found invariably true, that learning was never | science which he professed, who having occasion decried by any learned man: and what credit can be given to those who venture to condemn that which they do not know? to explain the terms opacum and pellucidum, told us, after some hesitation, that opacum was, as one might say, opake, and that pellucidum signified pellucid. Such was the dexterity with which this learned reader facilitated to his auditors the intricacies of science; and so true is it that a man may know what he cannot teach. If reason has the power ascribed to it by its advocates, if so much is to be discovered by attention and meditation, it is hard to believe, that so many millions, equally participating of the bounties of nature with ourselves, have been for ages Boerhaave complains, that the writers who upon ages meditating in vain : if the wits of the have treated of chymistry before him, are useless present time expect the regard of posterity, to the greater part of students, because they prewhich will then inherit the reason which is now suppose their readers to have such degrees of thought superior to instruction, surely they may skill as are not often to be found. Into the same allow themselves to be instructed by the reason error are all men apt to fall, who have familiarof former generations. When, therefore, an au-ized any subject to themselves in solitude: they thor declares, that he has been able to learn no- discourse, as if they thought every other man had thing from the writings of his predecessors, and been employed in the same inquiries; and exsuch a declaration has been lately made, nothing pect that short hints and obscure allusions will but a degree of arrogance unpardonable in the produce in others the same strain of ideas which greatest human understanding, can hinder him they excite in themselves. from perceiving that he is raising prejudices against his own performance; for with what hopes of success can he attempt that in which greater abilities have hitherto miscarried? or with what peculiar force does he suppose himself invigorated, that difficulties hitherto invincible should give way before him? Of those whom Providence has qualified to make any additions to human knowledge, the number is extremely small; and what can be added by each single mind, even of his superior class, is very little; the greatest part of mankind must owe all their knowledge, and all must owe far the larger part of it, to the information of others. To understand the works of celebrated authors, comprehend their systems, and retain their reasonings, is a task more than equal to common intellects; and he is by no means to be accounted useless or idle, who has stored his mind with acquired knowledge, and can detail it occasionally to others who have less leisure or weaker abilities. Persius has justly observed, that knowledge is nothing to him who is not known by others to possess it to the scholar himself it is nothing with respect either to honour or advantage, for the world cannot reward those qualities which are concealed from it; with respect to others it is nothing, because it affords no help to igno rance or error. It is with justice, therefore, that in an accomplished character, Horace unites just sentiments with the power of expressing them; and he that has once accumulated learning, is next to consider, how he shall most widely diffuse and most agreeably impart it. Nor is this the only inconvenience which the man of study suffers from a recluse life. When he meets with an opinion that pleases him, he catches it up with eagerness; looks only after such arguments as tend to his confirmation; or spares himself the trouble of discussion, and adopts it with very little proof; indulges it long without suspicion, and in time unites it to the general body of his knowledge, and treasures it up among incontestable truths; but when he comes into the world among men who, arguing upon dissimilar principles, have been led to different conclusions, and being placed in various situations, view the same object on many sides; he finds his darling position attacked, and himself in no condition to defend it: having thought always in one train, he is in the state of a man who having fenced always with the same master, is perplexed and amazed by a new posture of his antagonist; he is entangled in unexpected dithiculties, he is harassed by sudden objections, he is unprovided with solutions or replies: his surprise impedes his natural powers of reasoning, his thoughts are scattered and confounded, and he gratifies the pride of airy petulance, with an easy victory. It is difficult to imagine, with what obstinacy truths which one mind perceives almost by intuition, will be rejected by another, and how many artifices must be practised, to procure admission for the most evident propositions into under standings frighted by their novelty, or hardened against them by accidental prejudice; it can scarcely be conceived, how frequently, in these extemporaneous controversies, the dull will be subtle, and the acute absurd; how often stupidA ready man is made by conversation. He ity will elude the force of argument, by involv that buries himself among his manuscripts "be-ing itself in its own gloom; and mistaken ingesprent," as Pope expresses it, "with learned dust," nuity will weave artful fallacies, which reason and wears out his days and nights in perpetual can scarcely find means to disentangle. research and solitary meditation, is too apt to In these encounters