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There is also a passage in Paradise Lost, Book x., which closely resembles this :—

"This mischief had not then befallen,
And more that shall befal; innumerable
Disturbances on earth through female snares,
And strait conjunction with this sex; for either
He never shall find out fit mate, but such
As some misfortune brings him, or mistake;
Or whom he wishes most, shall seldom gain
Through her perverseness; but shall see her gained
By a far worse; or if she love, withheld
By parents; or his happiest choice too late
Shall meet already linked and wedlock-bound
To a fell adversary, his hate and shame :
Which infinite calamity shall cause

To human life, and household peace confound."

No one who reads these two passages will deny that there is a great resemblance between them, and yet no one will believe that Milton plagiarized. It is the poor man, who has nothing to support him, who resorts to theft, not the rich man. It is the man who has no original ideas who steals those of others, not the great man of literature. And yet many a gentle reader, and ungentle critic, would, if these latter lines bore not the name of Milton, accuse the author of plagiarism.

It is also a practice with malicious persons to accuse a good writer of plagiarism. The learned and erudite Dr. Johnson, whose observations on common-place subjects are always so excellent, says on this point, "When the excellence of a new composition can no longer be contested, and malice is compelled to give way to the unanimity of applause, there is yet this one expedient to be tried— the charge of plagiarism. By this the author may be degraded, though his work be reverenced; and the excellence which we cannot obscure, may be set at such a distance as not to overpower our fainter lustre." We should be very cautious how we bring this serious charge against a man, more especially as it is so difficult to refute. Sometimes whole works are claimed by some "swaggering upspring," and it is with the utmost difficulty that their real writer can prove his title to their authorship. Every one knows that Mackenzie's "Man of Feeling" was claimed, and that by a member of a profession which might have taught him better; and with what immense trouble it was proved by the writer that the new claimant was an impostor.

Plagiarism is a crime which cannot be too strongly deprecated, or too cautiously handled. While, on the one hand, we should not shrink from exposing it, we should take care lest, exulting in our knowledge, we lead ourselves into error and disgrace by a false accusation; lest triumphant in our strength, we endeavour, like Milo, to rend the oak, and, failing in our attempts, be devoured by the wild beasts of literature.

C. H. H.

THE BUTTERFLY'S WINGS.

I WOULD that the Butterfly's wings might be
For a sweet starry summer-night lent to me;
I'd change all the joys that Ambition could bring
For a sail through the air on his bonnie bright wing.

I would not envy the toilsome bee,

For the sweets that he gathers are nought to me;
With my painted and beautiful wings I'd fly
Through the perfum'd air of the midnight sky.

And then would I wander o'er mountain and vale,
In the silvery gleam of the moonlight pale;
And taste of the sweets of the sleeping flowers
Through the wearisome waste of the silent hours.

The rose that so daintily closes her breast,

As she sleeps in the arms of the Spirit of rest—
And the lily, that lies on the rippleless lake,
From their fanciful dreams with a kiss I'd awake.

And blithesome and gay would I flutter my wings
Through the musical hours when the nightingale sings;
I'd listen awhile to her sorrowful lay,

Then off to the merry woods far away.

Oh! would that the Butterfly's wings might be
For a sweet starry summer-night lent to me;
I'd change all the joys that Ambition could bring
For a sail through the air on his bonnie bright wing

C. H. H.

EMILIA GALOTTI.

A Tragedy.

(Translated from the German of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing.)

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PRINCE. (entering from Emilia's apartment.) Come, Marinelli! I must recover strength—and have need that you enlighten

me.

MAR. O for the old mother's fury! Ha! ha! ha!

PRINCE. You laugh?

MAR. Had you only seen, my Prince, how madly, in this very room, the mother raved-Surely you heard her cry!-And how tame she became all at once, at the first sight of you—Ha! ha!-One thing I know, that no mother ever scratched a Prince's eyes out, because her daughter had found favour in them.

PRINCE. You are a poor observer !—The daughter rushed fainting into her mother's arms. And for that the mother forgot all her rage: 'twas not for me. It was her daughter that she spared, not me; what though she spoke not aloud, what though she uttered not distinctly-that which I myself would that I had not heard, would that I had not understood!

MAR. What, my lord?

PRINCE. To what use is this disguise?—Out with it. Is it true? or is it not true?

MAR. And if it were true!

