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XVIII.—Aristotelian ‘Mimesis’ in Eighteenth Century England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

John W. Draper
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Extract

Of the many disputed terms in the Poetics, “imitation,” has always been one of the most fruitful of discussion and of misconception; and these misconceptions are particularly significant because, for whole periods, they were potent in moulding creative activity not only in literature, but also in painting and in music. When “ imitation ” is considered in the light of its technical use in Plato and in Aristotle, its real meaning emerges with some distinctness. Far from the naturalistic theory of a direct and slavish copy of objects and actions, Aristotle's is a distinctly idealistic conception, and signifies “ creating according to a true idea.” Thus, when we are told that Art imitates Nature, “ Nature ” is not a particular thing or act, but is the creative force of the universe. With this conception, we can justify Aristotle's declaration that music is the most imitative of all the arts: it is the most fluid; and its flux is governed most completely by the universal laws of unity, proportion, and symmetry. The conception is almost Platonic; and it makes Aristotelian appear in a sense almost diametrically opposed to the common meaning of the Latin imitatio and the English “ imitation.”

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 36 , Issue 3 , September 1921 , pp. 372 - 400
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Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1921

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References

1 Saintsbury has pointed out the prevalence of literary imitation in his History of Criticism, sub Bysshe.

2 It must, however, be admitted that Aristotle is not perfectly consistent—or that the scribe has not reported faithfully. On one occasion, he seems to include narrative as an “ imitative ” art, and, on another, to exclude it. Bee I. Bywater, Aristotle on the Art of Poetry, Oxford, 1909, 100-101.

3 S. H. Butcher, Aristotle's Theory of Poetry and Fine Art, London, 1902, 153.

4 Ibid., 116.

5 On Imitation in Seventeenth Century England, see W. G. Howard, Ut Pictura Poesis, Publ. Mod. Lang. Assoc., xxiv, 44; I. Babbit, The New Laokoon, Boston, 1910, 12; Gregory Smith, Elizabethan Critical Essays, Oxford, 1904, i, xxxviii; J. W. Bray, History of English Critical Terms, Boston, 1898, 160 ff.; and J. E. Spingarn, Critical Essays of the Seventeenth Century, Oxford, 1908, i, xlviii ff.

6 For a list of these, see Schwab's Bibliographie d'Aristotle, Paris, 1896.

7 Cooke's ed., Cambridge, 1785, is quite definite, iii.

8 Aristotle's Art of Poetry, London, 1709.

9 Horace Walpole, Letters, Toynbee ed., Oxford, 1903, iv, 398; vi, 201; viii, 176; X, 132; xii, 359.

10 William Cowper, Letters, ed. Wright, London, 1904, ii, 196.

11 Johnson's English Dictionary, London, 1755. He gives three senses: the “act of copying, attempt to resemble”; “that which is offered as a copy” (the quotation from Dryden shows that he means this to include literary “ imitation ” ); and “ a method of translating looser than paraphrase, in which modern examples and illustrations are used for ancient, or domestic for foreign.” Later dictionaries quote Johnson.

12 Many of them seem to have taken it so completely for granted that they ignored it. William Walker, Rhetoriticae libri duo, London, 1672, 162, discusses it only as a figure in oratory. Charles Butler, Rhetoricae libro duo, London, 1684, leaves it out entirely. So also do William Dugard, Rhetorices Elementa, London, 1721, 1741, etc.; and John Ward, De Ratione Interpugendi, London, 1739.

13 Edward Bysshe, The Art of English Poetry, 4th ed,, London, 1710. See title page.

14 John Constable, Reflections upon Accuracy of Style, London, 1731, 81.

15 Prolusions Academiæ, Oxon., 1765. The author's attitude toward imitation seems inconsistent. He seems opposed to it as contradictory to divine inspiration; hut, on the other hand, he declares: “ Perversa nullorum Imitatio cum chamæleonte comparatur.” p. 89).

16 Edward Owen, The Satires of Juvenal, London, 1785, Preface.

17 Richard Hurd, A Discourse on Poetical Imitation, Works, ii, 217. For the relation of “ imitation ” to the theory translation in the Eighteenth Century, see an article by the present author in the current volume of Neophilologus.