the learning of the recluse lose in his elocution what he adds to his wis-usually fails him: nothing but long habit and dom; and when he comes into the world, to ap-frequent experiments can confer the power of pear overloaded with his own notions, like a mau changing a position into various forms, presentarmed with weapons which he cannot wield. He ing it in different points of view, connecting it has no facility of inculcating his speculations, of with known and granted truths, fortifying it with adapting himself to the various degrees of intel-intelligible arguments, and illustrating it by apt lect which the accidents of conversation will present; but will talk to most unintelligibly, and to all unpleasantly. I was once present at the lectures of a profound philosopher, a man really skilled in the similitudes; and he, therefore, that has collected his knowledge in solitude, must learn its application by mixing with mankind. But while the various opportunities of conver sation invite us to try every mode of argument, and every art of recommending our sentiments, we are frequently betrayed to the use of such as are not in themselves strictly defensible: a inan heated in talk, and eager of victory, takes advantage of the mistakes or ignorance of his adversary, lays hold of concessions to which he knows he has no right, and urges proofs likely to prevail on his opponent, though he knows himself that they have no force: thus the severity of reason is relaxed, many topics are accumulated, but without just arrangement or distinction; we learn to satisfy ourselves with such ratiocination as silences others; and seldom recall to a close examination, that discourse which has gratified our vanity with victory and applause. Some caution, therefore, must be used lest copiousness and facility be made less valuable by inaccuracy and confusion. To fix the thoughts by writing, and subject them to frequent exaininations and reviews, is the best method of enabling the mind to detect its own sophisms, and keep it on guard against the fallacies which it practises on others; in conversation we naturally diffuse our thoughts, and in writing we contract them; method is the excellence of writing, and unconstraint the grace of conversation. ciently inform us; and we may conjecture, with great probability, that it was sometimes the devotion, and sometimes the entertainment, of the first generations of mankind. Theoernus united elegance with simplicity; and taught his shopherds to sing with so much ease and harmony, that his countrymen, despairing to excel, for bore to imitate him; and the Greeks, however vain or ambitious, left him in quiet possession of the garlands which the wood nymphs had be stowed upon him. Virgil, however, taking advantage of another language, ventured to copy or to rival the Sici lian bard: he has written with greater splendour of diction, and elevation of sentiment: but as the magnificence of his performances was more, the simplicity was less; and perhaps, where he excels Theocritus, he sometimes obtains his su periority by deviating from the pastoral charac ter, and performing what Theocritus never attempted. Yet, though I would willingly pay to Theocritus the honour which is always due to an ori ginal author, I am far from intending to depreciate Virgil: of whom Horace justly declares, that the rural muses have appropriated to him To read, write, and converse in due propor- their elegance and sweetness, and who, as he cotions, is, therefore, the business of a man of let-pied Theocritus in his design, has resembled him ters. For all these there is not often equal op- likewise in his success; for, if we except Calportunity; excellence, therefore, is not often phurnius, an obscure author of the lower ages, I attainable; and most men fail in one or other of know not that a single pastoral was written after the ends proposed, and are full without readi-him by any poet, till the revival of literature. ness, or ready without exactness. Some defi But though his general merit has been univerciency must be forgiven all, because all are men; sally acknowledged, I am far from thinking all the and more must be allowed to pass uncensured in productions of his rural Thalia equally excellent; the greater part of the world, because none can there is, indeed, in all his pastorals a strain of confer upon himself abilities, and few have the versification which it is vain to seck in any choice of situations proper for the improvement other poet; but if we except the first and the of those which nature has bestowed: it is, how-tenth, they seem liable either wholly or in part to ever, reasonable to have perfection in our eye; considerable objections. that we may always advance towards it, though we know it never can be reached. No. 92.] SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 22, 1753. SIR, TO THE ADVENTURER. The second, though we should forget the great charge against it, which I am afraid can never be refuted, might, I think, have perished without any diminution of the praise of its author; for I know not that it contains one affecting sentiment or pleasing description, or one passage that strikes the imagination or awakens the passions. The third contains a contest between two shepherds, begun with a quarrel of which some particulars might well be spared, carried on with sprightliness and elegance, and terminated at last in a reconciliation: but, surely, whether the IN the papers of criticism which you have given invectives with which they attack