But now again no more the woodland maids,
Nor pastoral songs delight-Farewell, ye shades-
No toils of ours the cruel god can change,
Tho' lost in frozen deserts we should range;
Tho' we should drink where chilling Hebrus flows,
Endure bleak winter blasts, and Thracian snows;
Or on hot India's plains our flocks should feed,
Where the parch'd elm declines his sickening head;
Beneath fierce glowing Cancer's fiery beams,

Far from cool breezes and refreshing streams.
Love over all maintains resistless sway,

And let us love's all-conquering power obey.-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:

Nos patria fines, & dulcia linquimus arva;

Nos patriam fugimus: tu, Tityre, lentus in umbra,
Formosam resonare doces Amaryllida sylvas.

We leave our country's bounds, our much lov'd plains;
We from our country fly, unhappy swains!

You, Tit'rus, in the groves at leisure laid,

Teach Amaryllis' name to every shade.—WARTON.

His account of the difficulties of his journey, gives

a very tender image of pastoral distress:

En ipse capellas

Protenus ager ago: hanc etiam vix, Tityre, duco:
Hic inter densas corylos modo namque gemellos,
Spem gregis, ah! silice in nuda connixa reliquit.

And ló! sad partner of the general care,
Weary and faint I drive my goats afar!
While scarcely this my leading hand sustains,
Tir'd with the way, and recent from her pains;
For 'mid yon tangled hazels as we past,

On the bare flint her hapless twins she cast,

The hopes and promise of my ruin'd fold!-WARTON.

The description of Virgil's happiness in his little farm, combines almost all the images of rural pleasure; and he, therefore, that can read it with indifference, has no sense of pastoral poetry:

Fortunate senex, ergo tua rura manebunt,

Et tibi magna satis; quamvis lapis omnia nudus.
Limosoque palus obducat pascua junco,
Non insueta gravis tentabunt pabula fœtas,
Nec mala vicini pecoris contagia lædent.
Fortunate senex, his inter flumina nota,
Et fontes sacros, frigus captabis opacum.
Hine tibi, que semper vicino ab limite sepes,
Hyblais apibus florem depasta salicti,
Sæpe levi somnum suadebit inire susurro.
Hinc alta sub rupe canet frondator ad auras;
Nec tamen interea rauca, tua cura, palumbes,
Nec gemere aëria cessabit turtur ab ulmo.

Happy old man! then still thy farms restor❜d,
Enough for thee, shall bless thy frugal board.
What tho' rough stones the naked soil o'erspread,
Or marshy bulrush rear its wat'ry head,

No foreign food thy teeming ewes shall fear,

No touch contagious spread its influence here.
Happy old man! here 'mid th' accustom'd streams
And sacred springs, you'll shun the scorching beams;
While from yon willow-fence, thy pasture's bound,
The bees that suck their flow'ry stores around,
Shall sweetly mingle, with the whispering boughs,
Their lulling murmurs, and invite repose:
While from steep rocks the pruner's song is heard;
Nor the soft-cooing dove, thy fav'rite bird,

Mean while shall cease to breathe her melting strain,
Nor turtles from th' aerial elm to 'plain.-WARTON.

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.

N° 95. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 2, 1753.

Dulcique animos novitate tenebo.--OVID.

And with sweet novelty your soul detain.

It is often charged upon writers, that with all their pretensions to genius and discoveries, they do little more than copy one another; and that compositions obtruded upon the world with the pomp of novelty, X contain only tedious repetitions of common sentiments, or at best exhibit a transposition of known images, and give a new appearance 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 ini

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, 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 shewn 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: