following, by Bishop Percy, in his ballad of the Friar of Orders gray,' "Weep no more, lady, weep no more; Thy sorrow is in vain : For violets pluck'd, the sweetest shower Our joys as wingèd dreams do fly, Why then should sorrow last? Since grief but aggravates the loss, are taken, but improved in melody, from the 'sad song' in 'The Queen of Corinth,' by Fletcher: "Weep no more, nor sigh, nor groan, Sorrow 'calls no time that's gone : Violets pluck'd, the sweetest raine Why should sadness longer last? Griefe is but a wound to woe; Gent❜lest fair, mourne, mourne no moe." Act iii. Sc. 2. The iteration in the first line of Percy's stanza recalls Shakspeare's song in 'Much Ado about Nothing :' 66 'Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more," which indeed is given almost bodily, with others from Shakspeare, in other parts of the Poem. It is true Percy acknowledges that he has only strung together fragments of old songs and woven them into a story, but few know of this explanation, and the plagiarism is scarcely lessened by the confession, nor is the act justified. Raffaelle, Rubens, and other great painters have been equally guilty of plagiarisms, and justification has been pleaded, because they needed not have taken of meaner men, as if a theft by a wealthy person were less an offence than that by a starving wretch; but, as Owen Felltham says, "there is no cheating, like the Felonie of wit; He that theeves that, robs the owner, and coozens those that hear him." I believe the similarity of thought, so very striking, between Goldsmith's admired dedication of his 'Deserted Village' to Sir Joshua Reynolds, and Bacon's dedication of his Essays' to Sir John Constable, has not before been noticed. Goldsmith says:-"The only dedication I ever made was to my brother, because I loved him better than most men. He is since dead. Permit me to inscribe this Poem to you." Bacon's to Sir John Constable runs thus :-" My last Essaies. I dedicated to my deare brother Master Anthony Bacon.. Missing my brother, I found you next." This is the dedication to the fourth Edition of the Essays,' 6 but the idea of the same cumulative or rather comparative compliment is again expressed in the dedication of the ninth edition to the Duke of Buckingham :"My Instauration' I dedicated to the KING; my History of Henry VIII.' and my 'Portions of Natural History' to the PRINCE; and these [Essays] I dedicate to YOUR GRACE."-If we acknowledge a plagiarism here, we must also acknowledge how the expression is improved by Goldsmith, verifying Johnson's encomium in the celebrated Epitaph he wrote on his friend : "Nullum quod tetigit non ornavit.” D'Israeli, in his Curiosities of Literature,' says, "Were we to investigate the genealogy of our best modern stories we should often discover the illegitimacy of our favourites; and retrace them frequently to the East." And there was lately a very sparkling article in the London Review' on the 'Paternity of Anecdotes,' proving how seldom is the real father known. For a long time it was assumed that the expression 'Comparisons are odorous,' was one of dear old Mrs. Malaprop's. It is really Dogberry's, as was pointed out some years since by a writer in the Athenæum. What, by the bye, is the age of the original saying, 'Comparisons are odious'? It is one of those one sided proverbs that are usually very foolish, but it must be older at least than Shakspeare. Charles I. uses it in one of his letters to Mr. Henderson, in the year 1643. Shakspeare, of course, was earlier, viz. 1600, the date of the first edition of 'Much Ado about Nothing;' but it may be found also in Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy,' in George Herbert's Jacula Prudentum,' and in Heywood's A Woman killed with kindness,' and probably is very much older. Of course comparisons are generally 'odious' to one party, as Thomas Corneille, the brother of the celebrated Pierre, and an emulator of his fame in the same pursuit, must have experienced on seeing inscribed under his portrait the following verses, by Gaçon :- "Voyant le portrait de Corneille, VI. Portraits and Portrait Painters. |VELYN, in his 'Sculptura,' quoting from Horace, says that Ålexander the Great ordained that no one should take his portrait on gems but Pyrgoteles; no one should paint him but Apelles; and no one should stamp his head on coins but Lysippus. They were in fact Painters, &c. in ordinary to the King, by appointment,' as Sir Thomas Lawrence and other painters of a later day, though the appointment' in the Greek Court was of a more exclusive character. We have no remains of the work of Apelles, but the gems and coins of Alexander are superb, and quite excuse the monopoly. Alexander, by the bye, was the first king who had his portrait impressed on coins, only the Gods having that honour previous to his assumed deification in the temple of Jupiter Ammon. The generals of Alexander, as they procured to themselves the title of king, assumed the privilege of having their portraits stamped on their coins, and so the practice |