18 Henry Felton, A Dissertation on Reading the Classics and forming a Just Style, 5th ed., London, 1753, 146. For an extended treatment of Felton, see R. S. Crane, Imitation of Spenser and Milton in the Early Eighteenth Century: A New Document, Studies in Philology, xv, 195 ff.

19 Charles Gildon, Complete Art of Poetry, Dialogue II (1718) in Durham's Critical Essays of the Eighteenth Century, New Haven, 1915, i, 73 ff.

20 Lord Lansdowne, Essay upon Unnatural Flights in Poetry. See Gildon's Laws of Poetry, London, 1721, 345.

21 William Lauder in his Essay on Milton's Use and Imitation of the Moderns, London, 1750, fastened a bad sense on imitation.

22 Percival Stockdale, An Inquiry into the Nature and Genuine Laws of Poetry, London, 1778, 76.

23 Samuel Johnson, Life of Pope, Works, Oxford, 1825, viii, 295.

24 Jonathan Swift, Works, Edinburgh, 1814, xiii, 43.

25 The Guardian, No. xii, in Durham's Critical Essays of the Eighteenth Century, New Haven, 1915, i, 295.

26 Alexander Pope, Preface to the Iliad, Works, London, 1757, vi, 303.

27 Alexander Pope, Preface to Poems, Works, ed. cit., i, xv.

28 Joseph Warton, Essay on Pope, London, 1806, ii, 36.

29 William Mason, Works, London, 1811, ii, 180. By a stroke of irony, Mason prefixed to his Works, i, 2, a quotation from the Greek of Dionysius to the effect that copies can never be equal to their archetypes. See Dion. Halicar., , Opuscula, Leipzig, 1899, i, 307.

30 See, for example, J. M. Beattie, Jr., The Political Satires of Charles Churchill, Studies in Philology,, xvi, 303 ff. Beattie points out that Churchill forsakes the finished artfulness of Pope's versification for the more robustious, freer style of Dryden. Of course, the present paper makes no attempt to cover in any definite or detailed fashion, the actual literary imitations of the Eighteenth Century. The object is merely to note the explanations and applications of Aristotelean and to explain somewhat the influence and vogue of each interpretation.

31 Lord Shaftesbury, Second Characters or the Language of Forms, ed. B. Rand, Cambridge (Eng.), 1914, 23.

32 For the tracing of this influence on the purely literary side, see C. A. Moore, Shaftesbury and the Ethical Poets of England, 1700-1760, PMLA., xxxi, 264.

33 By implication, he includes Moorish arabesques and other non-pictorial designs.

34 Francis Hutcheson, An Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue, London, 1725, 15-37. He allows sculpture also to be an absolute art in so far as it concerns itself with proportion of parts rather than the copying of an original. Hutcheson's distinction is a sound one, although he does not always apply it accurately in matters of detail.

35 Ibid., 39-40.

36 Abbé J. B. du Bos, Critical Reflections on Poetry, Painting and Music, tr. into Eng., London, 1748, ii, 43-5. Ed. princ., Paris, 1719, anon. For the relation of du Bos to the history of criticism, see A. Lombard, L'Abbé du Bos, Initiateur de la Pensée moderne, Paris, 1913. Du Bos is probably too early to have been influenced by England; but undoubtedly English example had a good deal to do with the rise of Sentimental and Rationalistic æsthetic theories in France in the second and third quarters of the Eighteenth Century. Cf. Joseph Texte, Jean-Jacques Rousseau et les Origines du Cosmopolitisme Littéraire, Paris, 1895, Chapter II.

37 Pierre Estève, Esprit des Beaux Arts, Paris, 1753. Ch. III, 43 ff.; 92 ff.

38 Ibid., 60, 68, etc.

39 Charles Batteaux, Principes de la Littérature, Paris, 1802, i, 16 ff. The complete edition, according to the Brit. Mus. Cat. appeared in 1764, and was augmented in 1774-88.

40 Batteaux applied this theory to painting, sculpture, dancing, music and poetry. In a long note, he attacked Schlegel for excluding the dance from among the “ imitative” arts. He gives no satisfactory explanation as to how music can be “ imitative.”

