Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1872-10-28
DRAMATIC ORIGINALITY.
Remark able Instances of P1agiar.
ism. fl

ism. I
Are our modern play-wrights-if dra-
matists they may not be called-justi-
| fed in their Wholesale and unacknow-
ledged plunder of their French broth
ren2 In the first place, broadly-No.
But there are two sides even TO that
question. Originality-in the modern,
captious, hint-skinning acceptation of
the term--is literary virtue of COM
parative recent invention. Formerly it
was considered rather infra dig. to be
Notwithstanding somewhat of the
vulgar and iliterate Terence boasts Of
lis fidelity to the original text Of Men
ander and other Greek writer's, whose
works he simply translated into Latin.
The majority Of Shakspeare's master
pieces were old dramas remodelled. His
skillful adaptation from Plato Of ito be
or not to be, was long considered his
most remarkable performance.
Racine was praised or deprecated in
proportion to the closeness with which
he adhered to classic models. Moliere,
avowedly ramassait son bien au il lie
trouvait, picked up his livelihood as he
could from Plautus. Terence, Lope de
Vega-from Jack Nokes and Tom
Styles, if they happened to drop any
thing acceptable in his path. Our own
Alexander Pope, when desirous Of ami
hilating an adversary, considered that
IAN answer from Horace would have
more dignity" than q purely original in
spiration of his own spiteful little muse.
OF course, these precedents DO not ex-
cuse the modern British dramaturge for
the crime of wholesale and clumsy ap
preparation from the works of living for
eiguers who, in most cases, should be
entitled, if not to q share Of profits, at
any rate to handsome damage for injury
done to their reputation. But dishonesty
and stupidity will always bring their
own punishment; and the unsorupulous
"adapter" of French plays gets il as
heartily as his bitterest enemies desire,
in contempt, disappointment and under
pigment. 80
But it is cruelty unjust to class with
the offenders in question some OF our
abler writers for the modern stage, who
have occasionally borrowed ideas from
French or other foreign sources.
Compare the Willow Copse "-as
purely an English domestic drama, as
redolent in our native farm yards and
by-lanes, as an idyl in the language
with the "Closerie des Genets Of
Frederick Soulie than which a more
admirable drama of it's class was never
written on the skeleton, or rather the
back bone, of which it was founded.
The two things are as unlike as Hin
doc and an Englishman, though both
traceable TO q common origin. Take
again, Masks and Faces. Comparing
the charming "jolly English play With
the purely French Marquise de Sen
neterre, which apparently Though by
no means certainly suggested the idea
of it. Snch appropriations as these an
honest Frenchman would no more COM
plain of than the author of Trisiram
Shandy would have grudged the trans
mutation of his LefeYre and Trim
into the personalities of Lieutenant
Worthington aud Corporal Foss in
Colman's pleasant comedy of the Poor
Gentleman.
Our greatest dramatists have been the
greatest plagiarists. They stole all the
more unscrupulously that they were en-
abled 10 do with impunity. There were
no cueAp lrlpS " hiio uo ioiOieu
correspondents in those days TO ventil-
ate the comfortable little secret. At
home or abroad it was just the same.
Dryden and his contemporary scribes
kept the works of Shakspeare-l the
memory of whose very name the Puritan
revolution had for the time obliteraiedl
-as a snsg little preserve for them to
sport over and profit by. Dryden did
not spoil the Tempest and Antony aRd
Cleopatra IN TIC vain belief that he
could improve upon shakspeare. He
simply made use Of great mans Vork
as 40 much valuable raw material.
Shakespeare vas unknown TO the play
goer OF Charles the Seconds time. Pepy
records the rival of Macbeth o0atemptu-
Ously, as a piece containing some good
singing snd dancing, but not nearly so
good as Sir Martin Aarralr without
an allusion to the author. Dryden's
Tempest, and All for.Love, or the World
Well Lost, we're produced, and paid for,
as original compositions-just as was
his Two Sosias, which he translated
from Moliere's adaptation Of Plautus
who had taken the subject from a
Greek writer who might have met with
Il n aor.,a ,..o1f cation NJ she Eaneorit