[June, the living remains of Milton will be no longer | work attracted the attention of the Rev. suffered to languish in distress." The authors from whom Lauder accused Milton of borrowing without acknowledgment, were some of them all but unknown in what was then called the learned world. Among them were Masenius, a Jesuit of Cologne; Taubmann, a German; and Staphorstius, a learned Dutchman. From these and other authors passages were quoted, in some of which there was a general resemblance, and in others a close similarity to the most admired portions of Paradise Lost. Many of Milton's admirers were surprised and confounded to find their idol in some instances a mere translator, the appropriator of the language and imagery of a few laborious versifiers, whose obscurity had secured him from detection. Having apparently established his charges by quotations, Lauder artfully proceeded to support them by indirect evidence, of which we annex a specimen "Edward Phillips, Milton's nephew," he says, "in 1675 published a work, entitled Theatrum Poetarum, or a Complete Collection of Poets, ancient and modern,' which performance is probably nothing else but a short account of all the poetical authors in his uncle's library, of which he had the perfect use and knowledge by his having been employed by him as an amanuensis. In the exercise of this office, he must have been privy to the secret practice of his uncle in rifling the treasures of others, and that he was privy to it, I think is manifest from his passing over in silence, in the above-mentioned piece, all those authors that Milton was most obliged to." Farther on, he suggests a still more remarkable proof of Milton's felonious practices. "I cannot," he continues, "omit observing here, that Milton's contrivance of teaching his daughters to read, but to read only, several learned languages, plainly points the same way as Mr. Phillips's secreting and suppressing the books to which his uncle was most obliged. Milton knew well the loquacious and incontinent spirit of the sex (!), and the danger on that account of entrusting them with so important a secret as his unbounded plagiarism; he therefore wisely confined them to the knowledge of the words and pronunciation only, but kept the sense and meaning to himself." But Lauder's triumph was of short duration. The detection of the imposition and the chastisement of the impostor fell into able hands. Upon its first publication, the John Douglas, afterwards bishop of Salis- reply, the following advertisement, (which "White Hart, in Paternoster Row, "He has this day admitted the charge, but with him, and shall for the future sell his book ONLY as a masterpiece of fraud, which the public may | uted to King Charles I.) The introductory be supplied with at 1s. 6d. stitched. "JOHN PAYNE, "JOSEPH BOUQET." In a second edition of his Defence of Milton, Mr. Douglas was enabled to give the result of some further investigations, and the details of Lauder's confession. Among many other instances of audacious fraud, he quotes the following, which may serve as a specimen of the whole. "In the eightyeighth page of his (Lauder's) Essay, we meet with a very extraordinary interpolation. There he has quoted, as from Ramsay, a Scotch poet 'Pallentes umbras Erebi noctemque profundam,' a line which never existed but in Virgil. Upon my asking him his reason for being guilty of so unnecessary a piece of fraud, he made no other apology, but that he thought the insertion of this line would be a great improvement to the text of Ramsay. Like an abandoned pickpocket, he cannot abstain from his infamous occupation, even when there can be no temptation to exercise it." A curious instance of another description of fraud is afforded in one of his communications to the "Gentleman's Magazine," where he quotes two lines from the "Adamus Exul" of Grotius found in Milton ! Notwithstanding the complete exposure of his fraud, his abject apology, and infamous character, in 1754 Lauder commenced another attack on the reputation of Milton, by the publication of a tract, entitled, "King Charles I. vindicated from the charge of plagiarism brought against him by Milton, and Milton himself convicted of forgery," &c. "Destroy his web of sophistry in vain, The creature's at his dirty work again." The alleged object of this pamphlet was to vindicate the authenticity of a prayer in the Icon Basilike, (a work commonly attrib sentences clearly show that Lauder was still smarting under the infliction he had received from the pen of Mr. Douglas, and his clumsy attempts at vindication are somewhat amusing. He had intended to publish a collection of modern Latin poets from whom Milton had borrowed; "but all at once," he says, "my hopes were dashed to pieces, and my project entirely defeated, by the Rev. Mr. Douglas, who, conscious of the unpopularity of my subject, unfairly and ungenerously took occasion for an overcharge of twenty or thirty lines in my Essay on Milton, to discredit the reputation of the whole; though, I still maintain, with no more justice than if, by paying twenty pieces, he should falsely or vainly imagine he had conscientiously discharged a debt of a thousand." In his former work he had disavowed any feeling of hostility towards Milton, and had even spoken of him with respect and admiration; he now threw off the mask, and with frantic malignity denounced him as "an odious and presumptuous liar, an abandoned monster of mankind, of insatiable avarice, of