41 Condillac's work seems to have been very influential in England. His Origin of Human Knowledge was translated by Thomas Nugent in 1756. The Critical reviewed it at great length, ii, 193-219. In general, he looks at the arts from the standpoint of psychology; and he casts aside imitation, except for the imitation of the passions in music, p. 222 et al. loc. Cf. Leon Dewaule, Condillac et la Psychologie Anglaise Contemporaine, 84 ff.

42 Montesquieu, Œuvres Complète, ed. Laboulaye, Paris, 1879, vii, 116. The Essai sur le Goût was posthumously published in l'Encyclopédie, ed. 1775, vii, s. v.; but it doubtless represents the views of the entire group for many years before.

43 Voltaire, Œuvres Complètes, Paris, 1879, xix, 270 ff. This article first appeared in l'Encyclopédie, ed. 1757, vii, s. v.

44 The Brit. Mus. Cat. lists one edition of the Greek text alone, Oxford, 1718, a translation into Latin by J. Hudson, Oxford, 1710, a “ third edition ” in 1730 and another at Edinburgh in 1733. Another translation into Latin by Z. Pearce appeared at least eight times in England, 1724, 1732, 1751, 1752, 1763, 1773, 1778, and at least once in Amsterdam, 1733. English translations from the French of Boileau were common; there were besides one by Welsted, 1712, 1724, and one by Smith, sec. ed., 1743, 1751, 1756, and 1770. References to Longinus are numerous in writers on æsthetic theory; and Edward Burnaby Greene incorporated Observations on the Sublime in his Critical Essays, London, 1760 [1770?]. J. Churton Collins briefly discusses the vogue in Longinus and Greek Criticism, Studies in Poetry and Criticism, London, 1905, 215 ff.

45 Plato's influence on Harris' Three Treatises is noted by Sarah Coleridge. S. T. Coleridge's Works, New York, 1853, iii, 391.

46 For example, Henry Brooke, Universal Beauty, 1735. He seems to be under the influence of Shaftesbury and Hutcheson. See also Anselm Bayly, Introduction to Languages. London, 1758, 102. His work shows the influence of Longinus, and favors original genius.

47 Henry Felton, A Dissertation on Reading the Classics and Forming a Just Style, 5th ed., London, 1753, 33 ff. The ed. princ. appeared in 1713.

48 Anthony Blackwell, Introduction to the Classics, London, 1746, 21. Ed. princ. 1718.

49 Leonard Welsted, A Dissertation concerning the Perfection of the English Language, in Durham, op. cit., i, 377.

50 Henry Fielding, Covent-Garden Journal, No. lxi, Aug. 29, 1752, ed. Jenson, New Haven, 1915, ii, 93.

51 John Byrom, Epistle to a Friend on the Art of English Poetry, in Alexander Chalmers, English Poets, London, 1810, xv, 213.

52 Robert Lloyd, The Poetry Professors in Chalmers, op. cit., xv, 79.

53 Edward Young, Conjectures on Original Composition, London, 1759, 9. Cf. J. L. Kind, Edward Young in Germany, New York, 1906, Chapter I; and cf. M. W. Steinke, Edward Young's “Conjectures on Original Composition” in England and Germany, New York, 1917, 10 ff. Kind is inclined to overestimate the novelty both of Young's ideas and of his influence in Germany. Steinke corrects these impressions.

54 Launcelot Temple, pseud. for John Armstrong, Sketches, London, 1758, 44 ff. See also Mon. Rev. xviii, 580 ff.

55 Edward Burnaby Greene, Critical Essays, London [1770?], i ff. As his notes show, Greene is deeply indebted to Longinus.

56 Lawrence Sterne, Tristram Shandy, Vol. ii, Chap. iv. He adds, however, that this is to he understood “cum grano salis.”

57 The Circle of the Sciences, London, 1776, 95.

58 William Cowper, Correspondence, ed. Wright, London, 1904, i, 386.

59 Spectator, No. 419.

60 Joseph Trapp, Prof. of Poetry at Oxford, Prœlectiones Poeticae, London, 1736, i, 26-31. The book was translated under the title, Lectures on Poetry, London, 1742.

