The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1893-02-27
LITERARY PIRACY.
A Jersey Citizens Interesting Points
on a Curious Subject Of
Enquiry.

To the Editor of the Jersey City Netcs:-
An enquirer signing himself -. l." III
your issue of last Monday. was answered
by you with a brevity, which. l believe,
was rather unsatisfactory to him. mas
much as ~. T." asks n of your d
to reply to him. l, as a regular reader of
the NEWS, would attempt to give him the
Information he seeks.
The lecturer to whom ~. T." refers,
spoke truly when he dllated on literary
piracy. A book on the plagiarisms or
great authors might be written, which
would astonish the world. AS a general
rule, the most popular poets nave been
the greatest thieves. as Gray and Byron.
Those who wish TO see Gray,s crloolngs
should consult Mitford's edition OF his
works., :.
Byron stole right aud left. His trick of
writing .'redde" he copied from WalpoIe.
He ends several letters OF inquiry, IN
Moore. with the words "peruse, perpeno,
pronounce" which he took verbatim
FROM Gray's letters. Indeed, he had read
Gray with much profit. Ip "Don juan.
he says:-s'The shrilI ~cicalas. people OF
the pine" Gray has ''peopled air." and
quotes as his original a song of WaltoG's
''the wing'd people of the sky shall sing"
The line in Lara bring him near to
little but his last" is almost verbally
from a letter of Gray's. His phrase "Ihe
fury of the yulture passions" is from the
ode to Elton College.
These shall the fury passion tear,
The ~vultures of the mind.
always wondered where he picked up
those lines preserved In Aulus Geliius.
which he quotes in the notes to lion
juan"
sigilla in mentos impressa, Amoris digitulo,
Vestigio uemonsIrant. moilitudinem.
But lately discovered them quoted in
Gray's letters. The dying speech OF Mau-
fred, ''Old man tits not SO difficult TO
die.o which, as the author justly said,
embodied the whole spirit of the play,
is from Caleb Williams; Clare, III dying,
says, 1T is not difficult to die"
Those fiue lines in "Chflde Harold" on
solitude, are from Bacon. Men know not
what solitude is, nor how far IL extends.
For "a crowd is not company, and society
is but a gallery of pictures. aud talk Due
Il tinkling cymbai where no love is" But
Byron's st has, on the other hand,
been marauded by many, as by Robert
montgomery, and in The Reciory Of
Vaichead." The sentiment in The siege
of Coriuth, "'Tis said that the lion will
urn aud iee," etc., is Initiated from
Comus, "Some say no evil thing mat
Walks, etc.
Pope was a thief on principle; and those
who have read Ford know with WIN at inn
perturDable composure the divine Milton
could convey.
Dryden's lines
Wal is but an empty bubble,
Still beginning, never eadlng,
may nave bean suggested by a line in
PeGronius, where he eXtolS the pleasure
of kissing
Hoe non deficit, incipitque semper.
The thought in the same poen-
The mighty master smiled to see
That love was in the next degree:
Twas but q Kindred SQUAD TO move,
For pity meits the soul to love,
was certainly from Shakespeare.
TioIu-I pity you.
Cla. That's a degree to love.-Tioelftb Night.
G%oldsmitb's coupIet-
The king himself has followed her,
When she has gone before,
has taken its idea from "Troilus and
Cressida"-
Pond-Do you follow the young lord, Paris?
Serv. Ay, sir, when he goes before me.
Coleridge's expression
1 calm'd my love, and she was calm,
is from Milton's paradise Lost" verse
l29.
So cheer'd he his fair spouse, and she was
cheerd.
l fear, Mr.. Editor, that I have en-
croached on your valuable columns TO an
unwarranted extent, but if u. T." be
convinced by the numerous quotations
given, that 1.-THE greater the writer the
greater the robber" is almost u perfect
rule. my purpose will have been accom-
plished.