force no other point can have; since all other points have well-understood uses quite different from this. Therefore, the dash cannot be dispensed with. It has its phases - its variation of the force de scribed; but the one principle- that of second thought or emendation I will be found at the bottom of all. In a reply to a letter signed "Outis," and defending Mr. Longfellow from certain charges supposed to have been made against him by myself, I took occasion to assert that" of the class of willful plagiarists nine out of ten are authors of established reputation who plunder recondite, neglected, or forgotten books." I came to this conclusion à priori; but experience has confirmed me in it. Here is a plagiarism from Channing; and as it is perpetrated by an anonymous writer in a Monthly Magazine, the theft seems at war with my assertion until it is seen that the Magazine in question is Campbell's New Monthly for August, 1828. Channing, at that time, was comparatively unknown; and, besides, the plagiarism appeared in a foreign country, where there was little probability of detection. Channing, in his essay on Bonaparte, says: "We would observe that military talent, even of the highest order, is far from holding the first place among intellectual endowments. It is one of the lower forms of genius, for it is not conversant with the highest and richest objects of thought. . . . Still the chief work of a general is to apply physical force remove physical obstructions to to to avail himself of physical aids and advantages. to act on matter overcome rivers, ramparts, mountains, and human muscles; and these are not the highest objects of mind, nor do they demand intelligence of the highest order: and accordingly nothing is more common than to find men, eminent in this department, who are almost wholly wanting in the noblest energies of the soul— in imagination and taste in the capacity of enjoying works of genius in large views of human nature in the moral sciences in the application of analysis and generalization to the human mind and to society, and in original conceptions on the great subjects which have absorbed the most glorious understandings." The thief in "The New Monthly," says: 66 Military talent, even of the highest grade, is very far from holding the first place among intellectual endowments. It is one of the lower forms of genius, for it is never made conversant with the more delicate and abstruse of mental operations. It is used to apply physical force; to remove physical force; to remove physical obstructions; to avail itself of physical aids and advantages; and all these are not the highest objects of mind, nor do they demand intelligence of the highest and rarest order. Nothing is more common than to find men, eminent in the science and practice of war, wholly wanting in the nobler energies of the soul; in imagination, in taste, in enlarged views of human nature, in the moral sciences, in the application of analysis and generalization to the human mind and to society; or in original conceptions on the great subjects which have occupied and absorbed the most glorious of human understandings.' The article in The New Monthly is on "The State of Parties." The italics are mine. Apparent plagiarisms frequently arise from an author's self-repetition. He finds that something he has already published has fallen dead- been overlooked or that it is peculiarly à-propos to another subject now under discussion. He therefore introduces the passage; often without allusion to his having printed it before ; and sometimes he introduces it into an anonymous article. An anonymous writer is thus, now and then, unjustly accused of plagiarism — when the sin is merely that of self-repetition. In the present case, however, there has been a deliberate plagiarism of the silliest as well as meanest species. Trusting to the obscurity of his original, the plagiarist has fallen upon the idea of killing two birds with one stone - of dispensing with all disguise but that of decoration. Channing says "order the writer in the New grade." The former says that this order is far from holding," etc. the latter says it is very far from holding.' Monthly says tary talent is 66 ,, The one says that mili not conversant," and so on -the other says "it is never made conversant.' The one speaks of the highest and richest objects" the other of "the more delicate and abstruse." Channing speaks of " thought " -the thief of mental operations. Channing mentions intelligence of the highest order " the thief will have it of the highest and rarest.' Channing observes that military talent is often almost wholly wanting," etc. the thief maintains it to be "wholly wanting." Channing alludes to "large views of human nature the thief can be content with nothing less than enlarged ones. Finally, the American having been satisfied with a reference to subjects which have absorbed the most glorious understandings," the Cockney puts him to shame at once by discoursing about "subjects which have occupied and absorbed the most glorious of human understandings - and if one could be absorbed, without being occu pied, by a subject - as if "of" were here any thing more than two superfluous letters and as if there were any chance of the reader supposing that the understandings in question were the understandings of frogs, or jackasses, or Johnny Bulls. By the way, in a case of this kind, whenever there is a question as to who is the original and who the plagiarist, the point may be determined, almost invariably, by observing which passage is amplified, or exaggerated, in tone. To disguise his stolen horse, the uneducated thief cuts off the tail; but the educated thief prefers tying on a new tail at the end of the old one, and painting them both sky blue. After reading all that has been written, and after thinking all that can be thought, on the topics of God and the soul, the man who has a right to say that he thinks at all, will find himself face to face with the conclusion that, on these topics, the most profound thought is that which can be the least easily distinguished from the most superficial sentiment. XI. [Text: Southern Literary Messenger, April, 1849.1] I Do not believe that the whole world of Poetry can produce a more intensely energetic passage, of equal 1 Some years since Mr. Poe wrote for several of the Northern magazines a series of critical brevities under the title of "Marginalia. They attracted great attention at that time and since, as characteristic of the author, and we are sure that our readers will be gratified at his resuming them in the Messenger. By way of introduction, we republish the original preface from the Democratic Review. [See Introduction to "Marginalia.”]—[Ed. Mess.] length, than the following, from Mrs. Browning's "Drama of Exile." The picturesque vigor of the lines italicized is much more than Homeric : On a mountain peak Half sheathed in primal woods and glittering He sprang up rampant, and stood straight and stiff, Were dashed against his eyes, and roared so fierce In savage and in sorrowful complaint - There are few cases in which mere popularity should be considered a proper test of merit; but the case of song-writing is, I think, one of the few. In speaking of song-writing, I mean, of course, the composition of brief poems with an eye to their adaptation for music in the vulgar sense. In this ultimate destination of the song proper, lies its essence its genius. It is the strict reference to music-it is the dependence upon modulated expression — which gives to this branch of letters a character altogether unique, and separates it, in great measure and in a manner not sufficiently considered, from ordinary literature; rendering it independent of merely ordinary proprieties; allowing it, and in fact demanding for it, a wide latitude of Law; absolutely, insisting upon a certain wild license and indefinitiveness |