61 Henry Pemberton, Observations on Poetry, London, 1738, 5-7. This is a characteristically Neo-classical variation of Aristotle to conform with Pope's dictum : “The proper study of mankind is Man.”

62 John Brown, Essays on the Characteristics, London, 1751, 19-20. Perhaps this latter attitude together with the veneration for Aristotle, helps to explain the vogue of descriptive poetry in the Eighteenth Century.

63 Thomas Francklin, Translation a Poem, London [1753], 8. He also treats of imitation as translation and copying of approved masterpieces. Francklin was Professor of Greek at Cambridge.

64 Perhaps this implies a more conscious consideration of the subject than Warton actually gave. As a matter of fact, many of the interpretations here quoted are chance obiter dicta, thrown off on the spur of an occasion. They serve, however, to illustrate the general attitude toward imitation.

65 Joseph Warton, Essay on Pope, London, 1756, 51.

66 Edmund Burke, Philosophical Inquiry into the Sublime and the Beautiful, London, 1757, 29, 179 ff.

67 David Hume, Four Dissertations, London, 1757. The Monthly Rev. gave it a long and rather appreciative review, xvi, 122-140.

68 Rambler, No. 143. Johnson's objections to plagiarism probably arose, not from any dislike of literary imitation but from disgust at the thievery of book-sellers. Some of his Idler papers appear to have been stolen. See his letter of protest to the Univ. Chron. 1759, 149.

69 L. Temple, pseud., op. cit., 4 ff.

70 Alexander Gerard, Essay on Taste, London, 1759, 49-56. The reference to Hutcheson's Inquiry suggests that Sentimentalism accounts for his unwillingness to subscribe to utter Neo-classical copying. Gerard's Essay was “ very well received in London ” according to Hume. Hume to Robertson, May 29, 1759, in Dugald Stewart, Life of Robertson, London, 1802, 252.

71 O. Goldsmith, Works, N. Y., 1850, i, 275, Essay XVIII, On the Cultivation of Taste, et seq. This sounds like a rather liberal view of but the second clause turns out to mean only that the artist is to avoid the disgusting. These essays first appeared in The Bee, 1761-2-3.

72 Daniel Webb, Remarks on the Beauties of Poetry, London, 1762, 102 n. q.

73 John Ogilvie, Poems, London, 1762, vii ff. In his Philosophical and Critical Observations on Composition, London, 1774, i, 295-6, Ogilvie took up the matter again. He referred “ imitation ” either directly to sense impressions or to “ such materials as are more generally supplied by reflection and experience.” He seems to have had in mind a less stringent copying; but it was hardly a creative expression of the Universal.

74 Henry Home, Lord Kames (or Kaims), Elements of Criticism, 2nd ed., “with additions and improvements,” Edinburgh, 1763, iii, 244-5. The Preface is dated 1761.

75 Mark Akenside, Pleasures of the Imagintiaon, London, 1884, i, 46.

76 Richard Hurd, On Poetical Imitation, Works, London, 1811, ii, 171-2. He says: (p. 176) “The objects of imitation, like the materials of human knowledge, are a common stock, which experience furnishes to all men. And it is in the operations of the mind upon them, that the glory of poetry, as of science consists.” This seems like an idealistic, and almost Shelleyan, view of poetry, until one notes, from the passage quoted in the text, that to Hurd the most important of these “ operations of the mind ” are of the didactic sort, to convey “ distinct and clear notices ... of moral and religious conceptions.”

77 Sir William Jones, Poems, Oxford, 1772, Essay II, On the Arts Commonly Called Imitative, 201-2.

78 John Aikin, Essays on Song-Writing, 2nd ed., Warrington 1774, 7-8.

79 William Mason, Works, London, 1811, i, 315-6.

80 Mon. Rev., lxvii, 262.

81 B. Walwyn, Essay on Comedy, see Mon. Rev., lxvi, 308-9.

82 George Walker, Essays, London, 1809, 41 ff.

83 For a tracing of this æsthetic alliance, see W. G. Howard, Ut Pictura Poesis, Publ. Mod. Lang. Assoc., xxiv, 40 ff.

84 The classicists of course looked upon historical painting as painting par excellence. In this way the art became subservient to a literary text actual or implied. The situation is well illustrated ***in T. Rowlandson's The Historian Animating the Mind of a Young ***Painter, reproduced in George Paston's Social Caricature of the Eighteenth Century, plate cvi.

