counsels against intemperance out of the works of Jeremy Taylor, and translating at second hand his fable against persecution from the Hack ace t in the "Bost&n ;" Moliere producing his " Precieuses Ridicules'* two years after it had been acted in substance by the Italian comedians; M. Langles, the Orientalist, stealing his " Voyage d'Abdoul Rizzac" from Gal land's " Arabian Nights;" Lef6bre de Villebrune, in his translation of Athenaeus, copying six thousand two hundred notes from Casaubon's critical works ; De Saint-Ange, in his translation of Ovid's •• Metamorphoses," borrowing about fifteen hundred verses from Thomas Corneille, and a still greater number from Malfill&tre ; Jacques Delille, in his translation of Virgil, his poem of " L'Imagination," and other works, appropriating a great number of lines from other poets; Malte-Brun, In his famous work on geography, literally adopting the remarks of Gosselin, Lacroix, Walckenaer, Pinkerton, Puissant, etc. ; Aignan,in his translation of the " Iliad," borrowing twelve hundred verses from a previous translation by Rochefort; Castil Blaze transferring to his "Dictionary of Modern Music" three hundred and forty notices from Rousseau's work on the same subject, and all the while abusing the latter for his ignorance of the principles of the art; Henri Beyle, under the assumed name of Bombet, publishing his well-known letters on Haydn and Italian music, and leaving the public unacquainted with the fact that he had merely translated them from the Italian of Joseph Carpani ; and the Count de Courchamps palming on the world as the "Memoires Inedits de Cagliostro" a series of tales which turned out, after all, to be but a literal transcript of a romance published some twenty years before by John Potocki, a Polish count. Pierre Breslay published in 1574 "L'Anthologie, ou Recueil de plusieursdiscours notables ;" next year (" C'etait un peu prompt," naively adds one of M. Querard's supplemented) Jean des Caures followed him word for word in his "CEuvres Morales," levying like contributions on Grevin, Coras, and other authors of the day. Zschokke's " Warlike Adventures of a Peaceful Man," translated into French in three volumes in 1813, appeared without acknowledgment of source in the Revue de Paris in 1847. Paul Ferry had not long printed "Isabelle" in his first poetical works before De la Croix transferred it to his "Climene." On the misdoings of Moore, Pope, Mason, Gray, and several others, entire books or lengthy papers have been written. Of a sometime Lord William Pitt Lennox, Punch sagaciously divined that his favorite authors were Steele and Borrow. Rogers's "Human Life" is more than based on Gay's " Birth of the Squire," a piece confessedly in imitation of the " Pollio" of Virgil. Longfellow has so accurately translated the Anglo-Saxon metrical fragment "The Grave" that his version agrees almost verbally with the Rev. J. J. Conybeare's. More recently Mr. Thomas Hardy appropriated an entire chapter from "Georgia Scenes," by an almost forgotten American humorist, and with the few necessary verbal changes inlaid it in his "Trumpet-Major." AH these examples, a handful picked out at random, go far to justify Horace Smith's definition of originality as " undiscovered or unconscious imitation." "Ah, how often," this is how in "Philobiblon" the books address the clergy, "do you pretend that we, who are old, are but just born, and attempt to call us sous who are fathers, and to call that which brought you into clerical existence the fabric of your own studies? In truth, we who now pretend to be Romans are evidently sprung from the Athenians: for Carmentis was ever a pillager of Cadmus; and we who are just born in England shall be born again to-morrow in Paris, and, being thence carried on to Bononia, shall be allotted an Italian origin unsupported by any consanguinity."

On the whole, as between the plagiarist and his accuser, we prefer the plagiarist. We have more sympathy for the man in the pillory than for the rabble that pelt him. And especially we have naught but loathing for those literary detectives who are continually hunting on the track of every popular writer and crying "Stop thief!" at every accidental coincidence. We rejoice in the bitter words which Tennyson used in his letter to Mr. Dawson, author of •« A Study on The Princess." "There is, I fear," said the Laureate, "a prosaic set growing up among us, editors of booklets, bookworms, indexhunters, or men of great memories and no imagination, who impute themselves to the poet, and so believe that he, too, has no imagination, but is forever poking his nose between the pages of some old volumes in order to see what he can appropriate." This is the class of critics who accuse Tennyson of plagiarism because in his lyric "Home they brought her Warrior dead" the newly-made widow, sitting in stony and unmoved silence before her husband's corpse, bursts at last into refreshing tears at the sight of her child, an incident which occurs also in " Marmion." Coincidence need not be conscious borrowing.

Yet we fear the literary detective will not die. For some inscrutable reason he seems to be one of Nature's favorites. In the struggle for existence, which we are taught is constantly eliminating the weakest and leaving ampler room (or the strongest and the fittest, the literary detective emerges buoyant, smiling, self-satisfied,—immortal in his folly and his impudence. He may live to be the famous Last Man, he may cry "Chestnuts," or its equivalent, when the angel Gabriel sounds the last trump, he may detect "coincidences" in the judgment that consigns him among the accursed.

Plain living and high thinking are no more, a line in Sonnet XIII. of "Poems dedicated to National Independence and Liberty," written by Wordsworth, in September, 1802, as a protest against the "terrible luxury" of the London rich. Something similar to the ideal thus negatively presented is found in the Greek line

Tla^cta yaarrip Kerrrov bv Tiktci Voov (" A heavy paunch bears not a subtle mind"), which St. Chrysostorn vaguely attributes to a heathen writer. Horace, in his "Satires" (II., ii., 76), has

Vides ut pallidus omnis
Coena desurgat dubia? quia corpus onustum
Hesternis vitiis animum quoque praegravat una,

and Cicero, in his "Tusculan Disputations," v. ioo, "Quid, quod ne mente quidem recte uti possumus, multo cibo et potione completi?"

Dean (afterwards Bishop) Graves, who was resident clergyman at Windermere from 1835 to 1864, and often met Wordsworth, in his " Recollections of Wordsworth and the Lake Country" (Dublin Lectures on Literature and Art, 1869, p. 295), after describing the cottage which the poet in his early days rented for eight pounds a year, goes on to say, M In that cottage he spent what I think may be called the heroic period of his life. There he realized his noble motto of 'plain living and high thinking;' even a guest beneath his roof saw no beverage on his dinner-table but pure water; and Walter Scott confesses that when sojourning with him he made daily a surreptitious walk to «the public,' a mile off, to get a draught of beer. There . . he worked on silently and magnanimously; and while receiving no pecuniary reward for his labor, he silently endured a persecution of critical obloquy equally unrelenting and unjust."

Platform, in American politics, a declaration of party principles. The phrase has been imported into England. But though it comes as an importation it is really a revival of a use of the word that was common in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries both as a verb and as a noun. Thus, Milton, in his "Reason of Church Government," says that some "do not think it for the ease of their inconsequent opinions to grant that church discipline is platformed in the Bible, but that it is left to the discretion of men." In Lyly's "Alexander and Campaspe," Act v.t Sc. 4, Apelles is asked, " What piece of work have you now in hand?" to which he replies, "None in hand, if it like your Majestie, but I am devising a platforme in my head." And in the "Discovery of the New World," quoted by Nares, "To procure himself a pardon went and discovered the whole platforme of the conspiracie." A very early example occurs in the following title of a tract in the library of Queen's College, Cambridge: "A Survey of the pretended Holy Discipline, faithfully gathered by way of Historical Narration out of the Works and Writings of the principal Favourers of that Platforme, 4to, London, 1593."

The subdivisions of a platform are called its planks, and the metaphor is sometimes even run to death by giving the name of splinters to the subdivisions of "planks."

Plato's man. "Plato having defined man to be 'a two-legged animal without feathers,' Diogenes plucked a cock and brought it into the Academy, and said, 'This is Plato's man.' On which account this addition was made to the definition: 'with broad, flat nails.'" But even with the addendum the definition cannot be considered a happy one. Franklin called man a "toolmaking animal."

And all to leave what with his toil he won
To that unfeathered, two-legged thing, a son.

Dkyden: Absalom and Achitophel, 1. 169.

