In like manner are the antients, such as Homer, Virgil, Horace,
Cicero, and the rest, to be esteemed among us writers, as so many
wealthy squires, from whom we, the poor of Parnassus, claim an
immemorial custom of taking whatever we can come at. This liberty I
demand, and this I am as ready to allow again to my poor neighbours in
their turn. All I profess, and all I require of my brethren, is to
maintain the same strict honesty among ourselves which the mob show to
one another. To steal from one another, is indeed highly criminal
and indecent; for this may be strictly stiled defrauding the poor
(sometimes perhaps those who are poorer than ourselves), or, to set it
under the most opprobrious colours, robbing the spittal.
Since, therefore, upon the strictest examination, my own
conscience cannot lay any such pitiful theft to my charge, I am
contented to plead guilty to the former accusation; nor shall I ever
scruple to take to myself any passage which I shall find in an antient
author to my purpose, without setting down the name of the author from
whence it was taken. Nay, I absolutely claim a property in all such
sentiments the moment they are transcribed into my writings, and I
expect all readers henceforwards to regard them as purely and entirely
my own. This claim, however, I desire to be allowed me only on
condition that I preserve strict honesty towards my poor brethren,
from whom, if ever I borrow any of that little of which they are
possessed, I shall never fail to put their mark upon it, that it may
be at all times ready to be restored to the right owner.
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