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    1114 THE LEADER , [SUypsfiiy,

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    CURIOSITIES OF LITERATURE—PLAGIARISM. (B...

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    The Cape Colonv A(Iain Mutinies. Onck Mo...

    party , who asked it to adopt financial measures that ought properly to have been submitted to the new Parliament j and the Colonial Secretary , Mr . Montagu , not only fostered these disturbances , but openly displayed his wish to procrastinate , if not defeat , the constitution . The matter was referred home ; Commissioners were sent to London to urge the claims of the colonists ; but they were treated with slight , not , we believe , only on one political side . They went back in . great disgust . The constitution is still delayed ; arid now the colonists , who have previously found a determined resistance to the Government

    of the mother country successful as a means to obtain their wishes , have passed the following resolutions : — " That viewing with grief and alarm the conduct of her Majesty ' s present advisers , in delaying the fulfilment of her Majesty ' s gracious intentions towards this colony , with respect to the introduction of representative institutions , solemnly granted by letters patent , dated May , 1850 : —

    " They considering the delay and the apparent disposition of the present head of the colonial department to distrust the colonial voice and to listen only to official representation , or the opinions and wishes of individuals in the service of Government , as highly injurious to this community , and pregnant with danger to the best interests of the colony , and to the honour of her Majesty ' s Government : —

    " And having reason to believe that it is the intention of the Right Honourable the Secretary for the Colonies to bring a bill into Parliament for the purpose of annulling the said letters patent of May , 1850 , and substituting in the place of the constitution therein granted and guaranteed , a scheme of Government wholly repugnant to the feelings and wishes of the inhabitants : —

    " This Board resolves by all lawful means in their jjower to promote such measures as may seem best calculated to protect the colony against so great an injury and insult , to obviate the perils likely to ensue , and to secure as speedily as possible the entire fulfilment of her Majesty's gracious grant in the letter and spirit of the promises which those letters implied . "( Signed ) "H . C- Jarvis , " Chairman of the Cape Town Municipality . " By order of the Board of Commissioners , " P . J . Denyssen , Secretary . "

    This resolution was passed by the Board of Commissioners in Cape Town , on the 6 th of October ; and it is transmitted to us with a letter from the Chairman of tho Cape Town . Municipality , who gives some further explanation : — " The Commissioners have adopted this extraordinary step , to prevent any misconception of the views of the Colonists in respect of the several matters alluded to in that Resolution , and to place the Imperial Parliament of Great Britain in possession of the fact , that this Colony is determined not to accept any Constitution reserving a right in favour of the Crown to nominate the Members of either of the Assemblies thereby constituted .

    " And as the unsatisfactory accounts received by the last Mail Steamer ( which arrived yesterday , and leaves Tablo Bay the day after to-inorrow ) , added to the many other breaches of promise on the ' part of JLer Majesty's Advisers in reference to the Constitution granted by Her Majesty ' s Letters Patent of May , 1850 , have already created considerable excitement and alarm ;—and as any alteration of the said Constitution might be the means of causing very serious consequences , I am desired respectfully to requeat tho favour of your influence and vote , if required , to oppose any ouch objectionable course , and by promoting a speedy completion of the said Constitution , to obviate tho diiHcultie » which are otherwise apprehended . "

    Nothing could bo winer than for tho Homo Government to conciliate tho affections of tlieao sturdy colonials , who prove thojr worth in their very mutiny . Wo uho tho strong expression , because it would be trifling to mince matters . " Wlion Lord drey endeavoured to force convicts upon tho Capo of Ciood Hope , after repeated pledges not to do so , the Cane colonists adopted a plan of non-intercourse , and by that means they

    succeeded in forcing the Governor to hoihI the convicts away . They are now resorting to exactly the same means of action ; and wo believe they will bo successful . Hut the saiho intelligence and energy which those colonists display in resistance to tho mother country may bo ojigwod on the side of any Ministry that would simply fulfil ( . ho promise of Lord Joljn Kussell ' a administration . ft is impossible to receive those intimations of Bhajkun allegiance from provinces of tho JJritish empire without associating tboni with other faotfl

