any common trade. Some have been so forcibly struck with this observation, that they have, in the first warmth of their discovery, thought it reasonable to alter the common distribution of dignity, and ventured to condemn mankind of universal ingratitude. For justice exacts, that those by whom we are most benefited should be most honoured. And what labour can be more useful than that which procures to families and communities those necessaries which supply the wants of nature, or those conveniences by which ease, security, and elegance, are conferred? This is one of the innumerable theories which the first attempt to reduce them into practice certainly destroys. If we estimate dignity by immediate usefulness, agriculture is undoubtedly the first and noblest science; yet we see the plough driven, the clod broken, the manure spread, the seeds scattered, and the harvest reaped, by men whom those that feed upon their industry will never be persuaded to admit into the same rank with heroes or with sages; and who, after all the confessions which truth may extort in favour of their occupation, must be content to fill up the lowest class of the commonwealth, to form the base of the pyramid of subordination, and lie bu ried in obscurity themselves, while they support all that is splendid, conspicuous, or exalted. It will be found, upon a closer inspection, that to recommend, have been too long hacknied in the ways of men to indulge the chimerical ambition of immortality; they have seldom any claim to the trade of writing, but that they have tried some other without success; they perceive no particular summons to composition, except the sound of the clock; they have no other rule than the law or the fashion for admitting their thoughts or rejecting them; and about the opinion of posterity they have little solicitude, for their productions are seldom intended to remain in the world lon this part of the conduct of mankind is by no means That such authors are not to be rewarded with The merit of all manual occupations seems to praise is evident, since nothing can be admired terminate in the inventor; and surely the first when it ceases to exist; but surely, though they ages cannot be charged with ingratitude; since cannot aspire to honour, they may be exempted those who civilized barbarians, and taught them from ignominy, and adopted in that order of men how to secure themselves from cold and hunger, which deserves our kindness, though not our rewere numbered amongst their deities. But these verence. These papers of the day, the Ephemera arts once discovered by philosophy, and facilitated of learning, have uses more adequate to the purby experience, are afterwards practised with very poses of common life than more pompous and dulittle assistance from the faculties of the soul;rable volumes. If it is necessary for every man nor is any thing necessary to the regular discharge of these inferior duties, beyond that rude observation which the most sluggish intellect may practise, and that industry which the stimulations of necessity naturally enforce. Yet though the refusal of statues and panegyric to those who employ only their hands and feet in the service of mankind may be easily justified, I am far from intending to incite the petulance of pride, to justify the superciliousness of grandeur, or to intercept any part of that tenderness and benevolence, which by the privilege of their common nature, one may claim from another. to be more acquainted with his contemporaries than with past generations, and to rather know the events which may immediately affect his fortune or quiet, than the revolutions of ancient kingdoms, in which he has neither possessions nor expectations; if it be pleasing to hear of the preferment and dismission of statesmen, the birth of heirs, and the marriage of beauties, the humble author of journals and gazettes must be con sidered as a liberal dispenser of beneficial know ledge. Even the abridger, compiler, and translator, though their labours cannot be ranked with those of the diurnal historiographer, yet must not be That it would be neither wise nor equitable to rashly doomed to annihilation. Every size of discourage the husbandman, the labourer, the mi-readers requires a genius of correspondent capaner, or the smith, is generally granted; but there is another race of beings equally obscure and equally indigent, who, because their usefulness is less obvious to vulgar apprehensions, live unrewarded and die unpitied, and who have been long exposed to insult without a defender, and to censure without an apologist. The authors of London were formerly computed by Swift at several thousands, and there is not any reason for suspecting that their number has decreased. Of these only a very few can be said to produce, or endeavour to produce, new ideas, to extend any principle of science, or gratify the imagination with any uncommon train of images or contexture of events; the rest, however laborious, however arrogant, can only be considered as the drudges of the pen, the manufacturers of literature, who have set up for authors, either with or without a regular initiation, and, like other artificers, have no other care than to deliver their tale of wares at the stated time. It has been formerly imagined, that he who intends the entertainment or instruction of others, must feel in himself some peculiar impulse of genius; that he must watch the happy minute in which his natural fire is excited, in whichhis mind is elevated with nobler sentiments, enlightened with clearer views, and invigorated with stronger comprehension; that he must carefully select his thoughts and polish his expressions; and animate his efforts with the hope of raising a monument of learning, which neither time nor envy shall be able to destroy. But the authors whom I am now endeavouring city; some delight in abstracts and epitomes, because they want room in their memory for long details, and content themselves with effects, without inquiry after causes; some minds are overpowered by splendour of sentiment, as some eyes are offended by a glaring light; such will gladly contemplate an author in an humble imitation, as we look without pain upon the sun in the water. As every writer has his use, every writer ought to have his patrons; and since no man, however high he may now stand, can be certain that he shall not be soon thrown down from his elevation by criticism or caprice, the common interest of learning requires that her sons should cease from intestine hostilities, and, instead of sacrificing each other to malice and contempt, endeavour to avert persecution from the meanest of their fraternity." Riches cannot