Such cheats as scholars put upon Other men's reason, and their own A sort of drapery, to ensconce The term plagiarist is derived from the word plagium, used among the Romans to designate a person who abducted a freeman for the purpose of selling him as a slave, for which offence the culprit was condemned by the Flavian law, ad plagio, to be whipped. In a metaphorical sense, the word implies theft, and has been since applied to such as appropriate, without due acknowledgment, the thoughts and expressions of an author. Plagiarism, like homicide, may be divided into degrees. If the purloiner benefits the estate of literature by his spoliation, one is inclined to regard his offence as venial, but when this is not the case, he deserves the full penalty of his misdemeanor. "Not every striking coincidence in thought and illustration, however, is to be denounced as plagiarism. Some of the most admired productions of ancient and modern times are only splendid imitations. Much of the poetry of the last and preceding century was moulded after the ancient classics, and abounded in imitations of thought and expression. All this is considered lawful. It has been said that we are come into the world too late to produce anything new, that nature and life are pre-occupied, and that description and sentiment have been long exhausted.' The same authority allows that 'an inferior genius may, without any imputation of servility, pursue the path of the ancients, provided he declines to tread in their footsteps. The extent to which it is warrantable to make use of the intellectual labour of others, how much of their thoughts and illustrations may be employed without endangering moral character and reputation, is not very clearly settled. But with one consent, to steal another's thoughts and language and pass them off as one's own, is an act of which no honourable man would be guilty, and whoever perpetrates it justly forfeits his claim to confidence and respect." If direct literary plagiarism has been more rife in modern than in ancient times, yet we are not to suppose that this species of fraud did not exist even with the classic writers. Vida, in his “Art of Poetry," indeed, conducts us to such a conclusion in justifying an occasional resemblance between two several authors on the same subject: "Aspice ut exuvias veterumque insignia nobis Aptemus: verum accipimus nunc clara repertum. Terence, who has been accused of many depredations, says, "nihil est dictum quod non sit dictum prius." One substantial reason why this species of legerdemain was not so much in vogue with the early penmen, is to be ascribed to the fact that detection would almost inevitably follow, from the limited number of manuscripts then in existence compared with the almost countless issues since the era of the press. The following exquisite thought, contained in one of the sonnets of Petrarch, "Trefiro torna ; e 'l bel tempo ramena : Ei fiori, e 'l herbe sua dolce familigia," has been more frequently incorporated, or rather imitated, than any gem in the whole wealth of poetry. Milton, who, so to speak, ransacked the three worlds for the materiel of his sublime effusions, so closely resembles the Italian muse, that it is difficult to reconcile the coincidence upon any other supposition than that even he borrowed. The couplet referred to in allusion to his loss of sight, occurs, it will be remembered, in his great epic, "Seasons return, but not to me return Day, or the sweet approach of eve or morn." He also closely copies Ariosto, in his Vision of Paradise, and Astolpho's Description of the Moon, when he mounts the clouds on the winged horse. Lord Littleton, Waller, Gray, Savage, and Kirke White, discover traces of the same thought, and some invest it in language remarkably analogous. Spenser has also been charged as a close copyist both of Tasso and Ariosto. A similar illustration might also be given, showing the double plagiarism upon a fine passage from Dante, which was first rendered into our vernacular without acknowledgment by Merivale, and afterwards closely copied by Byron. But we must narrow our limits, or we shall have to invoke among the culprits a host of such other names, as Ford, Decker, Marlow, and Shirley, with our several specifications against them. We may fairly place in our category of plagiarists, the notorious literary impostors, since they were no less fraudulent. Scaliger was an impostor, since he had never been at any war, nor at any court of the Emperor Maximilian, as he pretended. He passed the first thirty years of his life in one continued study. Afterwards, he threw off his monk's frock, and palmed on all Europe the singular imposition of his being a descendant of the princes of Verona, who bore the name of Scaliger. One of the boldest and most uncompromising of a very mischievous class of literary impostors was Annius of Viterbo. Annius published a pretended collection of historians of the remotest antiquity, some of whose names had descended to us in the works of ancient writers, while their works themselves had been lost. Afterwards, he subjoined commentaries to confirm their authority, by passages from well-known authors. These, at first, were eagerly accepted by the