NUMB. 95. TUESDAY, October 2, 1753. Dulcique animos novitate tenebo. And with sweet novelty your foul detain. OVID. IT is often charged upon writers, that with all their pretenfions to genius and discoveries, they do little more than copy one another; and that compofitions obtruded upon the world with the pomp of novelty, contain only tedious repetitions of common fentiments, or at best exhibit a transposition of known images, and give a new appearance to truth only by fome flight difference of dress and decoration. The allegation of resemblance between authors, is indifputably true; but the charge of plagiarism, which is raised upon it, is not to be allowed with equal readiness. A coincidence of fentiment may eafily happen without any communication, fince there are many occafions in which all reasonable men will nearly think alike. Writers of all ages have had the fame fentiments, because they have in all ages had the fame objects of fpeculation; the interefts and paffions, the virtues and vices of mankind, have been diverfified in different times, only by uneffential and cafual varieties and we muft, therefore, expect in the works of all thofe who attempt to defcribe them, fuch a likenefs as we find in the pictures of the fame perfon drawn in differen periods of his life. It is neceffary, therefore, that before an author be charged with plagiarism, one of the most reproachful, though, perhaps, not the most atrocious of literary crimes, the fubject on which he treats fhould be carefully confidered. We do not wonder, that hiftorians, relating the fame facts, agree in their narration; or that authors, delivering the elements of fcience, advance the fame theorems, and lay down the fame definitions: yet it is not wholly without ufe to mankind, that books are multiplied, and that different authors lay out their labours on the fame fubject; for there will always be fome reason why one fhould on particular occafions or to particular perfons, be preferable to another; fome will be clear where others are obfcure, fome will please by their ftyle and others by their method, fome by their embellishments and others by their fimplicity, fome by closeness and others by diffufion. The fame indulgence is to be fhewn to the writers of morality right and wrong are immutable; and thofe, therefore, who teach us to diftinguish them, if they all teach, us right, muft agree with one another. The relations of focial life, and the duties refulting from them, must be the fame at all times and in all nations: fome petty differences may be, indeed, produced, by forms of government or arbitrary cuftoms; but the general doctrine can receive no alteration. Yet it is not to be defired, that morality fhould be confidered as interdicted to all future writers men 215 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 feizes the attention of the publick, without any other claim than that it is new. There is likewife in compofition, as in other things a perpetual viciffitude of fashion; and truth is recommended at one time to regard, by appearances which at another would expofe it to neglect; the author, therefore, who has judgment to difcern the taste of his contemporaries, and fkill to gratify it, will have always an opportunity to deserve well of mankind, by conveying instruction to them in a grateful vehicle. There are likewife many modes of compofition, by which a moralift may deferve the name of an original writer: he may familiarife his fyftem by dialogues after the manner of the ancients, or fubtilize it into a series of fyllogiftic arguments: he may enforce his doctrine by ferioufnefs and folemnity, or enliven it by fprightlinefs and gaiety; he may deliver his fentiments in naked precepts, or illuftrate them by historical examples; he may detain the ftudious by the artful concatenation of a continued discourse, or relieve the bufy by fhort ftrictures, and unconnected effays. To excel in any of thefe forms of writing will require a particular cultivation of the genius; whoever can attain to excellence, will be certain to engage a fet of readers, whom no other method would have equally allured; and he that communicates truth with fuccess, must be numbered among the first benefactors to mankind. The fame obfervation may be extended likewise to the paffions: their influence is uniform, and their effects nearly the fame in every human breast: a man loves and hates, defires and avoids, exactly like his neighbour; refentment and ambition, avarice and indolence, discover themselves by the fame fymptoms in minds distant a thousand years from one another. Nothing, therefore, can be more unjuft, than to charge an author with plagiarism, merely because he affigns to every cause its natural effect; and makes his perfonages act, as others in like circumftances have always done. There are conceptions in which all men will agree, though each derives them from his own obfervation: whoever has been in love, will represent a lover impatient of every idea that interrupts his meditations on his mistress, retiring to fhades and folitude, that he may mufe without disturbance on his approaching happiness, or affociating himself with fome friend that flatters his paffion, and talking away the hours of abfence upon his darling fubject. Whoever has been fo unhapp as to have felt the miferies of long-continued hatred, will, without any affiftance from ancient volumes, be able to relate how the paffions 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. Every other paffion is alike fimple and limited, if it be confidered only with regard to the breast which it inhabits; the anatomy of the mind, as that of the the body, must perpetually exhibit the fame appearances; and though by the continued industry of fucceffive inquirers, new movements will be from time to time difcovered, they can affect only the minuter parts, and are commonly of more curiofity than importance. It will now be natural to inquire, by what arts are the writers of the present and future ages to attract the notice and favour of mankind. They are to obferve the alterations which time is always making in the modes of life, that they may gratify every generation with a picture of themselves. Thus love is uniform, but courtship is perpetually varying the different arts of gallantry, which beauty has infpired, would of themselves be fufficient to fill a volume; fometimes balls and ferenades, fometimes tournaments and adventures, have been employed to melt the hearts of ladies, who in another century have been fenfible of scarce any other merit than that of riches, and liftened only to jointures and pin-money. Thus the ambitious man has at all times been eager of wealth and power; but these hopes have been gratified in fome countries by fupplicating the people, and in others by flattering the prince: honour in fome ftates has been only the reward of military achievements, in others it has been gained by noify turbulence and popular clamours. Avarice has worn a different form, as fhe actuated the ufurer of Rome, and the stockjobber of England; and idleness itself, how little foever inclined to the trouble of invention, has been forced from time to time to change its amuse ments, |