casily be denied to them who have | cious titles, that he never buys a book till its chasomething of greater value to offer in exchange; racter is established; a third wonders what any he whose fortune is endangered by litigation, will man can hope to produce after so many writers not refuse to augment the wealth of the lawyer; of greater eminence; the next has inquired after he whose days are darkened by languor, or whose the author, but can hear no account of him, and nerves are excruciated by pain, is compelled to therefore suspects the name to be fictitious; and pay tribute to the science of healing. But praise another knows him to be a man condemned by may be always omitted without inconvenience. indigence to write too frequently what he does When once a man has made celebrity necessary not understand. to his happiness, he has put it in the power of the weakest and most timorous malignity, if not to take away his satisfaction, at least to withhold it. His enemies may indulge their pride by airy negligence, and gratify their malice by quiet neu trality. They that could never have injured a character by invectives, may combine to annihilate it by silence; as the women of Rome threatened to put an end to conquest and dominion, by supplying no children to the commonwealth. Many are the consolations with which the unhappy author endeavours to allay his vexation, and fortify his patience. He has written with too little indulgence to the understanding of common readers; he has fallen upon an age in which solid knowledge, and delicate refinement, have given way to a low merriment, and idle buffoonery, and therefore no writer can hope for distinction, who has any higher purpose than to raise laughter. He finds that his enemies, such as superiority will always raise, have been industrious, while his performance was in the press, to vilify and blast it; and that the bookseller, whom he had resolved to enrich, has rivals that obstruct the circulation of his copies. He at last reposes upon the consideration, that the noblest works of learning and genius have always made their way slowly against ignorance and prejudice; and that reputation, which is never to be lost, must be gradually obtained, as animals of longest life are observed not soon to attain their full sta ture and strength. When a writer has with long toil produced a work intended to burst upon mankind with unexpected lustre, and withdraw the attention of the learned world from every other controversy or inquiry, he is seldom contented to wait long without the enjoyment of his new praises. With an imagination full of his own importance, he walks out like a monarch in disguise to learn the various opinions of his readers. Prepared to feast upon admiration; composed to encounter censures without emotion; and determined not to suffer his quiet to be injured by a sensibility too exquisite of praise or blame, but to laugh with By such arts of voluntary delusion does every equal contempt at vain objections and injudicious man endeavour to conceal his own unimportance commendations, he enters the places of mingled from himself. It is long before we are convinced conversation, sits down to his tea in an obscure of the small proportion which every individual corner, and while he appears to examine a file bears to the collective body of mankind; or learn of antiquated journals, catches the conversation how few can be interested in the fortune of any of the whole room. He listens, but hears no single man; how little vacancy is left in the world mention of his book, and therefore supposes that for any new object of attention; to how small exhe has disappointed his curiosity by delay; and tent the brightest blaze of merit can be spread that as men of learning would naturally begin amidst the mists of business and of folly; and their conversation with such a wonderful novelty, how soon it is clouded by the intervention of they had digressed to other subjects before his ar- other novelties. Not only the writer of books, rival. The company disperses, and their places but the commander of armies, and the deliverer are supplied by others equally ignorant, or equal- of nations, will easily outlive all noisy and populy careless. The same expectation hurries himlar reputation; he may be celebrated for a time to another place, from which the same disap- by the public voice; but his actions and his name pointment drives him soon away. His impatience will soon be considered as remote and unaffectthen grows violent and tumultuous; he rangesing, and be rarely mentioned but by those whose over the town with restless curiosity, and hears alliance gives them some vanity to gratify by frein one quarter of a cricket-match, in another of a quent commemoration. pickpocket; is told by some of an unexpected It seems not to be sufficiently considered how bankruptcy; by others of a turtle-feast; is some-little renown can be admitted in the world. Mantimes provoked by importunate inquiries after kind are kept perpetually busy by their fears of the white bear, and sometimes with praises of the desires, and have not more leisure from their own dancing-dog; he is afterward entreated to give affairs, than to acquaint themselves with the achis judgment upon a wager about the height of cidents of the current day. Engaged in contriv the Monument; invited to see a foot-race in the ing some refuge from calamity, or in shortening adjacent villages; desired to read a ludicrous ad- the way to some new possession, they seldom vertisement; or consulted about the most effect- suffer their thoughts to wander to the past or fuual method of making inquiry after a favourite ture; none but a few solitary students have leisure cat. The whole world is busied in affairs, which to inquire into the claims of ancient heroes or he thinks below the notice of reasonable crea- sages; and names which hoped to range over tures, and which are nevertheless sufficient to kingdoms and continents, shrink at last into clois withdraw all regard from his labours and his ters or colleges. merits. He resolves at last to violate his own modesty, and to recall the talkers from their folly by an inquiry after himself. He finds every one provided with an answer; one has seen the work advertised, but never met with any that had read it; another has been so often imposed upon by spe Nor is it certain, that even of these dark and narrow habitations, these last retreats of fame, the possession will be long kept. Of men devoted to literature, very few extend their views beyond some particular science, and the greater part seldom inquire, even in their own profes sion, for any authors but those whom the present |