Chapter i.
Showing what is to be deemed plagiarism in a modern author, and whatis to be considered as lawful prize.
The learned reader must have observed that in the course of thismighty work, I have often translated passages out of the best antientauthors, without quoting the original, or without taking the leastnotice of the book from whence they were borrowed.
This conduct in writing is placed in a very proper light by theingenious Abbe Bannier, in his preface to his Mythology, a work ofgreat erudition and of equal judgment. "It will be easy," says he,"for the reader to observe that I have frequently had greater regardto him than to my own reputation: for an author certainly pays him aconsiderable compliment, when, for his sake, he suppresses learnedquotations that come in his way, and which would have cost him but thebare trouble of transcribing."
To fill up a work with these scraps may, indeed, be considered as adownright cheat on the learned world, who are by such means imposedupon to buy a second time, in fragments and by retail, what they havealready in gross, if not in their memories, upon their shelves; and itis still more cruel upon the illiterate, who are drawn in to pay forwhat is of no manner of use to them. A writer who intermixes greatquantity of Greek and Latin with his works, deals by the ladies andfine gentlemen in the same paultry manner with which they are treatedby the auctioneers, who often endeavour so to confound and mix uptheir lots, that, in order to purchase the commodity you want, you areobliged at the same time to purchase that which will do you noservice.
And yet, as there is no conduct so fair and disinterested but that itmay be misunderstood by ignorance, and misrepresented by malice, Ihave been sometimes tempted to preserve my own reputation at theexpense of my reader, and to transcribe the original, or at least toquote chapter and verse, whenever I have made use either of thethought or expression of another. I am, indeed, in some doubt that Ihave often suffered by the contrary method; and that, by suppressingthe original author's name, I have been rather suspected of plagiarismthan reputed to act from the amiable motive assigned by that justlycelebrated Frenchman.
Now, to obviate all such imputations for the future, I do here confessand justify the fact. The antients may be considered as a rich common,where every person who hath the smallest tenement in Parnassus hath afree right to fatten his muse. Or, to place it in a clearer light, wemoderns are to the antients what the poor are to the rich. By the poorhere I mean that large and venerable body which, in English, we callthe mob. Now, whoever hath had the honour to be admitted to any degreeof intimacy with this mob, must well know that it is one of theirestablished maxims to plunder and pillage their rich neighbourswithout any reluctance; and that this is held to be neither sin norshame among them. And so constantly do they abide and act by thismaxim, that, in every parish almost in the kingdom, there is a kind ofconfederacy ever carrying on against a certain person of opulencecalled the squire, whose property is considered as free-booty by allhis poor neighbours; who, as they conclude that there is no manner ofguilt in such depredations, look upon it as a point of honour andmoral obligation to conceal, and to preserve each other frompunishment on all such occasions.
In like manner are the antients, such as Homer, Virgil, Horace,Cicero, and the rest, to be esteemed among us writers, as so manywealthy squires, from whom we, the poor of Parnassus, claim animmemorial custom of taking whatever we can come at. This liberty Idemand, and this I am as ready to allow again to my poor neighbours intheir turn. All I profess, and all I require of my brethren, is tomaintain the same strict honesty among ourselves which the mob show toone another. To steal from one another is indeed highly criminal andindecent; for this may be strictly stiled defrauding the poor(sometimes perhaps those who are poorer than ourselves), or, to set itunder the most opprobrious colours, robbing the spittal.
Since, therefore, upon the strictest examination, my own consciencecannot lay any such pitiful theft to my charge, I am contented toplead guilty to the former accusation; nor shall I ever scruple totake to myself any passage which I shall find in an antient author tomy purpose, without setting down the name of the author from whence itwas taken. Nay, I absolutely claim a property in all such sentimentsthe moment they are transcribed into my writings, and I expect allreaders henceforwards to regard them as purely and entirely my own.This claim, however, I desire to be allowed me only on condition thatI preserve strict honesty towards my poor brethren, from whom, if everI borrow any of that little of which they are possessed, I shall neverfail to put their mark upon it, that it may be at all times ready tobe restored to the right owner.
The omission of this was highly blameable in one Mr Moore, who, havingformerly borrowed some lines of Pope and company, took the liberty totranscribe six of them into his play of the Rival Modes. Mr Pope,however, very luckily found them in the said play, and, laying violenthands on his own property, transferred it back again into his ownworks; and, for a further punishment, imprisoned the said Moore in theloathsome dungeon of the Dunciad, where his unhappy memory nowremains, and eternally will remain, as a proper punishment for suchhis unjust dealings in the poetical trade.