Again, in 1590 Erasmus of Valvasma published at Venice the "Angeleida," an epic in three cantos, on the struggle between the good and bad angels. It would seem to be from this composition that Milton drew his infelicitous idea of the celestial artillery. There is said to be an unfinished Latin poem on the same subject by F. Taubmann, who died in 1615. Milton probably made use of Drayton's religious poems of "Noah," "Moses," and "David and Goliath" (1620); and, perhaps, of the Latin poem of Zaroti, "Angelorum Pugna" (Venice, 1642) ; and the dramas of "Lucifer," "Samson," and "Adam," by the Dutch poet, Joost van den Vondel (1587-1650). During his Italian travels, our great poet was present at a performance of the "Adamo" of G. B. Andreini, a Mystery in five acts and irregular metre, interspersed with choruses and songs (Milan, 1607, reprinted at Venice, 1808). In this wretched affair the principal characters are the Eternal Father, Adam, Eve, and the Archangel Michael, Lucifer, Satan, and Beelzebub, and there are also choruses of Seraphim and Cherubim, of fire-spirits, air-spirits, water-spirits, and demons. The Seven Mortal Sins also figure in it, with the World, the Flesh, Hunger, Vainglory, and the Serpent. The second scene of the first act is a monologue of Lucifer on perceiving the Dawn of Day; and in its movement and thoughts it remotely reminds the reader of the famous Apostrophe to the Sun in the Miltonic poem. That atrabilious Scotch critic, Lauder, who, for some unknown reason, conceived a bitter animosity against Milton, adopted a singular device for the purpose of tarnishing his fame. In several works, as the "Sarcotis," a Latin poem by Mason (1654), and in the " Adamus Exul" of Grotius, he inserted numerous verses not belonging to either author, but adapted from "Paradise Lost," and then pretended that Milton had copied them! The forgeries were quickly exposed (see W. Lauder, Essay on Milton's "Use and Imitation of the Moderns," with "Refutation" by Bishop Douglas, edit. 1750). But was there ever a more scandalous plot contrived against the genius and character of a great man? It was as if an unscrupulous bravo should stab his victim in the back, and then accuse him of having stolen the dagger which drew his life-blood! In every literature numerous examples occur of what we might term "anticipations of the masterpieces of great minds by smaller ones," who, of course, might urge in self-defence that their subjects were common property, and plead the impossibility of their foreseeing that the great minds would afterwards take them up. After all, they did no harm. Their farthing rushlights spluttered feebly, and the world went by unconscious. It is only "the immortal lights" that fix its gaze. There were adumbrations, as it were, of "The Pilgrim's Progress," but we read Bunyan's. There were histories of Voyages to the Sun, Moon, and Planets, but we have no thought except for "Gulliver's Travels." Pierre de Landron anticipated Corneille with a tragedy, "Les Horaces," in 1596; and Dormion's "Festin de Pierre" anticipated Molière's by six-and-twenty years. Racine was anticipated by a tragedy called "Esther" in 1585, by an "Agrippina " in 1659; and in 1658 the Jesuits performed "Athalie" at Clermont. But Corneille and Racine "keep the field." So, too, there were several "Henriades" prior to Voltaire's poem-among others that of Garnier, published at Blois in 1594; the "Henricus" of Quillet, a Latin poem, now lost; and the "Enrico" of Malmignati, published in 1625. From the last-named work Voltaire condescended to borrow. There is also the "Iliade Française," written by Chillac. If we justify, or at least excuse, the masters of song for dealing, to their glory and our advantage, with subjects previously treated by "prentice hands," we have nothing but contempt for those presumptuous scribes who, in their colossal conceit, discovering defects and imperfections in the world's "monumental works," have not hesitated to amend or reconstruct them. This stupendous kind of egotism seems peculiar to small poets and smaller critics; for one never hears of a sculptor proposing to improve the Apollo Belvedere, or a painter undertaking to retouch Raffaelle's "Transfiguration." There was a man named Green, however, who aimed at bringing "Paradise Lost" somewhat "nearer the standard of perfection" by rewriting it in blank verse of his own construction! We know, too, what Dr. Bentley did with it in the freaks and follies of his conjectural criticism. As, for instance, turning the line, "No light, but rather darkness visible" into "No light, but rather a transpicuous gloom"; and, "As from the centre thrice to the utmost pole," into "Distance, which to express all measure fails." And a Madame de Boccage also recast Milton's epic from her own point of view, suggesting to a French wit the following epigram: As to plagiarism proper, it seems to have flourished among the mediæval chroniclers, who, encouraged by the ignorance of their age, did not in the least scruple to pillage their predecessors. Thus, Matthew of Westminster preyed upon Matthew Paris, who, on his part, had previously robbed Roger of Wendover. Ralph or Ranulph Higden, author of the "Polychronicon," an encyclopædia of the learning of the time, has absorbed in it the "Polycratica Temporum" of another monk named Roger, yet the initial letters of his chapters form a sentence in which he asserts that he, "Ralph, monk of Chester," is "the author of this worke." Even in our day, however, we hear of people putting their own trade-mark upon other people's wares. It is not often that plagiarists meet with a punishment so severely appropriate as that which befell the troubadour Fabre d'Uzès. Albertit de Sisteron, one of the same tuneful brotherhood, being dismissed by his lady-love, died of grief at Tarascon, bequeathing his songs to the charge of his friend Feyre de Valernas, to be presented to the Marquis de Mallespina. Instead of respecting his deceased friend's wishes, he sold the poems to Fabre d'Uzès, who forthwith sang and recited them everywhere as his own composi But having been detected in the imposture, he was imprisoned and soundly beaten-according to the laws of the emperors, we are told-for having so dishonourably exploited the labour and genius of the dead. Those