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 acknowledged 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 sufficient 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: Fortunate senez, 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. Ovid. 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 simplicity, 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 dis tinguish 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 There is like other claim than that it is new. 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. No. 95. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 2, 1753. Dulcique animos novitate tenebo. And with sweet novelty your soul detain. There are likewise many modes of compost Ir 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 an compositions 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 likewise 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 a thousand years from one another. Nothing, therefore, can be more unjust, that 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 in like circumstances have always done. There are conceptions in which all men will agree, though cach derives them from his own observation: whoever has be in love, will represent a lover impatient of every idea that interrupts his meditations on his riistress, 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. 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 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. if we analyze the mind of man, are very few 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 ob jects 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 materiala of speculation, to the end of time. 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. ADDISON But in the glorious enterprise he died. 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 ter are 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 them-ral qualities. The world will never be long with selves be sufficient to fill a volume; sometimes out some good reason to hate the unhappy: their balls and serenades; sometimes tournaments and real faults are immediately detected; and if adventures, have been employed to melt the those are not sufficient to sink them into infamy, hearts of ladies, who in another century have an additional weight of calumny will be super been sensible of scarce any other merit than that added: he that fails in his endeavours after of riches, and listened only to jointures and pin-wealth or power, will not long retain either homoney. Thus the ambitious man has at all times nesty or courage. 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 popular 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 commo hey pursued their design, pas haps, with equal abilities and with equal virtue; But Catiline perished in the field, and Cæsar re turned from Pharsalia with unlimited authority: and from that time, every monarch of the earth has thought himself honoured by a comparison with Cæsar; and Catiline has been never mentioned, but that his name might be applied to traitors and incendiaries.. In an age more remote, Xerxes projected the conquest of Greece, and brought down the power of Asia against it: but after the world had been filled with expectation and terror, his army was beaten, his fleet was destroyed, and Xerxes has never been mentioned without contempt. A few years afterwards Greece likewise had her turn of giving birth to a projector; who, invading Asia with a small army, went forward in search of adventures, and by his escape from one danger, gained only more rashness to rush into another; he stormed city after city, overran kingdom after kingdom, fought battles only for barren victory, and invaded nations only that he might make his way through them to new invasions; but having been fortunate in the execution of his projects, he died with the name of Alexander the Great. These are, indeed, events of ancient times; but human nature is always the same, and every age will afford us instances of public censures influenced by events. The great business of the middle centuries, was the holy war; which undoubtedly was a noble project, and was for a long time prosecuted with a spirit equal to that with which it had been contrived; but the ardour of the European heroes only hurried them to destruction; for a long time they could not gain the territories for which they fought, and, when at last gained, they could not keep them: their expeditions, therefore, have been the scoff of idleness and ignorance, their understanding and their virtue have been equally vilified, their conduct has been ridiculed, and their cause has been defamed. When Columbus had engaged king Ferdinand in the discovery of the other hemisphere, the sailors with whom he embarked in the expedition had so little confidence in their commander, hat after having been long at sea looking for oasts which they expected never to find, they aised a general mutiny, and demanded to return. He found means to soothe them into a permission to continue the same course three days longer, and on the evening of the third day descried land. Had the impatience of his crew denied him a few hours of the time requested, what had been his fate but to have come back with the infamy of a vain projector, who had betrayed the king's credulity to useless expenses, and risked his life in seeking countries that had no existence? how would those that had rejected his proposals, have triumphed in their acuteness! And when would his name have been mentioned, but with the makers of potable gold and maleable glass? The last royal projectors with whom the world has been troubled, were Charles of Sweden, and the Czar of Muscovy. Charles, if any judgment may be formed of his designs by his ineasures and his inquiries, had purposed first dethrone the Czar, then to lead his army through pathless deserts into China, thence to make his way by the sword through the whole circuit of Asia, and by the conquest of Turkey to unite Sweden with his new dominions: but this mighty project was crushed at Pultova; and Charles has since been considered as a madman by those powers, who sent their ambassadors to solicit his friendship, and their generals "to learn under him the art of war." The Czar found employment sufficient in his own dominions, and amused himself in digging canals, and building cities; murdering his subjects with insufferable fatigues, and transplanting nations from one corner of his dominions to another, without regretting the thousands that perished on the way: but he attained his end, he made his people formidable, and is numbered by fame among the demi-gods. I am far from intending to vindicate the san guinary projects of heroes and conquerors, and would wish rather to diminish the reputation of their success, than the infamy of their miscarriages: for I cannot conceive, why he that has burned cities, wasted nations, and filled the world with horror and desolation, should be more kindly regarded by mankind, than he who died in the rudiments of wickedness; why he that accomplished wickedness should be glorious, and he that only endeavoured it should be criminal. I would wish Cæsar and Catiline, Xerxes and Alexander, Charles and Peter, huddled together in obscurity or detestation. But there is another species of projectors, to whom I would willingly conciliate mankind; whose ends are generally laudable, and whose labours are innocent; who are searching out new powers of nature, or contriving new works of art; but who are yet persecuted with incessant obloquy, and whom the universal