the power of returning to a station that was once the utmost of his ambition, and of renewing that pursuit which alone had made him happy, fuch was the pungency of his regret, that in the despair of recovering the money which he knew had produced nothing but riot, disease, and vexation, he threw himfelf from the Bridge into the Thames.

I am, SIR,

Your humble fervant,

CAUTU S.

NUMB. 95. TUESDAY, October 2, 1753.

Dulcique animos novitate tenebo.

And with fweet novelty your foul detain.

OVID.

T is 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 tranfpofition of known images, and give a new appear

1

appearance to truth only by fome flight difference of dress 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 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 must, therefore, expect in the works of all thofe who attempt to defcribe them, fuch a likeness as we find in 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 most atrocious of literary crimes, the fubject on which he treats should 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 use to man

kind, that books are multiplied, and that different authors lay out their labours on the fame fubject; for there will always be some 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 style and others by their method, fome by their embellishments and others by their fimplicity, fome by clofeness and others by diffufion.

THE fame 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 focial life, and the duties refulting from them, must be the fame 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 defired, that morality fhould be confidered 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 feizes the attention of the public, 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

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 difcern the tafte of his contemporaries, and skill to gratify it, will have always an opportunity to deferve well of mankind, by conveying instruction 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 feries of fyllogiftic arguments; he may enforce his doctrine by seriousness and folemnity, or enliven it by sprightliness and gaiety; he may deliver his sentiments in naked precepts, or illuftrate them by hiftorical examples; he may detain the ftudious by the artful concatenation of a continued difcourfe, 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 fuccefs, muft be numbered among the first benefactors to mankind.

THE

THE fame obfervation may be extended likewife 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 symptoms, in minds diftant a thousand years from one another.

NOTHING, therefore, can be more unjust, 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 shades and folitude, that he may amuse without disturbance 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 miseries 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