learned; the blunders of the presumed editor-one of which was his mistaking the right name of the historian he forged-were gradually detected, and at length the imposture was apparent. The pretended originals were more remarkable for their number than their volume, for the whole collection does not exceed one hundred and seventy-one pages, which lessened the difficulty of the forgery; while the commentaries, which were afterwards published, must have been manufactured at the same time as the text. In favour of Annius, the high rank he occupied at the Roman court, his irreproachable conduct, the declaration that he had recovered some of these fragments at Mantua, and that others had come from Armenia, induced many to credit these pseudo-historians. A literary war was soon kindled. One historian died of grief for having raised his elaborate speculations on these fabulous originals; and their credit was at length so much reduced, that Pignoria and Maffei both announced to their readers that they had not referred in their works to the pretended writers of Annius. Yet, to the present hour, these presumed forgeries are not always given up. The problem remains unsolved; and the silence of Annius in regard to the forgery, as well as what he affirmed when alive, leave us in doubt as to whether he really intended to laugh at the world by these fairy tales of the giants of antiquity. Sanchoniathon, as preserved by Eusebius, may be classed among these ancient writings as a forgery, and has been equally rejected and defended. It should not be forgotten that the statements of Annius received a supposed confirmation in some pretended remains of antiquity which were dug up in the grounds of the Inghirami family. These remains-which were Etruscan-consisted of inscriptions, and some fragments of an ancient chronicle. Curtius Inghirami had no doubt of their authenticity and published a quarto volume of more than 1000 pages in their support. The imposture of Joseph Vella will be long remembered. Being at Palermo in 1782, he accompanied the ambassador from Morocco in a visit which that diplomatist made to the Abbey of St. Martin, and where he was admitted to see a very ancient Arabic manuscript. Being aware of the desire which existed to find in the Arabic writings materials for the completion of the history of Sicily, in which there was a gap of two centuries, Vella took the hint, and, after the departure of the ambassador, asserted that he had found in the library of the Abbey a precious manuscript containing the correspondence between the Arabian governors of Sicily and the sovereigns of Africa. To confirm the authenticity of this pretended discovery, and to give it additional importance in the eyes of his protector, Airoldi, archbishop of Heraclea, who paid all the expenses of his researches, Vella manufactured a correspondence between himself and the ambassador, who had returned to Morocco, in which he made the latter give an assurance that there existed in the library of Fez a second and more complete copy of the manuscript found in the library of St. Martin; that another work in continuation of the manuscript had been discovered; and also a series of medals, confirmatory of the history and chronology of the document in question. The imposture had such success, that the King of Naples, to whom Vella presented his translation of the supposed manuscript, wished to send him on a mission to Morocco to make further inquiries. This was as unfortunate a turn as the royal favour could take; but, luckily for Vella, circumstances occurred to avert the disaster. The translation of the Arabic manuscript had been announced in all the journals of Europe. The first volume was published in 1789, under the sanction of Airoldi. The sixth volume appeared in 1792, and was to be followed by two others. Vella was everywhere courted, and loaded with pensions and honours. Airoldi, however, having caused a fac-simile of the original manuscript which Vella had taken great pains to alter and make nearly illegible-doubts rose as to its authenticity; and finally, after the "translation" had been everywhere read, everywhere celebrated, and everywhere extracted from, the whole was found to be a deception. The original manuscript was nothing but a history of Mahomet and his family, and had no relation to Sicily whatever. Vella was induced to confess his imposture, but not until he had been threatened with torture. Varillas, the French historian, enjoyed for a long period a good reputation as a veracious chronicler of events, till at length the critics of other countries exploded the secret of his undeserved honours. His professions of sincerity went for little, when it was once discovered that his historic anecdotes derived their existence solely from the wonder-loving and inventive brain of the writer; his affected citations of titles, letters, memoirs, and relations, being all imaginary! Having perused most of the historical books of his day, he discovered a ready facility in imparting fictions as facts, while he quoted his authorities with random recklessness. Another odd genius amused himself, while confined to his room by protracted indisposition, with inflicting on the reading community of his |