contempt with which they are treated, often debars from that success which their industry would obtain, if it were permitted to act without opposition. They who find themselves inclined to censure new undertakings, only because they are new, should consider, that the folly of projection is very seldom the folly of a fool; it is commonly the ebullition of a capacious mind, crowded with variety of knowledge, and heated with intenseness of thought; it proceeds often from the consciousness of uncommon powers, from the con fidence of those, who, having already done much, are easily persuaded that they can do more. When Rowley had completed the orrery, he attempted the perpetual motion; when Boyle had exhausted the secrets of vulgar chymistry, he turned his thoughts to the work of transmutation. A projector generally unites those qualities which have the fairest claim to veneration, extent of knowledge, and greatness of design; it was said of Catiline, “immoderata, incredibilia, nimis alta semper cupiebat." Projectors of all kinds agree in their intellects, though they differ in their morals; they all fail by attempting things beyond their power, by despising vulgar attainments, and aspiring to performances to which perhaps nature has not proportioned the force of man; when they fail, therefore, they fail not by idleness or timidity, but by rash adventure and fruitless diligence. That the attempts of such men will often miscarry, we may reasonably expect; yet from such men, and such only, are we to hope for the cultivation of those parts of nature which lie yet waste, and the invention of those arts which are hopes of becoming in a short time one of the diyet wanting to the felicity of life. If they are, rectors of a wealthy company, and, to complete therefore, universally discouraged, art and dis-my mercantile honours, enjoyed the expensive covery can make no advances. Whatever is at- happiness of fining for sheriff. tempted without previous certainty of success, Riches, you know, easily produce riches: may be considered as a project, and amongst nar-when I had arrived to this degree of wealth, I row minds may, therefore, expose its author to had no longer any obstruction or opposition to censure and contempt; and if the liberty of laugh-fear; new acquisitions were hourly brought ing be once indulged, every man will laugh at within my reach, and I continued for some years what he does not understand, every project will longer to heap thousands upon thousands. be considered as madness, and every great or new design will be censured as a project. Men, unaccustomed to reason and researches, think every enterprise impracticable, which is extended beyond common effects, or comprises many intermediate operations. Many that presume to laugh at projectors, would consider a flight through the air in a winged chariot, and the movement of a mighty engine by the steam of water, as equally the dreams of mechanic lunacy; and would hear, with equal negligence, of the union of the Thames and Severn by a canal, and the scheme of Albuquerque, the viceroy of the Indies, who in the rage of hostility had contrived to make Egypt a barren desert, by turning the Nile into the Red Sea, Those who have attempted much, have seldom failed to perform more than those who never de viate from the common roads of action: many valuable preparations of chymistry are supposed to have risen from unsuccessful inquiries after the grand elixir; it is, therefore, just to encourage those who endeavour to enlarge the power of art, since they often succeed beyond expectation; and when they fail, may sometimes benefit the world even by their miscarriages. No. 102.] SATURDAY, OCTOBER 27, 1753. Quid tam dextro pede concipis, ut te What in the conduct of our life appears But when we have our wish, we wish undone ? SIR, TO THE ADVENTURER. JUV. DRYDEN. At last I resolved to complete the circle of a citizen's prosperity by the purchase of an estate in the country, and to close my life in retirement. From the hour that this design entered my imagination, I found the fatigues of my employment every day more oppressive, and persuaded myself that I was no longer equal to perpetual attention, and that my health would soon be destroyed by the torment and distraction of extensive business. I could image to myself no happiness, but in vacant jollity, and uninterrupted leisure; nor entertain my friends with any other topic, than the vexation and uncertainty of trade, and the happiness of rural privacy. But notwithstanding these declarations, I could not at once reconcile myself to the thoughts of ceasing to get money; and though I was every day inquiring for a purchase, I found some reason for rejecting all that were offered me; and, indeed, had accumulated so many beauties and conveniences in my idea of the spot where I was finally to be happy, that, perhaps, the world might have been travelled over without discoery of a place which ould not have been de fective in some particular. Thus I went on, still talking of retirement, and still refusing to retire; my friends began to laugh at my delays, and I grew ashamed to trifle longer with my own inclinations; an estate was at length purchased, I transferred my stock to a prudent young man who had married my daughter, went down into the country, and com menced lord of a spacious manor. Here for some time, I found happiness equal to my expectation. I reformed the old house according to the advice of the best architects, I threw down the walls of the garden, and enclosed it with palisades, planted long avenues of trees, filled a greenhouse with exotic plants, dug a new canal, and threw the earth into the old moat. The fame of these expensive improvements brought in all the country to see the show. I entertained my visitors with great liberality, led them round my gardens, showed them my apartments, laid before them plans for new decorations, and was gratified by the wonder of some and the envy of others. I HAVE been for many years a trader in London. My beginning was narrow, and my stock small. I was, therefore, a long time brow-beaten and despised by those, who, having more money, thought they had more merit than myself. I did not, however, suffer my resentment to instigate me to any mean arts of supplantation, nor my eagerness of riches to betray me to any indirect methods of gain; I pursued my business with incessant assiduity, supported by the hope of being one day richer than those who contemned I was envied: but how little can one man me; and had, upon every annual review of my judge of the condition of another! The time was books, the satisfaction of finding my fortune in-now coming, in which affluence and splendour creased beyond my expectation. In a few years my industry and probity were fully recompensed; my wealth was really great, and my reputation for wealth still greater. I had large warehouses crowded with goods, and considerable sums in the public funds; I was caressed upon the Exchange by the most eminent merchants; became the oracle of the common council; was solicited to engage in all comanercial undertakings; was flattered with the could no longer make me pleased with myself. I had built till the imagination of the architect was exhausted; I had added one convenience to another, till I knew not what more to wish or to design; I had laid out my gardens, planted my park, and completed my waterworks; and what now remained to be done? what, but to look up to turrets, of which, when they were once raised I had no further use, to range over apartments where time was tarnishing the furniture, to |