The Bedford gazette. [volume] (Bedford, Pa.) 1805-current, 1869-01-29

AE-
out into the world really finished gen
tlemen and ladies.
Again we say unto all-be polite
Exchange.
sz@zz=z-zE=zszzssz1-1a.-.
SINGULAR SIMILARITY.
Oliver Wendell Holmes is a poet and
a critic. We have read many of his
efusions with great delight, and have
many time taken pleasurable occa-
sion to season our heavier reading
with the attic salt of the "Autocrat of
the Breakfast Table" After saying
this, it is perhaps, needless to add that
Holmes is one of our literary favor
ties, and it would, doubtless, surprise
the reader considerably if we were to
assert, just here, that we have dlscov-
cred our much admired author in an
act of plagiarism. We hope no one
will become excited on reading this
last sentence, for we have made no
such assertion and do not intend ma
king it. 1t is an easy matter to blast
the fame Of a writer by showing that
he has made use of an expression or
figure of speech, or, what is of still
greater importance, an idea, which is
supposed to be the exclusive property
of some one who wrote before him.
There is nothing new under the sun.
There can be no plagiarism except
that which is, on its face, deliberate
and Wilful theft. Each recurring
spring time reproduces the flower, the
leaf, the blade of grass, which sprang
up under the creative genius of the
sunshine of its predecessor. Yet it is
not the same flower, leaf, or blade
which grew in the same place the year
before. AS nature is not plagiarist,
neither is the poet who clothes the
skeleton of an old idea in the flesh and
blood of his own imagination.
We have been led to this course of
remark by reading a poem recently
published by DIR. Holmes, entitled
"Bill and Joe," the first three stanzas
of which read as follows:
''Come, dear old comrade, you and
v i'll steal an hour from days gone by
The shining days when life was new,
And all was bright with morning dew
The lusty days oflong ago,
When you were Bill and 1 was Joe.
Your name may flaunt on titled trail,
Proud as cockerel's rainbow tall
And mine as brief appendix
As Tam 0'Shanter's luckless mare;
To-day, old friend, remember still
That l am Joe and you are Bill,
You've won the great worlds envied prize,
And grand you look in peoples eyes,
With HON and L. L. D.
In big, brave letters, fair to see,
Your first, old fellow off they go:
How are you, Bill? How are you, Joe -
Doubtless, DIR. Holmes drew this
picture from life. 1t is poetry, good
poetry. But we remember seeing in
the newspapers, some twelve years a
go, little verse written by Joseph
Williams, Esq, formerly Chief Justice
ofKansas, which contains thesubstance
Of the thought, and, perhaps, some
thing more, of the stanzas above quo
ted. The history of that little verse is
as follows: Joseph Williams and Jere-
miah S. Black, (late Attorney General
of the United States), were boys to-
gether in the county Of Somerset, in
this State. Beginning with the prac-
tice Of the law at the Somerset bar,
the lapse of years found the one
Chief Justice of a territorial court and
the other Attorney General Of the I
nited States. In the spring of 1859,
Judge Williams called upon Judge
Black at the st. Nicholas Hotel, New
York, but not finding him in, he left
a note containing the following verse:
30 Jerry, dear Jerry. I've found you at last,
And memory burdened with scenes of the past,
Returns to old Somerset's mountains of snow,
When you were but Jerry and I was but joe"
We print this only to show how an
idea may be reproduced, in almost the
same mode of expression as that before
used, without intentional plagiarism
on the part of the later writer. Were
Edgar A. Poe living, he would not
hesitate to pronounce DR.. Holmes gull
ty of literary theft but he is dead, and
none are left to wear his MANTLE
Harrisburg Patriot.