each other be to the public, I have remarked a spirit of candour true or false, they are too much degraded from and love of truth, equally remote from bigotry the dignity of pastoral innocence; and instead and captiousness: a just distribution of praise of rejoicing that they are both victorious, I should amongst the ancients and the moderns: a sober not have grieved could they have been both dedeference to reputation long established, with-feated. out a blind adoration of antiquity; and a will- The Poem to Pollio is indeed of another kind: ingness to favour later performances without a light or puerile fondness for novelty. I shall, therefore, venture to lay before you, such observations as have risen to my mind in the consideration of Virgil's pastorals, without any inquiry how far my sentiments deviate from established rules or common opinions. If we survey the ten pastorals in a general view, it will be found that Virgil can derive from them very little claim to the praise of an inventor. To search into the antiquity of this kind of poetry, is not my present purpose; that it has long subsisted in the east, the Sacred Writings suffi it is filled with images at once splendid and pleas ing, and it is elevated with grandeur of language worthy of the first of Roman poets, but I am not able to reconcile myself to the disproportion be tween the performance and the occasion that produced it: that the golden age should return because Pollio had a son, appears so wild a fiction, that I am ready to suspect the poet of hav ing written for some other purpose, what he took this opportunity of producing to the public. The fifth contains a celebration of Daphnis, which has stood to all succeeding ages as the model of pastoral elegies. To deny praise to performance which so many thousands have laboured to imitate, would be to judge with too little deference for the opinion of mankind: yet whoever shall read it with impartiality, will find that most of the images are of the mythological kind, and therefore easily invented; and that there are few sentiments of rational praise or natural lamentation. In the Silenus he again rises to the dignity of philosophic sentiments, and heroic poetry. The address to Varus is eminently beautiful; but since the compliment paid to Gallus fixes the transaction to his own time, the fiction of Silenus seems injudicious: nor has any sufficient reason yet been found, to justify his choice of those fables that make the subject of the song. The seventh exhibits another contest of the tuneful shepherds: and, surely, it is not without some reproach to his inventive power, that of ten pastorals, Virgil has written two upon the same plan. One of the shepherds now gains an ac. knowledged victory, but without any apparent superiority, and the reader when he sees the prize adjudged, is not able to discover how it was deserved. Of the eighth pastoral, so little is properly the work of Virgil, that he has no claim to other praise or blame than that of a translator. Of the ninth it is scarce possible to discover the design or tendency: it is said, I know not upon what authority, to have been composed from fragments of other poems: and except a few lines in which the author touches upon his own misfortunes, there is nothing that seems appropriated to any time or place, or of which any other use can be discovered than to fill up the poem. The first and the tenth pastorals, whatever be determined of the rest, are suflicient to place their author above the reach of rivalry. The complaint of Gallus disappointed in his love, is full of such sentiments as disappointed 'ove naturally produces: his wishes are wild, his resentment is tender; and his purposes are inconstant. In the genuine language of despair, he soothes himself awhile with the pity that shall be paid him after his death. Discontented with his present condition, and desirous to be any thing but what he is, he wishes himself one of the shepherds. He then catches the idea of rural tranquillity, but soon discovers how much happier he should be in these happy regions, with Lycoris at his side: Hic gelidi fontes, hic mollia, prata Lycori: Here cooling fountains roll through flowery meada, WARTON. He then turns his thoughts on every side, in quest of something that may solace or amuse him; he proposes happiness to himself, first in one scene and then in another: and at last finds that nothing will satisfy: Jam neque Hamaaryades rursum, nec carmina nobis But now again no more the woodland maids, WARTON But notwithstanding the excellence of the tenth pastoral, I cannot forbear to give the preference to the first, which is equally natural and more diversified. The complaint of the shepherd, who saw his old companion at ease in the shade, while himself was driving his little flock he knew not whither, is such as, with variation of circumstances, misery always utters at the sight of prosperity: Fortunate sener, ergo tua rura manebunt, Happy old man! then still thy farms restored, It may be observed, that these two poems were produced by events that really happened; and may, therefore, be of use to prove, that we can always feel more than we can imagine and that the most artful fiction must give way to truth. I am, Sir, your humble servant, DUBIUS. agree in their narration; or that authors, delivering the elements of science, advance the same theorems, and lay down the same definitions: yet it is not wholly without use to mankind, that books are multiplied, and that different authors lay out their labours