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NUMB. 121. TUESDAY, May 14, 1751.

O imitatores, fervum pecus!

Away, ye imitators, fervile herd!

HOR

ELPHINSTON.

T HAVE been informed by a letter from one of the universities, that among the youth from whom the next fwarm of reafoners is to learn philofophy, and the next flight of beauties to hear elegies and fonnets, there are many, who, instead of endeavouring by books and meditation to form their own opinions, content themselves with the fecondary knowledge, which a convenient bench in a coffeehoufe can fupply; and without any examination or distinction, adopt the criticisms and remarks, which happen to drop from thofe who have rifen, by merit or fortune, to reputation and authority.

These humble retailers of knowledge my correfpondent ftigmatizes with the name of Echoes; and feems defirous that they fhould be made afhamed of lazy fubmiffion, and animated to attempts after new discoveries, and original fentiments.

It is very natural for young men to be vehement, acrimonious, and fevere. For, as they feldom comprehend at once all the confequences of a pofition, or perceive the difficulties by which cooler and more experienced reafoners are restrained from confidence, they form their conclufions with great precipitance. Seeing nothing that can darken or embarrass the queftion, they expect to find their own opinion univerfally

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verfally prevalent, and are inclined to impute uncertainty and hesitation to want of honesty, rather than of knowledge. I may, perhaps, therefore, be reproached by my lively correfpondent, when it fhall be found, that I have no inclination to perfecute thefe collectors of fortuitous knowledge with the feverity required; yet, as I am now too old to be much pained by hafty cenfure, I fhall not be afraid of taking into protection thofe whom I think condemned without a fufficient knowledge of their cause.

He that adopts the fentiments of another, whom he has reafon to believe wifer than himself, is only to be blamed when he claims the honours which are not due but to the author, and endeavours to deceive the world into praise and veneration; for, to learn, is the proper bufinefs of youth; and whether we increase our knowledge by books or by converfation, we are equally indebted to foreign affist

ance.

The greater part of ftudents are not born with abilities to construct fyftems, or advance knowledge; nor can have any hope beyond that of becoming intelligent hearers in the schools of art, of being able to comprehend what others difcover, and to remember what others teach. Even those to whom Providence hath allotted greater ftrength of understanding, can expect only to improve a single science. In every other part of learning, they must be content to follow opinions, which they are not able to examine; and, even in that which they claim as peculiarly their own, can feldom add more than fome small particle of knowledge, to the hereditary stock

VOL. V.

Y

devolved

devolved to them from ancient times, the collective labour of a thousand intellects.

In science, which, being fixed and limited, admits of no other variety than fuch as arifes from new methods of distribution, or new arts of illustration, the neceffity of following the traces of our predeceffors is indifputably evident; but there appears no reafon, why imagination fhould be fubject to the fame restraint. It might be conceived, that of those who profefs to forfake the narrow paths of truth every one may deviate towards a different point, fince though rectitude is uniform and fixed, obliquity may be infinitely diverfified. The roads of fcience are narrow, so that they who travel them, muft either follow or meet one another; but in the boundless regions of poffibility, which fiction claims for her dominion, there are furely a thousand receffes unexplored, a thousand flowers unplucked, a thousand fountains unexhaufted, combinations of imagery yet unobserved, and races of ideal inhabitants not hitherto described.

Yet, whatever hope may perfuade, or reason evince, experience can boast of very few additions to ancient fable. The wars of Troy, and the travels of Ulyffes, have furnished almost all fucceeding poets with incidents, characters, and fentiments. The Romans are confeffed to have attempted little more than to display in their own tongue the inventions of the Greeks. There is, in all their writings, fuch a perpetual recurrence of allufions to the tales of the fabulous age, that they must be confeffed often to want that power of giving pleasure which

novelty

novelty fupplies; nor can we wonder that they excelled fo much in the graces of diction, when we confider how rarely they were employed in fearch of new thoughts.

The warmest admirers of the great Mantuan poet can extol him for little more than the skill with which he has, by making his hero both a traveller and a warrior, united the beauties of the Iliad and the Odyssey in one compofition: yet his judgment was perhaps fometimes overborne by his avarice of the Homeric treasures; and, for fear of fuffering a fparkling ornament to be loft, he has inferted it where it cannot shine with its original splendour.

When Ulysses vifited the infernal regions, he found among the heroes that perished at Troy, his competitor, Ajax, who, when the arms of Achilles were adjudged to Ulyffes, died by his own hand in the madness of disappointment. He ftill appeared to refent, as on earth, his lofs and difgrace. Ulyffes endeavoured to pacify him with praises and submisfion; but Ajax walked away without reply. This paffage has always been confidered as eminently beautiful; because Ajax, the haughty chief, the unlettered foldier, of unfhaken courage, of immoveable conftancy, but without the power of recommending his own virtues, by eloquence, or enforcing his affertions by any other argument than the sword, had no way of making his anger known, but by gloomy fullennefs and dumb ferocity. His hatred of a man whom he conceived to have defeated him only by volubility of tongue, was therefore naturally fhewn by filence more contemptuous and piercing than any words that fo rude an orator could have

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found, and by which he gave his enemy no opportunity of exerting the only power in which he was fuperiour.

When Eneas is fent by Virgil to the fhades, he meets Dido the queen of Carthage, whom his perfidy had hurried to the grave; he accosts her with tendernefs and excuses; but the lady turns away like Ajax in mute difdain. She turns away like Ajax; but she resembles him in none of thofe qualities which give either dignity or propriety to filence. She might, without any departure from the tenour of her conduct, have burft out like other injured women into clamour, reproach, and denunciation; but Virgil had his imagination full of Ajax, and therefore could not prevail on himself to teach Dido any other mode of refentment.

If Virgil could be thus feduced by imitation, there will be little hope, that common wits fhould escape; and accordingly we find, that befides the univerfal and acknowledged practice of copying the ancients, there has prevailed in every age a parti cular fpecies of fiction. At one time all truth was conveyed in allegory; at another, nothing was feen but in a vifion; at one period all the poets followed fheep, and every event produced a paftoral; at another they bufied themfelves wholly in giving direc tions to a painter.

It is indeed eafy to conceive why any fashion should become popular, by which idlenefs is favoured, and imbecility affifted; but furely no man of genius can much applaud himself for repeating a tale with which the audience is already tired, and which could bring no honour to any but its inventor.

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