Play. American slang has developed many new uses of this phrase, all of which may doubtless be traced back to •* Hamlet:" "Why, look you, now, how unworthy a thing you make of me! You would play upon me; you would seem to know my stops: you would pluck out the heart of my mystery. 'Sblood, do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe ?" (Act iii., Sc. 2.) "You can't play that upon me,"—i.e., " 1 am not to be fooled or tricked in that way," is evidently a direct descendant of Hamlet's phrase. Then comes the affirmative, to indicate that a man is weak or foolish enough to be played upon:

It was April the first,

And quite soft was the skies,
Which it might be inferred

That Ah Sin was likewise,
But he played it that day upon William

And me in a way I despise.

Bret Hakte: Plain Languagefrom Truthful James.

I ain't over-particular, but this I do say, that interducin' a feller to yer sister, and availin' himself of the opportunity while you're a-kissin' her to stack the cards, is a-playin' it mighty low down.— Texas Siftings.

Pleasures. Life "would be tolerable were it not for its, a phrase attributed to Sir George Cornewall Lewis, and intelligible enough in a member of that race of which Froissart long ago remarked, " They take their pleasures sadly, after their fashion." Talleyrand said something not altogether unlike this, but the application was to turn into ridicule the sombreness of the Genevans. •* Is not Geneva dull?" asked a friend. "Especially when they amuse themselves," was Talleyrand's reply. George Eliot also says in " Felix Holt," "One way of getting an idea of our fellow-countrymen's miseries is to go and look at their pleasures."

Plon-Plon, a name given to the son of Jerome Bonaparte by his second wife, the Princess Frederica Catherine of Wurtemberg, the Prince Napoleon Joseph Charles Bonaparte. It is said to be a euphonism for "CraintpJomb" (" Fear-bullet"), a name which he got for his poltroonery in the Crimean war.

Pluck. This word affords an instance of the way in which slang words in the course of time become adopted into current English. We now meet with "pluck" and " plucky" as the recognized equivalents of " courage" and " courageous." An entry in Sir Walter Scott's "Journal" shows that in 1827 the word had not yet lost its low character. He says (vol. ii. p. 30), "want of that article blackguardly called pluck." Its origin is obvious. From early times the heart has been popularly regarded as the seat of courage. Now, when a butcher lays open a carcass he divides the great vessels of the heart, cuts through the windpipe, and then plucks out together the united heart and lungs,—lights he calls them,—and he terms the united mass "the pluck."

Pluck, To, in English university slang, to reject a candidate for graduation. The phrase arose at Oxford. It might seem that the passive form "to be plucked" had some reference to a bird despoiled of its feathers. This etymology has, indeed, been urged. But Cuthbert Bede explains that "when the degrees are conferred the name of each person is read out before he is presented to the vice-chancellor. The proctor then walks once up and down the room, so that any person who objects to the degree being granted may signify the same by pulling or plucking the proctor's robes."

Plug-Uglies, the name self-assumed by a gang of thugs or rowdies in Baltimore, who terrorized the streets for a period. Its peculiar felicity caused the name to survive when the similar associations of Ashlanders, Dead Rabbits, Blood-Tubs, etc., vanished into obscurity, and the term is now a generic one for a tough.

Blood-Tubs and Plug-Uglies, and others galore,
Are sick for a thrashing in sweet Baltimore;
Be jabers! that same I'd be proud to inform
Of the terrible force of an Irishman's arm.

Song of the Irish Legion.

Plum, an English colloquialism for one hundred thousand pounds, or more generally for any large sum. Is it only a curious coincidence that in Spanish pluma and in Italian penna, both meaning properly feather, have the slang signification of money? The London Standard thinks not, but holds that the English expression comes direct from the Spanish, " the idea being that a man who had accumulated this sum had feathered his nest."

Who in this life gets the smiles, and the acts of friendship, and the pleasing legacies? The rich. And I do, fur my part, heartily wish that some one would leave me a trifle,—say twenty thousand pounds,—being perfectly confident that some one else would leave me more, and I should sink into my grave worth a plum at least.—Thackeray: A Shabby-Genteel Story.

Plumed Knight, a sobriquet of James G. Blaine, first applied to him by Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll in the speech nominating Mr. Blaine as the candidate for President at the Republican convention of 1876: "Like an armed warrior, like a plumed knight, James G. Blaine marched down the halls of the American Congress and threw his shining lance full and fair against the brazen forehead of every defamer of this country and maligner of its honor." But the phrase was not original. Nor was Ingersoll the first to apply it to a Presidential candidate. In the Works of William H. Seward, vol. iv. p. 682, there is a quotation from John A. Andrew's speech at the Chicago convention in i860, in nominating Lincoln, in which he said of Seward that "in the thickest and the hottest of every battle there would be the white plume of the gallant leader of New York."

