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No foreign food thy teeming ewes fhall fear,
No touch contagious fpread its influence here.
Happy old man! here 'mid th' accuftom'd ftreams
And facred fprings, you'll fhun the fcorching beams;
While from yon willow-fence, thy pafture's bound,
The bees that fuck their flow'ry stores around,
Shall fweetly mingle, with the whispering boughs,
Their lulling murmurs, and invite repose:
While from steep rocks the pruner's fong is heard;
Nor the foft-cooing dove, thy fav'rite bird,
Mean while fhall ceafe to breathe her melting ftrain,
Nor turtles from th' aerial elm to plain.
WARTON.

It may be obferved, that these two poems were produced by events that really happened; and may, therefore, be of ufe 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 fervant,

DUBIUS.

NUMB. 95. TUESDAY, October 2, 1753.

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Tis often charged upon writers, that with all their pretenfions to genius and difcoveries, 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 beft exhibit a transposition of known images, and give a new appearance to truth only by fome flight difference of drefs and decoration.

The allegation of refemblance 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 sentiment 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 speculation; 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 describe them, fuch a likeness as we find in

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the pictures of the fame perfon drawn in different periods of his life.

It is neceffary, therefore, that before an author be charged with plagiarifm, one of the most reproachful, though, perhaps, not the moft 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 should on particular occafions, or to particular perfons, be preferable to another; fome will be clear where others are obfcure, some will pleafe by their style and others by their method, fome by their embellishments and others by their fimplicity, fome by clofenefs 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 customs; 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:

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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 skill to gratify it, will have always an opportunity to deferve well of mankind, by conveying inftruction to them in a grateful vehicle.

There are likewife many modes of compofition, by which a moralift may deserve 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 seriousness and solemnity, or enliven it by fprightliness and gaiety; he may deliver his fentiments in naked precepts, or illustrate them by historical examples; he may detain the ftudious by the artful concatenation of a continued difcourfe, or relieve the bufy by fhort strictures, 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 fuccefs, must be numbered among the first benefactors to mankind.

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The fame obfervation may be extended likewise to the paffions: their influence is uniform, and their effects nearly the fame in every human breaft: a man loves and hates, defires and avoids, exactly like his neighbour; refentment and ambition, avarice. and indolence, difcover themfelves by the fame fymptoms, in minds diftant a thoufand years from one another.

Nothing, therefore, can be more unjust, than to charge an author with plagiarifin, 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 reprefent a lover impatient of every idea that interrupts his meditations on his mistress, retiring to fhades and folitude, that he may mufe without difturbance on his approaching happinefs, 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 unhappy 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 mifchief.

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

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