of a shadow, of determining, how much belongs to the owner, and how much to the literary thief. After the claims of the respective parties have been adjusted and identified, the world is too much fascinated by the golden dreams of avarice to feel any interest in the question, or ever to read a report of the case. This evil has been so long felt and endured in the republick of letters, that the citizens of that commonwealth seem now aroused from their lethargy, and disposed to prosecute to final judgment every one so of fending against the peace and dignity of the state. They raise the hue and cry, and the whole community in mass follow in the pursuit, so that scarce any culprit escapes without punishment. It is because this alarm has been raised to the great annoyance and detriment of many good and honest citizens, who in consequence thereof have been arrested, tried, and by a verdict of their peers honourably acquitted of the charge, that the writer of the present article has conceived it his duty to state the law on the subject. By the good old laws of said commonwealth it is expressly provided, that no freeman of Parnassus shall be arrested or imprisoned, or disseized of the free customs and liberties of the realm, or outlawed, or exiled, or passed upon, or in any manner destroyed, unless by trial of his peers, or by the laws of the land. Grave and learned commentators on this passage have holden, that according to the letter and spirit of the text, no man's literary reputation shall be put in jeopardy, without probable cause is first made manifest. They have further holden that all persons so offending are 'trespassors' ab initio, and liable to pay heavy damages to the party so aggrieved. The

genius of this republick, like that of all other republicks, is obnox ious and peculiarly hostile to spies and informers; a class of men who shake the quiet of the realm by groundless alarms, and whose very subsistence is derived from the number of condemnations they procure. It is therefore proper to apprize the citizens at large, that a number of such have arrived within our borders; the Titus Oateses of literature, who have found divers plots and conspiracies in their own imaginations only. To drop all metaphor, the most ordinary coincidence of thought, or expression amongst writers, is in our day regarded as plagiarism positive, and the pri ority of their respective publication furnishes the only criterion demanded to ascertain the transgressor. Many make no allowance for inevitable resemblances of two congenial minds, employed on the same subject. To give an example; Mr. Ames, in his eloquent speech in the house of representatives on the subject of Mr. Jay's treaty, has the following exquisitely brilliant and beautiful passage:

Some would rejoice if Great Britain were sunk into the sea, if the place where liberty and law, and humanity and religion reside, should become a sand bank for the sea-monster to fatten on ; a space for the storms of the ocean to mingle in conflict !'

Flood overwhelm'd, and them with all
All dwellings else
their pomp
Deep under water roll'd; sea covered

Bounding in every beautiful flowret, shot up into a noble plant and expanded the magnificent drapery of its blossoms. In the trial of Archibald Hamilton Rowan, the metaphorick Curran thus expresses himself : My lord, you are now standing on a scanty isthmus, that divides the vast ocean of duration; on the one side the past, on the other side, the future; a ground that, while you yet heur me, is washing from beneath your feet? Addison in one of his Spectators remarks, that in our speculations of eternity, we consider the time, which is present to us, as the middle, which divides the whole line into two equal parts. For this reason many witty authors compare the present time to an isthmus, or narrow neck of land, rising in the midst of an ocean immeasurably diffused on either side of it?Whether the mind of Mr. Curran, at the time he was speaking, dwelt on the passage cited from Addison, or not, it is unimportant to know; he is free from the charge of plagiarism in either case; the ocean of eternity and the isthmus of existence have,from the frequency of their use, now become common property; it is only the washing away of the ground that ›renders the figure worth the preser vation.

I am not to be deterred by the squibs and crackers, which mischievous literáry boys throw in my face, from citing Virgil again. James Thomson, of and belonging to the island of Great-Britain, poet, stands charged with having taken, stolen, and carried away sundry articles of poetical property, belonging to Publius Virgilius Maro, knowing the said articles of right to belong to him the said Maro, with force and arms, and against

The above are only given as instances. Some of the passages the author of the Seasons has expanded, some contracted, and others adapted to the country, where he resided. It is well worth the labour of a man, whose hours are consecrated to literature, to begin at the 458th line of the second book of the Georgics and continue on to the end, and then to compare it with the 1233d line of Thomson's Autumn to the conclusion of the book, and he will be convinced beyond all doubt, that the British Bard was under more obligation to the Roman, than he had the gratitude to confess. This charge is perfectly distinct from that casual coincidence of expression, or thought, between two writers, denominated plagiarism by some. In fact, if Thomson has done this, without being sensible of it, it furnishes an argument in favour of the Pythagorean system of divinity, and we may venture to pronounce that the shade of Virgil passed from Elysium and inhabited the body of the British Bard, without tasting a drop of the water of Lethe before his passage.

R.

Ὅτι τοι ἐν μεγάροισι κακόν'

IN every cultivated age of the world the misapplication of learning has been a subject of severe reproach. If the complaints had originated from irritable petulance, envious discontent, or vulgar animadversion, the objects of censure In their superiority of character would have despised the weakness of such harmless effort; they would have felt little despondency about the continuance of present applause and the durability of future renown. But when the satire proceeds from men, whose excellence in virtue places them above the imputation of injurious designs, or whose rank in erudition authorizes the 'sentiments of reproach, all attempts at justification are fruitless, for the opinion of the world is settled, when the edict of sovereignty is irresistible.

The biographers of Socrates have delighted to dwell on his moral exertions and practical philosophy. As experience convinced him of the shortness of life, and reasoning prompted the credibility of future existence, he thought it foolish to spend a little round of days and waste the glorious endowments of the mind upon subjects of much theoretic ingenuity,but of no determinate value. The philosophers of Greece in the age of Socrates confined the exertion of their knowledge to speculating on the elements of nature, or chief good; to elucidating the principles of matter and mind; and to Vol. IV. No. 9.

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ἀγαθόντε τέτυκται.

obscuring the plainnest truths by doubtful suggestions, or perplexing them in the incumbrances of sophistry and the subtleties of metaphysick. Socrates was the first who inveighed against such employment of time and talents; he drew down from heaven a better philosophy, and showed to the Athenians sublimer subjects of contemplation; in his familiar conversations he insisted on the necessity of active, personal beneficence; his days were consumed, not in the schools of frivolous sophists, or in the retreats of allimportant, self-opinionated dogmatists, but in the streets, among the poor, the ignorant, and the weak, at the couch of repentant crime, or in the lowly coverts of declining age. The propriety of his distinction between speculative and practical good, and the general excellence of his doctrines, if they wanted support, might receive it from the applause of successive generations; but they require no superfluous confirmation, for they are evidenced by the goodness of his life and corroborated by the greatness of his death.

Undoubtedly active benevolence is superiour to intellectual greatness in the advantages, conferred upon mankind; but, in the order of Providence, it was never intended that an example of continual active charity should be the absolute rule of universal conduct. Such an obligation would confound