on the same subject; for there will always be some reason why one should on particular occasions, or to particular persons, be preferable to another; some will be clear where others are obscure, some will please by their style and others by their method, some by their embellishments and others by their simpli city, some by closeness and others by diffusion. The same indulgence is to be shown to the writers of morality: right and wrong are immutable; and those, therefore, who teach us to distinguish them, if they all teach us right, must agree with one another. The relations of social life, and the duties resulting from them, must be the same at all times and in all nations: some petty differences, may be, indeed, produced by forms of government or arbitrary customs; but the general doctrine can receive no alteration. Yet it is not to be desired, that morality should be considered as interdicted to all future writers; men will always be tempted to deviate from their duty, and will, therefore, always want a monitor to recall them; and a new book often seizes the attention of the public without any other claim than that it is new. There is like wise in composition, as in other things, a perpe tual vicissitude of fashion; and truth is recommended at one time to regard, by appearances which at another would expose it to neglect; the author, therefore, who has judgment to discern the taste of his contemporaries, and skill to gratify it, will have always an opportunity to deserve well of mankind, by conveying instruction to them in a grateful vehicle. And with sweet novelty your soul detain. There are likewise many modes of composi It is often charged upon writers, that with all tion, by which a moralist may deserve the name their pretensions to genius and discoveries, they of an original writer: he may familiarize his sysdo little more than copy one another, and that tem by dialogues after the manner of the ancompositions obtruded upon the world with the cients, or subtilize it into a series of syllogystic pomp of novelty, contain only tedious repetitions arguments: he may enforce his doctrine by seof common sentiments, or at best exhibit a trans-riousness and solemnity, or enliven it by sprightposition of known images, and give a new ap-liness and gayety: he may deliver his sentiments pearance to truth only by some slight difference of dress and decoration. The allegation of resemblance between authors is indisputably true; but the charge of plagiarism, which is raised upon it, is not to be allowed with equal readiness. A coincidence of sentiment may easily happen without any communication, since there are many occasions in which all reasonable men will nearly think alike. Writers of all ages have had the same sentiments, because they have in all ages had the same objects of speculation; the interests and passions, the virtues and vices of mankind, have been diversified in different times, only by unessential and casual varieties: and we must, therefore, expect in the works of all those who attempt to describe them, such a likeness as we find in the pictures of the same person drawn in different periods of his life. It is necessary, therefore, that before an author be charged with plagiarism, one of the most reproachful, though perhaps not the most atrocious, of literary crimes, the subject on which he treats should be carefully considered. We do not wonder, that historians, relating the same facts, in naked precepts, or illustrate them by historical examples: he may detain the studious by the artful concatenation of a continued discourse, or relieve the busy by short strictures, and unconnected essays. To excel in any of these forms of writing will require a particular cultivation of the genius: whoever can attain to excellence, will be certain to engage a set of readers, whom no other method would have equally allured; and he that communicates truth with success, must be numbered among the first benefactors to mankind. The same observation may be extended like wise to the passions: their influence is uniform and their effects nearly the same in every human breast, a man loves and hates, desires and avoids, exactly like his neighbour; resentment and ambition, avarice and indolence, discover them selves by the same symptoms in minds distant thousand years from one another. Nothing, therefore, can be more unjust, thar to charge an author with plagiarism, merely be cause he assigns to every cause its natural ef fect; and makes his personages act, as others is like circumstances have always done. There are but those few agitated and combined, as external causes shall happen to operate, and modified by prevailing opinions and accidental caprices, make such frequent alterations on the surface of life, that the show, while we are busied in delineating it, vanishes from the view, and a new set of objects succeed, doomed to the same shortness of duration with the former: thus curiosity may always find employment, and the busy part of mankind will furnish the contemplative with the materials of speculation, to the end of time. conceptions in which all men will agree, though if we analyze the mind of man, are very few: cach derives them from his own observation: whoever has been in love, will represent a lover impatient of every idea that interrupts his meditations on his mistress, retiring to shades and solitude, that he may muse without disturbance on his approaching happiness, or associating himself with some friend that flatters his passion, and talking away