Poeta nascitur, non fit (L., "A poet is born, not made"). The proverb as it stands cannot be traced to any author, but similar expressions may be found in Pindar, Cicero, Quintilian, and other classic writers, Its first appear* ance as a proverb is probably in Ccelius Rhodiginus (a.d. 1450-1525), "Lectiones Antiquas," vii. The heading of chapter iv. is, "An poeta nascitur, orator fiat," etc., and in the course of this chapter occurs, "Vulgo certe jactatur, nasci poetam, oratorem fieri." Jonson, however, in his lines "To the Memory of Shakespear," says,—

For a good poet's made as well as born.

A well-known poet and scholar to whom we referred this question answers, " I doubt if any one can discover who first uttered this maxim in its now established form. It seems to have 'growed/ like Topsy, but possibly has its origin in certain verses of that somewhat

fhantasmal Latin writer, Florus. At all events, Sir Philip Sidney, in his 'Apologie for oetrie,' has these words: 'And therefore is an old proverb, Orator fit, poeta nascitur.' Grocott's book of quotations, I do not know on what authority, refers to Sidney as saying that this proverb was ' supposed to be from Florus.' Thomas Fuller, in his ' History of the Worthies of England/ mentions Shakspeare as an eminent instance of the truth of the saying, Poeta nan fit, sed nascitur. As to t lorus, I had supposed the reference was either to the orator and writer, Julius Florus, the friend of Horace, or to Julius Florus the Second, whom Quintilian praised. But Dr. Sachs, of this city, than whom there are few more learned classical and Oriental scholars, gives me the following information: 'I have looked industriously for Poeta nascitur t nonfit, among the classical Latin writers, but fail to find the maxim in that shape, as in fact I surmised when we spoke of it. The quotation from Florus (Lucius Annius) does not contain these words exactly. His couplet reads as follows (Anthologi* Latina, ed. Riese, No. 252):

Consules fiunt quotannis et novi proconsules:
Solus aut rex aut poeta non quotannis nascitur.

On the question whether this Florus is identical with the historian who made the epitome of
Livy's History, the critics are about equally divided.' "—New York Critic.

Poetic prose. It is a failing with some critics who do not clearly understand the line of demarcation between prose and verse to fall into unseemly raptures when they find that certain passages in their favorite authors can be written and scanned as verse. Now, prose is one thing and verse is another. There is such a thing as poetic prose, there is also such a thing as prosaic verse. But the former should have a rhythm and music of its own entirely different from the rhythm and music of verse. The latter, which can never have any excuse for being, may yet be found to answer to all the technical requirements of the prosodist, may scan responsive to his rule of thumb, yet through some poverty of word or thought may fail entirely to reach the level of poetry. Our two mightiest masters of harmony both in prose and verse, Shakespeare and Milton, knew this secret and taught it by example. There is no more magnificent poetry in English literature than the prose portions of " Hamlet," or various passages in the " Areopagitica" and the "Tractate of Education." Yet no artificial rearrangement, no breaking up into measured lines, could possibly convert this poetry into verse. Therein lies its very perfection. On the other hand, inferior rhetoricians like Dickens, who are never less eloquent than when they seek to be very eloquent, and generally all that class of writers who indulge in what is known as " wordpainting," fall into a sort of sing-song that imitates the metrical structure of verse and loses the spirit of poetry. We have cited Dickens. A flagrant example is afforded in his chapter on the death of Little Nell in "The Old Curiosity Shop." Home in his "New Spirit of the Age" was the first to point this out, and he does it in a laudatory manner.

"A curious circumstance," he says, "is observable in a great portion of the scenes of tragic power, pathos, and tenderness contained in various parts of Mr. Dickens's works, which it is possible may have been the result of harmonious accident, and the author not even subsequently conscious of it. It is that they are written in blank verse, of irregular metre and rhythms, which Southey, and Shelley, and some other poets, have occasionally adopted." And he thus rearranges the passage in "The Old Curiosity Shop:"