    bearing upon the general position of the empire . The influence of the English Government is receding in its own provinces , at the same time that it is receding on the Continent , for reasons quite similar in both cases , although on th £ surface they would appear to be opposed . On tb , e Continent , England is suffering the principle of constitutional government Which it has upheld to be broken down , — -is suffering its natural allies , the free constitutional countries of Europe , to be gradually overthrown by the influence and strength of the despotical alliance . On the other hand , in the colonies , by a tyrannical

    treatment , or by a not less tyrannical slight , our influence is shrinkiug almost to nothing . The Australias , which are daily acquiring new proofs of their extreme value , —which are , in fact , in the ratio to population , the most valuable dependencies of any crown , —are strongly imbued with feelings of alienation towards the mothercountry , because they cannot have their simplest desires gratified . The Australias have before now shown a disposition to follow the example set by the Cape , and the present example will not be lost . We speak by the card when we say that , although the Australians would be outraged to the last degree by any sudden coup-de-main which should transfer them from the British

    crown to any European enemy of that crown , they would not be very much vexed were the chances of fate to transfer them to the United States . They have a feeling , common to many of our colonies , that were they allied by some species of federation to the great Kepublic of the west , they would be freer to develop their resources under the Republican Government than they are under the Government of Downingstreet . That feeling exists , not only in British North America , but in the West Indies , and in the Australias : and the Cape of Good Hope is

    now taking a position of overt mutiny . The cry of " Wolf ! '' has been often repeated , but after all , the wolf came . Let those who think that it may be desirable to be relieved from the burden of our colonial dependencies ask themselves whether any sudden separation from the mother-country might not give a shake to the power and influence of England that would lay us more than ever open to aggression from the Continent . And all such risks are incurred by the most naked , the most stupid , and most wanton species of injustice that public Ministers ever committed .

    1114 The Leader , [Suypsfiiy,

    1114 THE LEADER , [ SUypsfiiy ,

    Curiosities Of Literature—Plagiarism. (B...

    CURIOSITIES OF LITERATURE—PLAGIARISM . ( BY DISRAELI THE YOUNGEE . ) " He is welcome to anything of mine , " said Rossini , when ho was reminded that he had taken passages by wholesale from tho work of a musical rival . Great geniuses have been great p lagiarists . Raphael and Michel Angolo plagiarised their predecessors and each other . The graceful Gray is still prized , although his every line may be traced to another . Tho tedious Howell

    writes—The heralds and sweet harbingers that move From east to west in embassies of love—They can the tropic cut and cross tho line ; whereon the polished Pope says—Heaven first taught letters ,-for some wretch ' s aid , Homo banish'd lover , ]| or some captivo maid , since they Speed tho soft intercourse from soul to soul , And waft a si ^ h from Indus to tho Pole .

    Virgil ascribes to vEncaa tho lumen juvontiis purpureum ; Tasso , to liis hero , Godfrey , " Di giovinezza il bel purpureo lurno ; " and Gray Rings " The bloom of young desire , and purple light of love . " Tasso describes tho concert of song , wind , and waters ; and Spencer amplifies the luxurious description . Ju fact , you may multiply such eases without end . I n here is a danger in such studies of parallelisms . It may become a habit to speak in other men's ideas . We have heard a Havant boast that he

    ho well knew all the authorities on a given subject , that he could deliver a long and complete discourse upon it off-hand , entirely in the citations from those authorities . He lisped in quotations , for the quotations came . Tho habit would poem capable of hereditary transmission . The elder Disraeli formed a large collection of parallel passages , " merely as exercises to form my taste ; ' ana the younger Disraeli introduces wholesale parallelisms iuto his otlicial epoeohes .