the hours of absence upon his darling subject. Whoever has been so unhappy as to have felt the miseries of long-continued hatred, will, without any assistance from ancient volumes, be able to relate how the passions are kept in perpetual agitation, by the recollection of injury, and meditations of revenge; how the blood boils at the name of the enemy, and life is worn away in contrivances of mischief. The complaint, therefore, that all topics are pre-occupied, is nothing more than the murmur of ignorance or idleness, by which some discou rage others, and some themselves; the mutability of mankind will always furnish writers with new images, and the luxuriance of fancy may always embellish them with new decorations. Every other passion is alike simple and limited, if it be considered only with regard to the breast which it inhabits; the anatomy of the mind, as that of the body, must perpetually exhibit the same appearances; and though by the No. 99.] continued industry of successive inquirers, new movements will be from time to time discovered, they can affect only the minuter parts, and are commonly of more curiosity than importance. TUESDAY, OCT. 16, 1753. -Magnis tamen excidit ausis. OVID. ral qualities. The world will never be long with out some good reason to hate the unhappy; their real faults are immediately detected; and if those are not sufficient to sink them into infamy, an additional weight of calumny will be superadded: he that fails in his endeavours after wealth or power, will not long retain either honesty or courage. But in the glorious enterprise he died. ADDISON. It will now be natural to inquire, by what arts Ir has always been the practice of mankina, to are the writers of the present and future ages to judge of actions by the event. The same atattract the notice and favour of mankind. They tempts, conducted in the same manner, but terare to observe the alterations which time is al- minated by different success, produce different ways making in the modes of life, that they may judgments: they who attain their wishes, never gratify every generation with a picture of them- want celebrators of their wisdom and their virtue; selves. Thus love is uniform, but courtship is and they that miscarry, are quickly discovered to perpetually varying: the different arts of gallant-have been defective not only in mental but in mory, which beauty has inspired, would of themselves be sufficient to fill a volume; sometimes balls and serenades; sometimes tournaments and adventures, have been employed to melt the hearts of ladies, who in another century have been sensible of scarce any other merit than that of riches, and listened only to jointures and pinmoney. Thus the ambitious man has at all times been eager of wealth and power; but these hopes have been gratified in some countries by supplicating the people, and in others, by flattering the prince: honour in some states has been only the reward of military achievements, in others, it has been gained by noisy turbulence, and pópula clamours. Avarice has worn a different form, as she actuated the usurer of Rome, and the stockjobber of England; and idleness itself, how little soever inclined to the trouble of invention, has been forced from time to time to change its amusements, and contrive different methods of wearing out the day. Here then is the fund, from which those who study mankind may fill their compositions with an inexhaustible variety of images and allusions; and he must be confessed to look with little attention upon scenes thus perpetually changing, who cannot catch some of the figures before they are made vulgar by reiterated descriptions. It has been discovered by Sir Isaac Newton, that the distinct and primogenial colours are only seven; but every eye can witness, that from various mixtures, in various proportions, infinite diversification of tints may be produced. In like manner, the passions of the mind, which put the world in motion, and produce all the bustle and eagerness of the busy crowds that swarm upon the earth; the passions, from whence arise all the pleasures and pains that we see and hear of, This species of injustice has so long prevailed in universal practice, that it seems likewise to have infected speculation: so few minds are able to separate the ideas of greatness and prosperity, that even Sir William Temple has determined, “that he who can deserve the name of a hero, must not only be virtuous but fortunate." By this unreasonable distribution of praise and blame, none have suffered oftener than projectors, whose rapidity of imagination, and vastness of design, raise such envy in their fellow mortals, that every eye watches for their fall, and every heart exults at their distresses: yet even a projector may gain favour by success; and the tongue that was prepared to hiss, then endeavours to excel others in loudness of applause. When Coriolanus, in Shakspeare, deserted to Aufidius, the Volscian servants at first insulted him, even while he stood under the protection of the household gods: but when they saw that the project took effect, and the stranger was seated at the head of the table, one of them very judiciously observes, "that he always thought there was more in him than he could think." Machiavel has justly animadverted on the dif ferent notice taken by all succeeding times, of the two great projectors, Catiline and Cæsar. Both formed the same project, and intended to raise themselves to power, by subverting the commonwealth: they pursued their design, per |