me worth preserving, and as it is really a curious example of the extent to which the robbing art may be carried by the votaries of Parnassus, I doubt not it will possess as much interest for general readers, as for their humble servant,

R. A. MILLIKIN,

Historiographer of the Deipnosophist Club.

A Deipnosophist Fragment.

Moore's plagiarisms are intolerable. There is not a single original thought, conception, metaphor, or image, in the whole range of his works,-from the Posthumous Poems of Tom Little to his last dying speech—the Travels of an Irish Gentleman in Search of a Religion. Even the title of this nonsense is stolen from Erasmus's Peregrinatio Religionis ergo. The man is an indefatigable thief. He has laid under contribution every imaginable book, from the biography of his namesake, Tom Thumb, to the portly folios of the fathers of the Church. Perfectly unscrupulous in his marauding expeditions, and impartial in his attacks, he is found at one moment rifling a saint, and in the next pillaging a sinner. Every outpouring from the wells of Literature has brought grist to his mill, and now that he has filled his bags, he laughs at the world, clothes himself in sackcloth and ashes for his youthful misdeeds, and exhibits to the profane another incident for the chapter of literary curiosities; an incident which perhaps has no parallel-namely, that of

T

commencing life with the most disgusting pruriency, and closing it with drivelling polemics. How admirable, how striking an illustration doth this gentleman furnish of the lines of Horace :

66

Quærenda pecunia primum est

Virtus post nummos;"

and with what graceful ease he hath glided from the chaste vicinage of Holywell Street to the solemn cloisters of the church and the stern admonitions of the confessional! But his recantation, or conversion, or whatever you choose to call it, is not my present purpose. You have asked me for some specimens of his most open and barefaced plagiarisms. You shall have them. Tommy himself is never loth to impale a brother plagiarist whenever he finds him committing a false step. Thus in one of his prefaces we find him robbing a rival songster of one of his best thoughts:

I do not know whether it has ever before been remarked that the well known lines in one of Burns' most spirited songs,

The title's but the guinea's stamp,

The man's the gold for a' that.

may possibly have been suggested by the following passage in Wycherley's Play, the "Country Wife.”—I weigh the man not his title, 'tis not the king's stamp can make the metal better."

This is in the true Mrs. Candour style, and in the spirit of the knave who attempted to rob Sheridan of all his

pretensions to originality of wit, because the plays of the first happened to have been triumphantly received, and "The Blue Stocking" of the last was most gloriously damned. Tommy does not accuse Burns directly as he very fairly might have done, but, though willing enough to wound, the fear of critics prevented him from striking. If we admit that Burns plagiarised, he was still merely the receiver of stolen goods for Master Wycherley had pilfered the idea from :

:

MASSINGER. The Great Duke of Florence.-Act. i. sc. i.

For Princes never more make known their wisdom
Than when they cherish goodness where they find it,
They being men and not gods. Contarino,

They can give wealth and Titles but no virtues,

That is without their power.

*

But in our Sannazaro 'tis not so:

He being pure and try'd gold, and any stamp
Of grace to make him current to the world,
The Duke is pleased to give him, will add honour
To the great bestower.

But let us come to the plagiarisms which I

possess.

They are selected at random from a large mass of thefts which I have silently noted from time to time, and which after my demise, shall see the light. Moore knows of the existence of these documents; I have shewn them to him myself; and be assured that while I live he will never have the courage to republish one of his writings;

for I have informed him often that immediately he issues a new edition of any of those stolen goods, I shall expose his frauds to the world. And he knows me too well to doubt my word. But if, when I have " shuffled off this mortal coil," his spirit should revive, and his evil star impel him once again into the palæstra of literature, clothed in the arms stolen from other men, and decorated with trophies not honourably won, but secretly purloined, then shall the day arrive when the humble labours of the President of the Deipnosophist Club shall be made manifest to the world, trickery be exposed, and imposture detected; and “this pigmy who has decked himself with the trappings of a colossus," be driven from the field, denuded and disgraced.†

But let us turn to this honest gentleman's plagiarisms. Time will permit me to expose only a very few, so I shall plunge at once in medias res :—

Plagiarism the First.

LITTLE'S POEMS.

Your mother says, my little Venus,
There's something not correct between us,

And you're in fault as well as I;
Now on my soul, my little Venus,
I think 'twould not be right between us,
To let your mother tell a lie."

* A strong and spirited image, taken from Philostratus.-ED.

† As our President spoke these words, which are in a more oratorical style than usual, his eyes sparkled with peculiar brilliancy, and he seemed to enjoy in fancy the glory of despoiling the poet-laureat of Paphos.-ED.

This is plagiarised from an old collection of English

epigrams published in 1785

The lying world says naughty words

Of you and I, my dearest love;

You know, my dear, the world's the Lord,
Let 'em no longer liars prove."

Plagiarism the Second.

LITTLE'S POEMS.

For had I such a dear little saint of my own, sir,

I'd pray on my knees to her half the long night."

PETER PINDAR,

asking a pretty bar maid for some favours says,

"Thou wishest to bestow, in Love's name give 'em,
And thankful on my knees I will receive 'em."

"Must thou whose judgment dull and cool
Is muddy as the stagnant pool.

Plagiarism the Fourth.

LITTLE'S POEMS.

"Here is one leaf reserved for me

From all thy sweet memorials free,