85 Lord Shaftesbury, Second Characters, ed. Rand, Cambridge (Eng.), 1914, 117, “ Statuary the mother art to painting,” and 167, “A painter therefore must imitate the dramatic and scenical, not the epic and merely recitative poet.”

86 Spectator, No. 416. The essential difficulty with this point of view is the definition the Neo-classicists gave to “life”: They took little account of color and almost none of light and air.

87 Leonard Welsted, The State of Poetry, in Durham, op. cit., i, 377.

88 The poem was composed at Rome between 1633 and 1653 and first published in 1668, annotated by Roger de Piles. Dryden made a translation in 1695; J. Wright, in 1728; James Willis, in 1754; and William Mason in 1781. To Mason's translation Sir Joshua Reynolds added notes. For bibliography on Dufresnoy and his influence, see Paul Vitry, De C. A. Dufresnoy Pictoris Poemate quod “De Arte Graphica” inscribitur, diss., U. of Paris, Paris, 1901; and see L. Gillet,, La Peinture, XVII et XVIII Siècles, Paris, 1913, 314 ff. The influence of Pliny's Nat. Hist., Lib. xxx, was also important.

89 William Mason, Works, ed. cit., iii, 26, ll. 37-40.

90 Walter Harte, Essay on Painting, Chalmers, op. cit., xvi, 320.

91 William Hogarth, Analysis of Beauty, London, 1753, 12. Hogarth agreed with Welsted in objecting to the copying of masterpieces; and Thomas Bardwell in his Practice of Painting, London, 1756, defended both not only in the trade but also as a pedagogical method. See Mon. Rev., xv, 284 ff.

92 John Scott, Essay on Painting [c. 1770?]. Chalmers calls the work Scott's “feeblest effort,” op. cit., xvii, 451.

93 Daniel Webb, Inquiry into the Beauties of Painting, London, 1760, 1761, 1769, 1777, p. 70.

94 Count Algarotti, Essay on Painting, translated into English, London, 1774, 171.

95 J. H. Pott, Essay on Landscape Painting, London, 1782.

96 Vide Reynolds' Notes to Mason's translation of Dufresnoy's De Arte Graphica, Mason's Works, iii, 101 ff. For an analysis at length of Sir Joshua's point of view, see E. N. S. Thompson, Discourses of Sir Joshua Reynolds, Publ. Mod. Lang. Assoc., xxxii, 339 ff.

97 Ibid., 105-6.

98 Ibid., 140.

99 The utter decadence of stained glass in the Eighteenth Century is largely explained as part of the general distaste for Gothic. An additional reason, however, is the dominance of “ imitation ” over æsthetic theory. The materials and the purpose of glass-painting make Realistic portrayal of Nature ineffective if not impossible; and the copying of models intrenches the pictorial technique, proper to canvas and fresco, which has so injured the glass of the Renaissance.

100 Spectator, No. 416. As Hawkins very truly pointed out, History of Music, London, 1776, i, v ff., Shaftesbury, Temple and Addison knew very little about music.

101 L. Temple, pseud., op. cit., 26 ff.

102 James Moor, Essays, Glasgow, 1759, 3, 133 ff.

103 Thomas Busby, A. Complete Dictionary of Music, London [1800?], s. v.

104 Dacier, op. cit., 7. According to his view, some music, on the other hand, represents an “Action or a Passion.” 6-7.

105 Hutcheson, op. cit. 25.

106 Sir Charles Avison, Essay on Musical Expression, London, 1752, 61, 90 etc. Watt in Bill. Brit. suggests that Brown supplied the content of this work—an improbable theory in view of his attitude toward imitation in his History of Poetry. See following.

