putting the old man
aside; much less of that yearning for his father, which made the hero
tremble in every limb. Writers without the greatest passion and power
do not feel in this way, nor are capable of expressing the feeling;
though there is enough sensibility and imagination all over the world
to enable mankind to be moved by it, when the poet strikes his truth
into their hearts.

The reverse of imagination is exhibited in pure absence of ideas, in
commonplaces, and, above all, in conventional metaphor, or such images
and their phraseology as have become the common property of discourse
and writing. Addison's _Cato_ is full of them.

Passion unpitied and successless love
_Plant daggers in my breast._

I've sounded my Numidians, man by man,
And find them _ripe for a revolt_.

The virtuous Marcia _towers above her sex_.

Of the same kind is his 'courting the yoke'--'distracting my very
heart'--'calling up all' one's 'father' in one's soul--'working every
nerve'--'copying a bright example'; in short, the whole play, relieved
now and then with a smart sentence or turn of words. The following is
a pregnant example of plagiarism and weak writing. It is from another
tragedy of Addison's time--the _Mariamne_ of Fenton:

Mariamne, _with superior charms_,
_Triumphs o'er reason_: in her look she _bears_
A paradise of ever-blooming sweets;
Fair as the first idea beauty _prints_
In the young lover's soul; a winning grace
Guides every gesture, and obsequious love
_Attends_ on all her steps.

'Triumphing o'er reason' is an old acquaintance of everybody's.
'Paradise in her look' is from the Italian poets through Dryden. 'Fair
as the first idea', &c., is from Milton, spoilt;--'winning grace' and
'steps' from Milton and Tibullus, both spoilt. Whenever beauties are
stolen by such a writer, they are sure to be spoilt: just as when a
great writer borrows, he improves.

To come now to Fancy,--she is a younger sister of Imagination, without
the other's weight of thought and feeling. Imagination indeed, purely
so called, is all feeling; the feeling of the subtlest and most
affecting analogies; the perception of sympathies in the natures of
things, or in their popular attributes. Fancy is a sporting with their
resemblance, real or supposed, and with airy and fantastical
creations.

--Rouse yourself; and the weak wanton Cupid
Shall from your neck unloose his amoro