, 1873-03-02

mathematicians, have discovered The 1., n.
gravitation2 What, indeed, is every great poem
but compendium Of the imagination OF centn1
zies? What the masterpieces Of painting h.t
D combination Of the finest lines sna
the most exquisite touches Of ear1s~
and inferior artists,-or the noblest worl.
OF statuary, but blending into ono form
OF angelic beauty Of the loreliest features and
| tho most graceful ineamsnta wrought By h.oc.
and chisels long ago c1umb1ed into dust?
In all ages, the greatest literary geaiuses ha5o
been the greatest borrowers O,nni verous deyour.
CTS OF books, with memories like hooks Of steel
they have not scrupled to ecize and to turn In
account every good thought they could pick IN
in their readings. Milton boldly plagiarizel
from Dante and Tasso, and all Of them f,o,,
Homer; and who believes that Homer had M
reservoir OF learning to draw from, no mys.cr.
Gus lcko OF knowledge, into which he could low
and theu throw u bucket? Goethe laughed tbs
idea Of absolute originality to scorn. and de.
cl.red tha. it was an authors duty to uso aii TIM.
was suggested to him from any quarter "Tbat
is great man," asks Emerson, 'sbrt ooe n.
great afhnities, who takes up into himself al
arts. sciences, au knoTab1es, as his food?
Every book Is quotation and eyer
house is q quotation out Of all forests. nd
mines, and stone quarries; and erer,
man is u quotation from Ill his ancestors i
Occasional accidental condolences Of thought
md expression will not detr2c: from writer,s
just famo. It is only the habitunl aud consciou.
thief, the man who kres BY plumber, and shc
thus shows himself to be both weak and wicked
that merits tho pillory. Literal, bald borrowing.
A1~-r T. IL
or form-the thoughts or oxpressions-of
work, is absolutely indefeaeible; but ho is not
thief who borrows the ideas OF hundred cthe,
men and ropays them with compound intaest,
It is one thing to pu1loin fnely-tempered STEEL,
and another to take pound Of literary old
iron, and convert it in the furnace Of
onos mind into hundred watch-sp1ings.
worth each a Thousand times a
much as the iron. When genius borrows, it bor-
rows grandly, giving to the borrowed matter
Life and beauty i. lacked before. When 6hak-
speare is accused of pilte-ins, La-.saor replies,
"Yet he WAS more original thnn his originals.
He breathed upon dead bodies, and brought them
into 1ife." It has boen said OF Pope that, what
eTor jewel he appropriated, he eet it in gold.
Perhaps the best definition OF legitimate app1o-
priation Was given By Hege1, when Cousin -was
accuscd OF stealing his ideas- " Cousin" said
he, has caught somo small fishes in my pond,
but he has drowned them in his own SAUCE"
Thia was quite different from the case OF pntch-
work sermon preached by q 5fr. Fish, Of which
IN old lady complained tint it was l" so full Of
pollywogs that she couldn't see the Fish"
:. For these reasons, about the neanest business
a Literary man can engage in is that OF a7aisu-
ing authors for theft the score OF petty
paralie1isns aud condolences. The ANAL critics
rho stoop to this are like constebles who thrive
By catching thieves they hunt down the cul-
prits, not because their moral sense is outraged
but because they get afee for hnnsingth the offend
or. When Moiere was taunted NTH having
plagiarized scene hero, q situation there,
character elsowhero, he replied :. ia reprfnds
mon bier ou je te froure-I recover my property
wherever find it.' The whole philosophy Of
plagiarism lies in that scntonce. 4 man Of
genius takes unhesitatlngly Whatever he can
organize; vulgar plagiarist is q vulgar
thief. q Iar, and q bragga1t, calling On
men to ndmire the peacock sp1endor Of his
Eretched daw nature. Niue-tenths OF what is
denounced as plagiarism is only ench ~ tbs
plnnts exercise upon the earth and air,-or the
bee upon the flowers and honeysuckles,-too7 o.
make it suitable for the food Of man.
The fact is, our literature, and I'll literature,
abounds with those s1milarities OF thought and
expression which ate 60 hastily denounced II
larcenies. Roman literature Was one immense
plagiarism. Milton has been called the celea.
tisl thief" Paley, But1ar, Coleridge, southey,
Gray, helped themselves freely to other mena
thoughts. ''Garth did not write his own Dis
Ben Jonson got the materials Of biz
mosaica from the classics; NIirabeau got tha
ablest OF hiB speeches from Dumont. Foz
was often p1imed by Burke, and Burke
by Bolingbroke. Critics with provokingly tens
cious memories have declared that many ot
Robert Halls gems OF Illustration we1e "oon-
7eyed " from Burke, Gr.ttan, and Warburton;
and that some Of them hare been reconVeyed BY
Macaulay from Hall. It has been asserted that
III the thinking in Chalmors' astronomical dis.
courses. is cribbed from Andrew Fulle.'s Th
Gospel It's. 0ecn II illness. John Foster has truly
said that it is the mark and the prerogatiye Of
genius to be- capable OF lighting it's own fire,
but it is no mark of slayish imitation it it some
Zines kindle it's flame by Gn electric spark
caught from somo kindred mind Ovid CON"
plains Of tho early writer's for having 81 stolen
Ill the good things;" the early writers
stole from the Greeks the Greeks
,ribbed from the Egyptians ths Egyptiana
6lchcd from the anetdi1uyians; and they, We
suppose, purloined from the Prouetheus who
stole the fire directly from heaven It is easy to
raise the hue-and-c1y Of plagiarism; but, in
many cases.. the similarities upon which The
literary dpstar puts his fngor are no more
thefts than chemical compound, the result Of
mysterious ai1inities, is identical with tho
elements that enter into it, 'Thore Is all the
Inference between suggestion and plagiarism"
'ays Horny Rogers, tthat there Ii between
making blood from blood, and receiving it into
he veins BY transmission"
An interesting decision was made in the New
Jcv York courts day or two ago, which is e1-
city Antagonistic to decision made in the Same
ase by the French courts. Some yea1s aince,
nc CASTOR de Brimont IVES married, in Paris. to
'aulino, the daughter OF James F. Penniman,s
'ealthY American In 1860, Mrs. Brimont died,
nd, after her death, Mons. Brimont brought