Middlesbrough & Stockton Gazette and General Advertiser. — 1875-04-01 (Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England)

PLAGCARISM AD PUFFERY.  Mr Charles Reside has pr;fixed to his story, "The Wandering Heir," a preface which he calls "Trade Malice," thoreby admitting that his first notion of authorship is trade. Long may it be before our authors sink to this level in their conception of literature. That the writer must live by his work is true; true also that he sometimes finds it hard to live by his work; but the man who is.loyal to letters, and desires to enlighten the present age and be loved by the next, will not deign to regard his glorious calling as a trade.  Everybody knows Mr-Reade. 114 writes much, and he writes fiercely. On the present occasion he hurls the lightning of his scorn at Mr and Mrs Mortimer Collins, calling them names which would have appalled that famous word-coiner, Aristophanes. It must be admitted that Mr Reade has a great grievance. When he was writing for the Graphic newspaper his novel entitled "The Wandering Heir," he thought it would save him trouble to turn some verse of Dean Swift's into colloquial prose. Of course his notion was that in this day nobody reads Swift, and that therefore he should be undetected. It says much for modern female education that a lady at once detected the theft. She called attention to it in the Athencrum, our leading literary journal, and by so doing did manifest service to letters.  'this exposure has unhappily driven Mr Charles Reade wild. The names he calls his critic are worthy of a graduate of Billingsgate. It clearly is not apparent to him that to use foul language is proof of the weakness of your position, and that the brief given to a barrister, "No case; abuse plaintiff's attnrney," is perfectly typical. Mr Charles Reade informs Sir Charles Dilke (p. 13) that he is "an old gentleman horourably connected with letters." lie should remember that age is not venerable when it grows absurdly angry, and that the honourable connection with letters, which we gladly concede to him, is slightly sullied when we find him taking without acknowledgment the words of a great English writer, and defending the transaction. Swift,we assure him, is not wholly unknown to the students of English literature; he may be remembered when Mr Charles Reade is forgotten. At any rate, it may be unsafe to steal from him.  Another question arises, which, purely in the interest of letters, we desire to place in its true light. Men at the clubs say, 't Oh! this is all a dodge. Charles Heade and Mortimer Collins are pnffing each other's books by arranging a quarrel Capital notion! Trade Malice 'will sell 'The Wandering Heir,' which is rather slow reading; and when Mr Collins's new work comes out, we shall find he has pitched into Heade in reply." Mr Mortimer Collins, who is one of our contributors, assures us that he would not deign to deface his work by literary controversy, and that he knows nothing of Mr Charles Heade, and very little of his books. This, however, is really beside the question. A lady indicates, in the foremost literary journal that exists, gross plagiarism on the part of Mr Heade. His reply is simple abuse. Hard words have never settled a literary question, and never will. Mr Heade claims the right, in language unmistakeable, to take the words of other and greater men, and use them as his own. He also olainuilhe rightlto turn classic English verse into poor prose. Has he those rights? We are disposed to think not. Apt quotation is one thing; wholesale appropriation another. Plagriarism, like picking pockets, may be reduced to a fine art; but we should have imagined Mr Heade too strong a man to need such aid, and too chivalrous a man to call a lady hideous names in hybrid Greek and Latin: He is on the horns of a dilemma. If he is a great writer, he can treat small critics with contempt; if ho is a small writer, all he says will not inflate a frog into an ox. We think him—though not the greatest living novelist, rand as far behind Dickens and Thackeray as Wilkie Collins and Anthony Trollope are behind them—far superior to the average. We should like to see more character and culture in his novels. Bart it is probably too late for bim to mend; and it is unwise for him to attack younger novelists who have drunk the wine of the nineteenth century ht a later date.—Pictorial World.  M. A medee Achard, whose serious illness was announced a day or two ago, is dead. He was 68 years of ago.  M. Thiers is occupied in writing another importaut work, entitled " Histoire de l' Art," from notes oolleoted during his late tour in Italy.  ATTEMPTED SUICIDE AT MIDDL ESrespet lable Some time between Saturday