Page:Johnson - Rambler 3.djvu/239

N° 143. But soon, too soon, the lover turns his eyes:

Again she falls, again she dies, she dies!

No writer can be fully convicted of imitation, except there is a concurrence of more resemblance than can be imagined to have happened by chance; as where the same ideas are conjoined without any natural series or necessary coherence, or where not only the thought but the words are copied. Thus it can scarcely be doubted, that in the first of the following passages Pope remembered Ovid, and that in the second he copied Crashaw:

I left no calling for this idle trade; No duty broke, no father disobey'd; While yet a child, ere yet a fool to fame, I lisp'd in numbers, for the numbers came.

—————This plain floor, Believe me, reader, can say more Than many a braver marble can, Here lies a truly honest man. .

This modest stone, what few vain marbles can, May truly say, Here lies an honest man. .

Conceits, or thoughts not immediately impressed by sensible objects, or necessarily arising from the coalition or comparison of common sentiments,