laws, unhappily, have since fallen into desuetude. When the Revival of Letters-that pestilent Renaissance which has been praised quite as much as it deserves-took place in the fifteenth century, the plagiarists borrowed at will among the green pastures of the Greek and Latin classics; and, as it frequently happened that only a single manuscript of some great work had survived the flood of barbarism, their immoralities were not easily detected. Aretino (Leonard Bruni of Arezzo) wrote a Latin history of the Goths, in four books; translating, without a word of acknowledgment, from a manuscript of Procopius which had fallen into his hands. But after his death, in 1444, the discovery of a second copy of the Greek historian revealed his fraud. Petrus Alcyonus, in his treatise "De Exilio," has made free use of Cicero "De Gloria," the manuscript of which he afterwards destroyed. Perotti, Archbishop of Manfredonia (died in 1480), proposed to credit to himself some fables by Phædrus. At least, this seems a fair inference from the fact that among some Latin fables of his own composition which he left behind him in manuscript, he had inserted textually several passages from the Latin fabulist. Macchiavelli acted more dexterously under similar circumstances. Possessing in manuscript Plutarch's "Apophthegmes des Anciens," he selected those which pleased him most, and put them into the mouth of his hero, Castruccio Castricani. Barbosa, Bishop of Ugento, in 1649 published among his works a tractate "De Officio Episcopi," which he had obtained in a curious manner. A servant bringing in a fish wrapped up in a sheet of paper covered with handwriting, he had the curiosity to examine it. He was sufficiently interested (says the elder Disraeli) to go out and search the fish-market till he came upon the manuscript from which it had been torn. Even at a later period, those authors who found their way into the Tom Tiddler's land of the ancient literature freely appropriated to their own use the gold and silver. For instance, Gilles Ménage has patched upon his own poor stuff the purpurei panni which he stole from the works of his predecessors. His unscrupulosity drew upon him a stinging epigram (quoted by Lalanne), in which the satirist, alluding to the Latinised name of Mademoiselle de Lavergne (Laverna), whom Ménage loved to sing of and sing to, avers he is not the least surprised at his choosing the Goddess of Thieves for his muse! Lesbia nulla tibi, nulla est tibi dicta Corinna; Sed cum doctorum compiles scrinia vatum, Nil mirum si sit culta Laverna tibi. An audacious theft (says Lalanne) was committed by the Italian littérateur and savant, Louis Domenichi, in 1562. His dialogue "Della Stampa " is an appropriation from the "Marino," by Antonio Doni, published only two years before. With sublime insolence the thief broke out into three violent invectives against the man he had wronged-in one of these actually reproaching him for his barefaced plagiarisms. But the worst of it was that Doni, having in his time laid violent hands on Sebastian Manilio's translation of Seneca's Epistles, felt unable to defend himself. Though robbed and beaten, conscience compelled him to suffer in silence. What a lesson for all of us! Coriolanus Martiranus, a Latin poet, who died in 1567, was the author of several dramatic compositions-of which, I confess, I know nothing. These were published in 1556, and the collection having become exceedingly scarce, an obscure versifier ventured, in 1756, to reprint it under his own name, adding certain pieces of verse which had equally fallen into oblivion. But the thief was im prudent enough to send a copy to Professor Volpi, of Padua, who immediately detected the imposture and lost no time in exposing it. This most indecent form of plagiarism has frequently been practised, even by saints, for St. Ignatius Loyola, it is said, copied verbatim et literatim the "Spiritual Exercises" of Cisneros (Francisco Ximenes), Abbot of Montserrat, who died in 1510. The Chevalier Ramsay, according to Voltaire, wrote the once well-known "Voyages de Cyrus," because his teacher, Fénelon, had sent the son of Ulysses over land and sea in his "Télémaque." In the same work he borrowed from an old English author, and in his description of Egypt reproduced the language of Bossuet, copying him word for word, without even acknowledging his authority. There we surely scent something like plagiarism; but when one of Voltaire's friends ventured to remonstrate with the Chevalier, he calmly replied that there was nothing astonishing in his thinking like Fénelon and expressing himself like Bossuet. There is a certain sympathy between great minds, you see! Next we come to Father Barre, author of the "History of Germany," in two big volumes. Voltaire had just published his "Histoire de Charles XII.," and Barre seized upon upwards of two hundred pages which he inserted in his own dull work, with the oddest conceivable alterations. Thus the sayings of Charles XII. he puts into the mouth of the Duke of Lorraine. Incidents in which the Swedish hero figures he transfers to the Emperor Arnold. Voltaire's remarks on King Stanislas of Poland he repeats in reference to the Emperor Rudolph. He makes Waldemar, King of Denmark, do and say exactly what Charles XII. did and said at Bender. And so the travestie goes on. Voltaire adds, as "the cream of the joke," that a reviewer detecting this surprising resemblance between the two works, laid the blame of the plagiarism on the shoulders of the author of the "Histoire de Charles XII.," which, however, was written thirty years before the work of Father Barre. Just like a reviewer! A "Discours sur les Moeurs," by Servant, published in 1769, was republished as his own by Bacon-Taun in 1795. And, in like manner, Janvier's poem, "La Conversation," published in 1742 at Autun, and fifteen years later re-issued by a thief named Cadott under his own name, with the alteration of a score of lines or so. The success of Henry Mackenzie's sentimental novel, "The Man of Feeling," was very great. Eccles, a young Bath clergyman, availing himself of the circumstance that the author's name was very little known, transcribed the whole work, with erasures, corrections, smears, and smudges, and, on the strength of this manufactured |