107 The Brit. Mus. Cat. lists twenty-six English editions before 1800 of various libretti by Metastasio, some set to music, some with Italian text, some with English, some with both. This includes Arne's famous setting of Artaxerxes which passed through at least seven editions before 1800 and four more during the fifteen years following. There is also Anna Williams' The Uninhabited Island, 1766 (L'Isola Desabitata), not listed in Brit. Mus. Cat. Hoole translated his Works in 1767 (another ed. 1800); some of his Poems appeared, Coventry, 1790, his sonnets, 1795; Burney published his Life in 1796 (sec. ed. ?1810). His fame extended throughout the first half of the Nineteenth Century.

108 Pietro Metastasio, Opere, Florence, 1831, xiii, 37. But he called poetry “ imitative ” because it expresses emotions and embellishes Nature, ibid., 25. A priori, we might expect one like Metastasio who was accustomed to think of music in conjunction with words, to urge the imitating of the words by the music; but it is to be remembered that the composers of Italian opera seria of the Eighteenth 'Century, the musicians with whom Metastasio came in contact, regularly sacrificed relation of sense and sound—and even coherence of organic structure—to opportunities of vocal display for the prima donna and primo uomo.

109 James Harris, Three Treatises, London, 1764, 95.

110 Sir William Jones, Poems, Oxford, 1772, 201-2.

111 W. Jones, Treatise of the Art of Music, London, 1786, Preface.

112 Monthly Rev., lxxv, 105 ff.

113 Charles Burney, A General History of Music, London, 1776-89, Preface, i, xiii.

114 Ibid., i, 153 ff.

115 In a long note, Hawkins gives a list—to which additions might easily he made from Haydn's Creation and other well-known works of the period—of musical imitations of natural sounds, scenes and events; “ but these powers of imitation,” he adds, “... constitute but a very small part of the excellence of music. Hawkins, General History of Music, London, 1776, Preliminary Discourse, i, ii-iii.

116 James Beattie, Essays, London, 1778, 128. See also Sir William Forbes, Life of Beattie, London, 1806, 542.

117 Anselm Bayly, The Alliance of Music, Poetry and Oratory, London, 1789, 2. Of course, there were still exponents of the more conservative attitude; and, in the same year, the Monthly, i (n. s.), 38, objected to the idea that music was “the first and immediate thought of Nature.”

118 J. J. Rousseau, Œuvres, Paris, 1824, xii, Dictionnaire de la Musique, i, 376 ff.

119 Ibid., Sub Harmonie, 365.

120 Webb, op. cit., 102, n. q. Webb's Remarks appeared in 1762; and the ed. princ. of Rousseau's Dictionary in 1767.

121 Brown, History of Poetry, Newcastle, 1764, 12. This work also antedates Rousseau. His theory seems to be that instrumental music originally arose as an imitation of the human voice. The facts of primitive life do not seem to support it.

122 Mason, Works, London, 1811, iii, 287. This Essay first appeared at York, 1795.

123 Mason, op. cit., iii, 393 ff. The idea appears throughout his four Essays on music.

124 His interest in Rowley, in Percy's Reliques and in Welsh scenery shows him abreast of the rising tide of Romanticism; the titles of two of his published sermons (see Brit. Mus. Cat. and Mon. Rev., lxxvii, 176) show a philosophic background in Shaftsbury and Hutcheson; and he refers in his notes to the writings of Rousseau and Hutcheson, and criticises Lord Kaims, Harris, Beattie and Avison.

125 He and Burney exchanged letters; Burney asserted that Twining's “ least merit ” was “ being perfectly acquainted with every branch of theoretical and practical music,” and, furthermore, Burney relied on him for much of the Greek and Latin material in ***his History of Music. Burney, op. cit., i, xix.

126 Dr. Parr said that his Greek scholarship was excelled by “ no critic of his day.” See Recreations and Studies of a Country Gentleman, London, 1882, 11-12. This book contains a Memoir of Twining and a number of letters.

127 Recreations and Studies, 14, 57.

128 Of course, such musical literature is not to be classified with the mere “ flavor of a pineapple.” Schopenhauer recognized this; and it was probably to absolute music that he referred when he declared that Music was the Will, the essence of life, whereas the other arts merely pictured it. Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, Leipzig, 1873, ii, 512. Schopenhauer's view was largely anticipated by Bayly, op. cit., 2: “Music, indeed, if traced to its origin, will be found the first and immediate daughter of nature, while poetry and oratory are only near relations of music, mere imitations of nature. . . . .”

