The plagiarism of Campbell from an elder poet, Vaughan, is worthy of being cited: "When o'er the green, undeluged earth, Heaven's covenant thou didst shine; "Still young and fine! but what is still in view When Zerah, Nahor, Haram, Abram, Lot, The youthful world's gray fathers, in one knot, Did, with intentive looks watch every hour For thy new light, and trembled at each shower!" † The occasional conceits in this black-letter bard, coupled with his earnest straight-forwardness and sincerity, compensate us for the absence of the rich embellishment of Campbell. We cannot forbear quoting from the "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers," Byron's well-known lines on the death of Kirke White; because the most beautiful figure in them seems evidently copied from Waller. We commence with Byron: Unhappy White! while life was in its spring, And thy young muse just waved her joyous wing, The spoiler came, and all thy promise fair, Has sought the grave to sleep for ever there. Oh, what a noble heart was here undone, No more through rolling clouds to soar again, * Campbell. + Vaughan. Keen were his pangs, but keener far to feel, Waller's stanza which expresses a similar sentiment, is as follows: That eagle's fate and mine are one, Which on the shaft that made him die Espied a feather of his own Wherewith he'd wont to soar so high. In Thomas Moore's poetic epistle, "Corruption," the same figure also occurs: "Like a young eagle, who has lent his plume To fledge the shaft by which he meets his doom, Speaking of Lord Byron, we might here quote a paragraph from Goethe, which may be new to some: "The tragedy of Manfred, is a most singular performance, and one which concerns me nearly. This wonderful and ingenious poet has taken possession of my Faust, and hypochondriacally drawn from it the most singular nutriment. He has employed the means in it which suits his object, in a particular manner, so that no one thing remains the same; and on this account, I cannot sufficiently admire his ability. The re-cast is so peculiar, that a highly interesting lecture might be given on its resemblance, and want of resemblance, to its model-though I cannot deny, that the gloomy fervor of a rich and endless despair becomes at last wearisome to us. However, the displeasure we feel is always connected with admiration and esteem. The very quintessence of the sentiments and passions, which assist in constituting the most singular talents for self-commentary ever known, is contained in this tragedy." Touching poetic coincidences, it may not be amiss to notice. the somewhat remarkable fact, and one, perhaps, not very generally known, that there have been three poets of the respective names of Walter Scott, Samuel Rogers and James Grahame, before the excellent authors of " Marmion," 99 " The Pleasures of Memory," and "The Sabbath." Specimens of their published works may be found in Mr. Southey's "Later English Poets;" they all three existed in the latter part of the seventeenth century. The beautiful stanzas entitled, The Soul's Errand, "Go, soul, the body's guest,” etc., often attributed to Sir Walter Raleigh, were really written by Sylvester. Barnfield is now generally believed to be the author of the following song, sometimes ascribed to Shakespeare. "As it fell upon a day, In the merry month of May, Sitting in a pleasant shade, Which a grove of myrtles made.” It may be seen in the collected poems of Richard Barnfield, 1598. The same idea we find repeated by different writers, touching the hopelessness of overruling a "strong-minded woman." An old dramatist, Sir Samuel Tuke (1673) says— "He is a fool who thinks by force or skill, And in Aaron Hill's "Epilogue to Zara," bearing date about 1750, we find the following: "First, then, a woman will, or won't, depend on't; *On a pillar erected on the Mount in the Dane John Field, Canterbury, are engraved the following lines: "Where is the man who has the power and skill To stem the torrent of a woman's will? For if she will, she will, you may depend on't; And if she won't, she won't; so there's an end on't." Young, in his "Night Thoughts' has the well-known line "Be wise to-day; 'tis madness to defer." And Congreve, in his Letter to Cobham, introduces a similar thought: "Defer not till to-morrow to be wise, Dryden says 'For truth has such a face and such a mien, And we have from Pope "Vice is a monster, of so frightful mien, As to be hated, needs but to be seen," &c. In Measure for Measure, occurs the song, which may be also found verbatim in Beamont and Fletcher, commencing,— “Take, O! take those lips away, That so sweetly were forsworn; Seals of love, but sealed in vain.” The well-known lines, "My mind to me a kingdom is, Such perfect joy therein I find, As far exceeds all earthly bliss, That God and nature hath assigned," seem to have had their origin in the couplet of Southwell, "My mind to me an empire is, Cowper's line, "God made the country, and man made the town,” has its parallel (it originated with Varro) in that of Cowley, "God the first garden made, and the first city, Cain." Good old Fuller thus beautifully depicts the last moments of a dying saint: "Drawing near her death, she sent most pious thoughts as harbingers to heaven; and her soul saw a glimpse of happiness through the chinks of her sickness-broken body;" and Waller versifies the same idea: "The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed, Lets in new light through chinks that time has made. As they draw near to their eternal home." Addison and Pope may be said to “divide the honors,” as to the authorship of the line "Rides on the whirlwind, and directs the storm,” since it appears in the writings of both. A similar instance is also observable with respect to the lines of Pope and Milton: "Laugh where we must, be candid where we can, But vindicate the ways of God to man." for in Paradise Lost, we have the same idea in almost the identical phraseology: "And justify the ways of God to man." Even Wordsworth seems to have copied; he says, "The child is father of the man," |