In his "Table Talk" Cowper has the couplet :

"That constellation set, the world in vain

Must hope to look upon their like again; "

which is adopted from the following in "Hamlet:"

"He was a man, take him for all in all,

I shall not look upon his like again."

From "Hamlet," too, Churchill has borrowed the second line in this couplet :

"And the poor slattern muse is brought to bed,
With all her imperfections on her head."

Shakspeare's words are:

"No reckoning made, but sent to my account,
With all my imperfections on my head.”

Another remarkable thought in the "Task,"

"God made the country, and man made the town,” is supposed to have been adopted from this line in Cowley's "Garden :"

"God the first garden made, the first city Cain."

But the true source of it will be found in a passage in Varro's "De Re Rusticâ," where he says:

"Nec mirum quod divina natura dedit agros, ars humana ædificavit urbes."

The temptation of borrowing must be strong indeed, when we meet with such a poet as

Chatterton giving way to it, notwithstanding the still stronger inducement which should have deterred him from venturing on such forbidden ground. But so it is; and among the many reasons for rejecting the authenticity of the "Rowley Poems," not the least cogent is the occurrence therein of borrowed thoughts-borrowed from poets of a date posterior to that of their pretended origin. Of these I shall quote two or three instances. In the "Battle of Hastings" we read this couplet :—

"The grey-goose pynion that thereon was sett,
Eftsoons wyth smokyng crymson bloud was wett."

This is taken from the ballad of 66
Chase:"-

"The grey-goose wing that was thereon

In his heart's blood was wet."

Chevy

In the same poem Chatterton has the lines:"Edardus felle upon the bloudie grounde;

His noble soule came rushyng from the wounde."

The last of which, with "disdainful" instead of "noble," is the concluding line in Dryden's translation of Virgil:

"And the disdainful soul came rushing through the wound.”

The same origin must be assigned to the following couplet in Sir Richard Blackmore; for, although Dryden's contemporary, Sir Richard

is more likely to have been the borrower on this occasion:

"A gloomy night o'erwhelms his dying eyes,

And his disdainful soul from his pale bosom flies."

There is a plagiarism in Chatterton which has escaped the notice of his numerous annotators, and which furnishes additional proof, if any were wanting, that the "Rowley Poems" are in reality the production of that "marvellous boy." It occurs at the commencement of the "Tournament," in the line,

"The worlde bie diffraunce ys ynn orderr founde."

It will be seen that this line, a very remarkable one, has been cleverly condensed from a passage in Pope's "Windsor Forest :"

"But as the world, harmoniously confused,

Where order in variety we see,

And where, though all things differ, all agree."

This sentiment has been repeated by other modern writers. Pope himself has it in the Essay on Man," in this form :

"The lights and shades, whose well-accorded strife
Gives all the strength and colour of our life."

It occurs in one of Pascal's "Pensées :"

"J'écrirai ici mes pensées sans ordre, et non pas peut-être dans une confusion sans dessein. C'est le véritable ordre, et qui marquera toujours mon objet par le désordre même."

Bernardin de St. Pierre has it in his "Etudes

de la Nature :"

"C'est des contraires que résulte l'harmonie du monde."

And Burke, in nearly the same words, in his "Reflections on the French Revolution:

"You had that action and counteraction which in the natural and the political world, from the reciprocal struggle of discordant powers, draws out the harmony of the universe."

Nor does the sentiment belong exclusively to the moderns. I find it in Horace's twelfth Epistle:"

66

“Nil parvum sapias, et adhuc sublimia cures,

Quid velit et possit rerum concordia discors."

Lucan, I think, has the same expression in his "Pharsalia ;" and it forms the basis of Longinus's remark on the eloquence of Demosthenes :

“ Οὐκοῦν τὴν μὲν φύσιν τῶν ἐπαναφορῶν καὶ ἀσυνδέτων πάντῃ φυλάττει τῇ συνεχεῖ μεταβολῇ· οὕτως αὐτῷ καὶ ἡ τάξις ἄτακτον, καὶ ἔμπαλιν ἡ ἀταξία ποιὰν περιλαμβάνει τάξιν.”

It may be said that, as Pope adopted the thought from Horace or Lucan, so a poet of the fifteenth century (such as the supposed Rowley) might have taken it from the same sources. The supposition, however, of its having been borrowed from Pope is supported by the fact, that the line in the "Tournament" embraces not only the thought, but the very words in which Pope has expressed it.

One of the few good things in Crabbe happens to be a borrowed thought. In his "Tales of the Hall" he has the line,

"He tried the luxury of doing good;"

which is copied from this couplet in Garth's "Claremont :".

"Hard was their lodging, homely was their food,

For all their luxury was doing good."

There is a passage in Scott's "Lay of the Last Minstrel," which has been traced to one of Butler's minor poems. Scott has it :

"Love rules the court, the camp, the grove,

And man below and saints above,

For love is Heaven, and Heaven is love."

The lines in Butler are as follows:

"Translate to earth the joys above,

For nothing goes to Heaven but love."

I find, however, that the true source of Scott's lines may be traced to Dryden's "Palamon and Arcite :"

"The power of love

In earth, and seas, and air, and heaven above,
Rules unresisted;"

or perhaps to the line in Virgil :—

"Omnia vincit amor, et nos cedamus amori ;"

which Dryden has thus translated :

"In hell, and earth, and seas, and heaven above,
Love conquers all, and we must yield to love."