Many subjects fall under the consideration of an author, which, being limited by nature, can admit only of slight and accidental diversities. All definitions of the same thing must be nearly the same; and descriptions, which are definitions of a more lax and fanciful kind, must always have in some degree that resemblance to each other which they all have to their object. Different poets describing the spring or the sea would mention the zephyrs and the flowers, the billows and the rocks; reflecting on human life, they would, without any communication of opinions, lament the deceitfulness of hope, the fugacity of pleasure, the fragility of beauty, and the frequency of calamity; and for palliatives of these incurable miseries, they would concur in recommending kindness, temperance, caution, and fortitude. When therefore there are found in Virgil and Horace two similar passages-- _Hæ tibi erunt artes-- Parcere subjectis, et debellare superbos_. VIRG. To tame the proud, the fetter'd slave to free: These are imperial arts, and worthy thee. DRYDEN. _Imperet bellante prior, jacentem Lenis in hostem_. HOR. Let Cæsar spread his conquests far, Less pleas'd to triumph than to spare-- it is surely not necessary to suppose with a late critick, that one is copied from the other, since neither Virgil nor Horace can be supposed ignorant of the common duties of humanity, and the virtue of moderation in success. Cicero and Ovid have on very different occasions remarked how little of the honour of a victory belongs to the general, when his soldiers and his fortune have made their deductions; yet why should Ovid be suspected to have owed to Tully an observation which perhaps occurs to every man that sees or hears of military glories? Tully observes of Achilles, that had not Homer written, his valour had been without praise: _Nisi Ilias illa extitisset, idem tumulus qui corpus ejus contexerat, nomen ejus obruisset_. Unless the Iliad had been published, his name had been lost in the tomb that covered his body. Horace tells us with more energy that there were brave men before the wars of Troy, but they were lost in oblivion for want of a poet: _Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona Multi; sed omnes illachrymabiles Urgentur, ignotique longá Nocte, carent quia vate sacro_. Before great Agamemnon reign'd, Reign'd kings as great as he, and brave, Whose huge ambition's now contain'd In the small compass of a grave: In endless night they sleep, unwept, unknown: No bard had they to make all time their own. FRANCIS. Tully inquires, in the same oration, why, but for fame, we disturb a short life with so many fatigues? _Quid est quod in hoc tam exiguo vitae curriculo et tam brevi, tantis nos in laboribus exerceamus?_ Why in so small a circuit of life should we employ ourselves in so many fatigues? Horace inquires in the same manner, _Quid brevi fortes jaculamur aevo Multa?_