Excerpt from The British Essayists, Vol. 35: With Prefaces, Historical and Biographical
He did not think that this branch of literature was exhausted for besides its infinite capability of diver sification, which tends so much to protract its interest, its successful cultivators had been comparatively but few. Its difficulty had been proved by a multitude of imbecile imitations of the original Spectatorial plan. Some bolder writers, in affecting to deviate from that plan, have been instances to Show, that, where a great and original genius has primarily trodden, guided as it were by the hand of nature, he has struck out the true path; and though the foot steps of the first adventurer may be avoided, the same track must still be pursued.
Rules insensibly form themselves upon his model, and the design of the great projector must lead all subsequent attempts. It is the description indeed of a liberal, as distinguished from a servile imitation, that it is studious only of the principle and Spirit of its model; and, without straining the resemblance to a mechanical conformity, raises a likeness not discernible in the detail, but stamped upon the gener ality of the whole; not existing in outward admeas urement and correspondence of feature, but furtively produced from a latent consentaneity of genius and character. Ignorance of these rules, or inability to follow them, has been one of the causes of the com mon failure of attempts to copy the graces and urbanity of The Spectator. There is, indeed, a sort of physical languor in all imitations; the conception and execution must be connate in the mind, to carry to their perfection the productions of genius. It is not so in the manual and mechanical arts; and the ground of the distinction is obvious. What is sensi ble and tangible, and what is purely ideal and intel lectual, must proceed by very different principles of growth to their consummation and it is easy to see.
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