The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1894-10-07
CONCERNING PLAGIARISM.
A Form of Theft that Many Great Men
Have Practiccd.
Baltimore Sun.

Baltimore Sun.
Shakspeare's was an original mind, the
most original that has ever clothed its con-
ceptions in English forms OF speech, ac-
cording TO the majority opinion. Yet the
scholars who have explored shakespeare VIII
tell you from whom he plagiarized his
plots, his dialogues and his songs. con,
science does make towards OF US all"
Grand line, is it not? But mere ! Is aOa pllpag'
(Before S~hakspeare), saying: Guilty con.
sciences always make people cowards.
And Pilpay, we may be sure, was not Inc
had killed Abel, probably first coined that
Shakspearean remark. AS good luck would
have it," is Shakespeare. Ill luck would
poraries. Who was the originator? Neither,
probably. What the dickens is another of
'Shakspeare's originalities-perhaps. Thomas
Haywood also uses the expression in his
play Of Edward W." written: it may be:
before 1.-The Merry Wives of Windsor"
Nick Bottom. describing his dream, says
ear Of man hath not heard" etc. But We
find that from the pen of st. Paul, from
Corinthians. ii, 80 Again, we read in Ham
let" that diseases desperate grown by
desperate appliance are relieved, or not at
ALL and feel the force Of Shakspeare's
great creative mind. Yet he has merely
piagiarized an aphorism of Hippocrates,
who said: Extreme remedies are very ap-
prOpriate for extreme diseases"
Goethe was frank to confess himself a
plagiarist. He says: What would remain
of me if this ant of appropriation were de-
rogatory to genius? Every one of my writ
ings mas been furnished to me by a thou
sand different persons. a thousand things,
wise and foolish, have brought me, without
suspecting it, the offering of their thoughts,
cutie and experience. My work is an
aggregation of beings taken from the whole
of nature; it bears the name of Goethe"
Voltaire, commonly credited with being a
highly original writer. is a self-acknowl-
edged plagiarist, and he defends 1t boldly.
'Of all the forms of theft he says, "pla-
Ct0 Hfnwo DO = 1nn1E do n 10 nfA ~
Moliere took his plots and dialogues bodily
from old Italian comedies. He candidly re-
pudiated any respect for the prigs who cry
'plagiafist" at every man who digs a good
thing out of the mines of literature and
gives ii a new dress TO mankind as his
own. II conquer my own wherever i find
it," he cries. Disraeh Qatterly called Lord
BeaconsfelD was regarded as a unique and
entirely original character in the English
public life of his time. No more persistent
grafton over the Duke of Wellington WIS
taken almost word for word from a pane
gyric written by the great Frenchman.
Examine turned out this neat quatrain to
commemorate the plagiarism:
In sounding great Wellington's praise.
Dizzy's grief and his truth both appear;
For a flood OF Theirs he lets fall,
Which were certainly meant fer Saint-Cyr.
Plagiarism was a pet pastime of Disraeli,
who, nevertheless, added new brightness to
With not a few coinages that, SO far as
yet discovered. were brand new. His Oft
e~nest-quoted epigram, 1.-The critics are the
men who have failed in literature and art"
is, however, a most fragrant plagiarism.
We find it in Landar, Balzac, Dumas, Pope,
Sherstone and Dryden. Who of all these
was the author, and which were the pla-
giarists, has never been determined. Dry
den was very likely the father Of II when
he wrote: 'In writer's are usually the
sharpest censors." Shelley put it in the
most acid form: LAS a bankrupt thief
turns thief-taker in despair, so an unsuc-
cessful author turns critic" The accumu-
lated literary riches OF all the ages GER
bier thonghts than any one man now iiv-
ing, be he preacher, poet, author, play
wright, editor or any other variety Of brain
and pen worker, can think out for himself.