    This is carrying the formation of taste to the op . posite extreme . But much maybe allowed to parental exempli , fication , thus enforced" The mode of literary compositifa adopted by that admirable student , Sir William Jo * es , is well deserving our attention . After having fixei on his subjects , he always added the model of the jpmposition ; and . thus boldly wrestled with the greai authors of anti quity . On board the frigate which yob carrying him to India he projected the following tforks , and noted them iu this manner : — 1 . Elements of the Lanrs of England . Model —The Essay on Bailments . Aeistotle . 2 . The History of the American War . Model—Thttcydides and Polybitts . 3 . Britain Discovered , an Epic Poem . Machinery-Hindu Gods . Model—Homes . 4 t . Speeches . Political and Forensic . Model —DEMOSTHENES . 5 . Dialogues , Philosophical and Historical . Model—PMTO , " Thusr , the parallelism detected by the Globe , in which the present Mr . Disraeli eulogizes the Duke of Wellington in the terms employed by Thiers to eulogize St . Cyr , is evidently no more than the result of this rule . Mr . Disraeli would ' set down his subject and model thus : — 6 . Wellington , bis Life and Character . Model—Thiebb . If almost all the phrases which . Thiers applies

    to St . Cyr are applied by Disraeli to the Duke of Wellington , it only shows that the original has come very close to his model , ] STay , the paternal authority supplies Mr . Disraeli with an example even of a Minister stooping to forgery—and that example a very fit one for Mr . Disraeli , since it is the romance writer , Horace Walpole ; who forged the King of Prussia ' s letter to [ Rousseau .

    Mr . Disraeli the Younger , however , has introduced a totally new feature into the history of literary parallelisms , when he passes off the eulogium of a French writer upon a French general as the eulogium upon Wellington . As though England herself , in her People ' s Chamber , had no words for her own soldier ! To delude publishers and patrons , as Chatterton did , was questionable ; but to make a dupe of the House

    of Commons was , indeed , a stroke worthy of a Boccaccio to record . We do not , indeed , know how the dupes relished it . It must have mortified the reporters to find that they had wasted the energies of their fingers in noting and transcribing , when they might have saved themselves that trouble by a direction to the printer— " Thiers , " & c . ; or , Lord John accepted the " eloquent" passage without ringing it on the table .

    JNay , it is possible that some enthusiastic member may have been moved to drop a tear ; and we can conceive the spite of a senator unmanned , at finding that he has been thus moved by a counterfeit—fancy ing that he was weeping over Disraeli , and finding that lie was weeping over Thiers ; led b y mistake , as it were , to pour his grateful emotion upon tho tomb , not ot Wellington , but of St . Cyr . , Of course , the smasher of elogies will be called roughly to account by those who have been delusion will

    boduped , and the effect of the go yond a mere doubt in his eloquence . i- ^ V will ask when he is improssive , Who is tl" « from P And whatever the subject may be , tliey will probably suHpcct that it really applies to something else . A telling passage , for example . on tlic rights of tho British people , they wm probably trace to Do Joinvillo on tho invasion oi England ; or a pathetic epigram on tho livlllh ^ matron may bo found lurking in the tribute Dumas tho Younger to the Dame aux Camel *™' Indeed , the inmiirv is liltolv to arise , as to wliai hiUU

    portions of Disraeli Works are by various r ' and a search of Hansard by some emulator oi t » older Disraeli might bo fruitful in curioHiti ^ . nw impossible , however , to suppose that thcro is " ^ an answer ; and we already foresee tho rej > ly- . is not Mr . Disraeli that Jms been p lagiariHi * Thierfl , but it is Thiers that has been p liigmriHmj , Mr . Disraeli—by anticipation . Mr . Disraeli has adopted tho dictum of *<" tain section of Socialists—that man in to 1 ) OSH ' ^ not according to bin capacity , but llM' ° . ' jl he his luiods . and in tho sense of noodinwH it inW presumed Mr . Disraeli has a grantor rigW < . pawajro than TJriors . Yob , iiw Thww that the plagiarist . LaprojpritiM , cent le vol .

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 20, 1852, page 14, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_20111852/page/14/