ACCORDING to a recent biographer of Byron, originality can be expected from nobody except a lunatic, a hermit, or a sensational novelist. This hasty remark is calculated to prejudice novelists, lunatics, and hermits. People will inevitably turn to these members of society (if we can speak thus of hermits and lunatics), and ask them for originality, and fail to get it, and express disappointment. For all lunatics are like other lunatics, and, no more than sane men, can they do anything original. As for hermits, one hermit is the very image of his brother solitary. There remain sensational novelists to bear the brunt of the world's demand for the absolutely unheard-of, and, naturally, they cannot supply the article. So mankind falls on them, and calls them plagiarists. It is

enough to make some novelists turn lunatics, and others turn hermits.

"Of all forms of theft," says Voltaire indulgently, "plagiarism is the least dangerous to society!'' It may be added that, of all forms of consolation, to shout plagiarism" is the most comforting to authors who have failed, or amateurs who have never had the pluck to try. For this reason, probably, a new play seldom succeeds but some un lucky amateur produces his battered old MS., and declares that the fortunate author has stolen from him, who hath Fortune for his foe. Indeed, without this resource it is not known how unaccepted theatrical writers would endure their lot in life. But if stealing is so ready a way to triumph, then humanity may congratulate itself on the wide prev

alence of moral sentiments.

So very few people greatly succeed (and scarce any one who does not is called a thief) that even if all successful persons are proved robbers, there must be a lofty standard of honesty in literature. On the other hand it is a melancholy fact that the very greatest men of all Shakespeare, Molière, Virgil (that furtive Mantuan), Pausanias, Theocritus, and Lord Tennyson-are all liable to the charge of theft, as that charge is understood by the advocatus Diaboli. It is a little odd, not only that our greatest are so small, but that our smallestthe persons who bark at the chariot of every passing triumph-are so great. They have never stolen, or nothing worth stealing, or nothing that any one would buy. But Dante: why, the whole idea of a visit to Hell, and a record of it, was a stock topic in early medieval literature. But Bunyan every library possesses, or may possess, half a dozen earlier Progresses by earlier Pilgrims. But Virgil: when he is not pilfering from Homer or Theocritus (who notori; ously robbed Sophron) he has his hand in the pocket of Apollonius Rhodius. No doubt Bavius and Mævius mentioned these truths in their own literary circle. No doubt they did not gloss over the matter, but frankly remarked that the "Eneid" was a pastiche, a string of plagiarisms, a success due to Court influence, and the mutual admiration of Horace, Varro, and some other notorious characters. Yet the "Eneid" remains a rather unusual piece of work.

Some one, probably Gibbon, has remarked about some crime or other, that it is difficult to commit, and almost impossible to prove." The reverse is the truth about plagiarism. That crime is easy to prove, and almost impossible to commit. The facility of proof is caused by the readiness of men to take any accusation of this sort for granted, and by the very natural lack of popular reflection about the laws that govern literary composition. Any two passages, or situations, or ideas, that resemble each other, or are declared to resemble each other when they do not, are, to the mind of the unliterary person, a sufficient basis for a charge of plagiarism. These circumstances account for the

ease with which plagiarism is proved. Yet it is difficult, if not impossible, to commit. For he who is charged with plagiarism is almost invariably guilty of a literary success. Now, even the poorest and most temporary literary success (say that of a shilling novel) rests on the production of a new thing. The book that really wins the world, even for a week, from its taxes, and politics, and wars and rumors of war, must be in some way striking and novel. The newness may lie in force of fancy, or in charm of style, or in both; or in mere craftsman's skill, or in high spirits, or in some unusual moral sympathy and insight, or in various combinations of these things. In all such cases, and always, it is what is new, it is the whole impact of the book as one thing, that enables it to make its way to the coveted front. Now, what is stolen cannot be new; it can be nothing but the commonplaces of situation, and incident, and idea-each of them as old as fiction in one shape or other. Not the matter, but the casting of the matter; not the stuff, but the form given to the stuff, makes the novel, the novelty, and the success. Now, nobody can steal the form; nobody, as in the old story (or nobody except a piratical publisher), can steal the brooms ready-made. The success or failure lies not in the materials, but in the making of the brooms, and no dullard can make anything, even if he steals all his materials. On the other hand, genius, or even considerable talent, can make a great deal, if it chooses, even out of stolen material-if any of the material of literature can be properly said to be stolen, and is not rather the possession of whoever likes to pick it up.

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On this view of the matter, the only real plagiarism is that defined in the Latin dictionary. Plagiarius, a man stealer, kidnapper,'' so used by Cicero and Seneca. Secondly, a literary thief (one who gives himself out to be the author of another's book)." Martial uses the word (i. 52) :

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"My books, my Quintian, to thee

I send-if I may call them mineFor still your Poet, who but he, Recites them,-well, if they repine, In that their slavery do thou

Come to their rescue and befriend them,