129 He very justly remarked that a musical resemblance “ cannot be seen till it is, in some sort, pointed out,” and that “ even when it is so, it is not very evident,”

130 Mon. Rev., iv (N. S.), 383-8; vii, 121. The reviewer did not, however, pay particular attention to “imitation.”

131 William Mason, Works, London, 1811, iii, 287. Mason brackets Twining and Harris; and he seems to fail to realize that the two are not altogether agreeable in their interpretations. Mason, in his text, seems to follow Harris.

132 William Cowper, Letters, op. cit., iii, 372-3.

133 Tyrwhitt made no mention of Twining, apparently thinking a mere translator beneath his notice. T. Tyrwhitt ed., De Poetica Aristotelis, London, 1794.

134 Edward Moore, Aristoteles, Oxford, 1875, Preface.

135 J. E. Sandys, Hist. of Classical Scholarship, Cambridge, 1908, ii, 420-1.

136 I. Bywater, Aristotle on the Art of Poetry, Oxford, 1909, Preface, x.

137 M. Carroll, reviewing Bywater in the Am. Jour. of Philol., xxxii, 86.

138 None of these writers, however, seem to appreciate the importance of Twining's work on “imitation.”

139 A. Allison, Essays on Taste, London, 1790. Blair, on the other hand, seems to lapse back to the idea of “imitation” as a mere copy. See Essays on Rhetoric and, Science, Boston, 1793, 209. Knight defined “ imitation ” vaguely as “ the faculty of improved perception.” See Principles of Taste, London, 1805, 100. Taylor noted three sorts of imitation, corresponding to Plato's three states of the soul: divine, scientific or intellectual, and reproductive in a mere literal fashion. Which of these he conceived Aristotle to have meant, is uncertain. Indeed, he prided himself on leaving minutiae to the “critical vermin.” See Aristotle's Poetic, ed. Taylor, London, 1812, ii, viii ff.

140 William Hazlitt, On Poetry in General, Lectures, Philadelphia, 1818, 5.

141 E. g. George Walker, Essays on Various Subjects, London, 1809, ii, 76-7.

142 Mon. Rev. lvii, 89 ff. attributes the origination of psychological criticism to Lord Kames. Priestley in his Lectures on Oratory and Criticism, London, 1777, followed his lead, and tried to find a more scientific basis in Hartley's psychology.

143 E. g. Thomas Taylor, translator of Plotinus' Concerning the Beautiful, London, 1787.

144 One of the most notable of these was Thomas Robertson, Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, who, in his Inquiry Concerning the Fine Arts, London, 1784, called Scotch folk songs “some of the finest melodies in Europe.” The Review sneered at them as “ ploughman's language,” Mon. Rev., lxxiv, 191 ff.

145 H. J. Pye, A Commentary Illustrating the Poetic of Aristotle, London, 1792. Sara Coleridge certainly knew Pye (see her note to Biog. Lit., Coleridge's Works, N. Y., 1853, iii, 399); and probably Coleridge drew from Pye (182-3), his obiter dictum on the perfection of the plot of Tom Jones (Table Talk, July 5, 1834). Pye refers constantly to Twining, praises him land quotes him especially on “imitation.” See Pye, Preface, x-xi, 91. It is of interest to note that Pye drew heavily on Lessing's Hamb. Dram., “a work not generally known.” Pref., xv.

146 Of course in his later years, Coleridge went far beyond Twining, and recognized “ imitation ” as an exalted act of artistic creation. See for example, Lecture xiii, Works, New York, 1854, iv, 330.

147 T. ***Tyrwhitt, De Poetica Aristotelis, London, 1794, xi. Heyne was the best classical scholar of the day in Germany.

148 Recreations and Studies, 252.

149 I have been unable to find anything of this review either in C. G. Heyne, Opuscula Academia, Göttingen, 1785-1802, or in A. H. L. Heeren, Christian Gottlob Heyne, Biographisch Dargestellt, Göttingen, 1813, bibl. of Heyne's works, 489 ff. I have not had access to a complete file of the Göttingische gelehrte Anzeigen.