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ESSAY II.
On the Arts, commonly called Imitative.
IT is the fate of those maxims, which have been thrown out by very eminent writers, to be received implicitly by most of their followers, and to be repeated a thousand times, for no other reason, than because they once dropped from the pen of a superiour genius: one of these is the assertion of Aristotle, that all poetry consists in imitation, which has been so frequently echoed from author to author, that it would seem a kind of arrogance to controvert it; for almost all the philosophers and criticks, who have written upon the subject of poetry, musick, and painting, how little soever they may agree in some points, seem of one mind in considering them as arts merely imitative: yet it must be clear to any one, who examines what passes in his own mind, that he is affected