PRINCE. If it were ?-Then it is?-He is dead? dead?— (Threatening,) Marinelli! Marinelli!

MAR. Well?

PRINCE. By Heaven! By the all-righteous Heaven! I am not guilty of this blood. Had you but arned me it would cost the Count his life-No! no! rather had it cost mine own!

MAR. Had I but warned you ?-As though his death formed portion of my plan! I had bound Angelo by his own soul to see that no one might be harmed. And it would have passed off without the slightest violence, had not the Count himself first used it. He shot the first man that came near him.

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PRINCE. Verily; he should have understood the joke! MAR. That Angelo pressed on them in his rage, and avenged the death of his comrade

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PRINCE. No doubt, is very natural.

MAR. I have given him sufficient reprimand.

PRINCE. Reprimand? How friendly!-Warn him, my lord, that he be not found in my dominions. My reprimand, perhaps, might not be quite so friendly.

MAR. Ay, this is well!—I and Angelo; intention and accident: all is the same. -To be sure, it was a condition from the first, from the first, to be sure, it had been promised that no unhappy chance that might arise, should be accounted to my injury—

PRINCE. That might arise, said you?—or that should?

MAR. Better and better!-Yet, may it please your grace,before you tell me in the bare, dry word that which you hold me for-one single explanation! The death of the Count is to me nothing less than immaterial. I had challenged him; he owed me satisfaction; he has left this world with that debt undischarged; and so my honour remains stained. Granted, that under every other circumstance, I deserved that foul suspicion that you have against me yet under this too?- (with assumed warmth.) Who can think that of me!

PRINCE. (yielding.) Well, well

MAR. That he yet lived! O that he only lived! All, all in the world would I bestow-(bitterly.) Even the favour of my prince, that invaluable favour, that favour never to be trifled with —that even would I give!

PRINCE. I understand.-Well, well. His death was accident, mere accident. You affirm it; and I, I believe it.-But who else? The mother too? And Emilia ?-And will the world?

MAR. (with coldness.) Hardly.

PRINCE. And if men will not believe that, what is it that men will believe?—You shrug your shoulders?—Your Angelo they will look on as the tool, me they will hold to be the actor

MAR. (with increased coldness.) Likely enough.

PRINCE. Me! even me myself!—Or all pretension to Emilia from this hour I must yield up.

MAR. (with the greatest carelessness.) Which you must have done, too, had the Count yet lived.

PRINCE. (violently, but immediately again collecting himself.) Marinelli!-Yet you shall not drive me wild.--Let it be so-It is

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so! And this is all that you would say: the death of the Count is fortunate for me,-the greatest fortune that could have befallen me, -the only fortune, that could have lent assistance to my love. And as this, let it have happened as it will!-One Count more in the world, or less! What say you, do I think rightly now ?-Nay, I too do not tremble at one little crime. Only, good friend, it must be a little, voiceless crime, a little crime that works to good. And look you, ours there, had been neither voiceless, nor had worked to good. It had prepared the path truly, but had barred it, too. Every man would have cast it on our head, and, alas! that it had never been committed! All this has followed from your wise, your marvellous arrangements.

MAR. If you command it so

PRINCE. And from what else?-I will have answer!

MAR. That enters most into my calculation, which yet forms no part of it.

PRINCE. Answer, I ask.

MAR. Well then! wherein have my arrangements been at fault? that at this misfortune such palpable suspicion should infect the Prince?-In the master-stroke the fault must lie, the master-stroke which he was graciously pleased to mingle with my plans.

PRINCE. I?

MAR. He will suffer me to tell him that the step he took this morning in the church,-great as was the grace with which it was taken inevitably as he was called upon to take it—that this step, nevertheless, belonged not to the dance.

PRINCE. What did it spoil, then?

MAR. Not the whole dance, I grant you; but yet, so far as you have gone, the tune.

PRINCE. Ha! Do I understand you?

MAR. Shortly then, and simply. When I undertook the affair, what say you, Emilia knew, I think, nothing of the Prince's love. Emilia's mother even less. What, now, if I built upon this circumstance? and the Prince, meanwhile, was undermining my foundation? PRINCE. (striking his forehead.) Death!

MAR. And if then he himself betrayed that which he bears beneath his shield?

PRINCE. Accursed thought!

MAR. And had he not himself betrayed it?—I' faith! I should be glad to know from which of my arrangements mother or daughter could have drawn distrust towards him?

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