unbounded ambition, implacable malice, unparalleled impudence, and shocking impiety." But little attention was paid to the raving and railing of the wretched Zoilus, however clamorous and indecent, after his recent and complete discomfiture. Consigned upon all hands to contumely and neglect, it is not surprising that he should have sought relief in exile. The last we hear of him is, that he kept a school for some time in the island of Barbadoes, and died there about the year 1771. The exposure of Lauder was not the only service of the same kind rendered by Mr. Douglas to the literary world. With equal address he unmasked another impostor who occupied for some years a large share of the public attention, but whom we will dismiss with a very brief notice. Archibald Bower, the individual to whom we allude, was born at Dundee in the year 1686, and at the age of sixteen was sent to the Scotch Jesuit college at Douay. Four years afterwards he was removed to Rome, and admitted into the order of Jesus. After the usual novi ciate, he was sent to Fano, and he afterwards became philosophical reader in the college of Arezzo. He was from thence transferred to Macerata, where he remained till the year 1726. He had now reached the age of forty, a period of life when the passions are generally supposed to be under the control of the judgment; he had hitherto manifested | pal English Jesuits, and this was satisfactono distaste for the pursuits in which he had rily shown by Mr. Douglas, in a pamphlet, been educated, when all at once he came to entitled, "Six Letters from Archibald Bower the resolution of quitting the Jesuits, and to Father Sheldon, Provincial of the Jesuits flying from Italy. It was afterwards alleged in England," in which his double-dealing and by him, as the principal reason for his de- hypocrisy were proved by incontrovertible parture, that he was shocked and disgusted evidence. Matters stood thus when he pubby the cruelties practised in the Inquisition, lished the first volume of his "History of the but his enemies assign a very different cause, Popes," which called forth another pamphlet -namely, a disgraceful abuse of his ecclesi- from his indefatigable adversary. He was astical functions, which rendered it danger- now charged by Mr. Douglas not merely ous for him to remain where he was. His with religious duplicity, but with a piece of escape was attended with some difficulty, shameful plagiarism in appropriating to himand he has worked it up into a narrative self the work of De Tillemont, a French hishighly colored, and diversified with marvel- torian, without notice or acknowledgment. lous incidents and adventures. Having ta- In order that there might be no mistake, ken refuge in England, he avowed himself, Mr. Douglas printed a few chapters of De with some reservation, a convert to Protest- Tillemont page by page with Bower, and antism. "I declined," he says, "at first thus triumphantly exposed the fraud. A conforming to any particular church, but lengthened controversy followed, and dull suspecting all alike, after I had been so long and uninteresting as the details of such a and so grossly imposed on, I formed a sys- dispute may now appear, no less than tem of religion to myself, and continued a twenty-two pamphlets were published on the Protestant for the space, I think, of six subject. The dishonesty and hypocrisy of years, but a Protestant of no particular de- Bower were thus made patent to the world. nomination." Considerable interest was ta- Mr. Garrick, it is said, at one time contemken by the public in the supposed proselyte; plated caricaturing him on the stage, in remany generous and powerful friends came venge for a contemptuous notice in the imforward to assist him, and being a man of postor's "Summary view of his controversy ability, he easily obtained literary employ- with the Papists," in which he had spoken ment. It is rather a singular fact that he of Mr. Garrick as a "gentleman who acted was engaged on the Univeral History with on the stage, and Mrs. Garrick, alias VioGeorge Psalmanasar, the celebrated impostor letta," as a lady "who within these few of Formosan notoriety. In the course of a years danced upon the stage. The gentlefew years he had saved a considerable sum man, though no Roscius, is as well known of money, with which he resolved to pur- and admired for his acting as the lady for chase a life annuity. Proceeding to London her dancing, and the lady was as well known for this purpose, according to his own ac- and admired for her dancing as the gentlecount, he accidentally met with one Mr. man is for his acting; and they are in that Hill, a Jesuit, "who transacted money mat- sense par nobile." We may conclude this ters as an attorney," with whom he conclu- article by stating that Archibald Bower died ded a bargain. Whatever might have been in the year 1766, at the age of eighty, and the real nature of this transaction, it seems that he was buried in Marylebone churchvery clear that Bower, notwithstanding his yard, where a monument was erected to his assumed Protestantism, was in constant in-memory, with an inscription attesting his putercourse and communication with the princi- rity and innocence. INSANITY OF ROSSINI.-Rossini, the most popular of living composers, is stated, in private letters from Italy to Paris, to have become insane. He had not been able to bear up against the shock of political events. Persecuted as a moderate, by a revolutionary faction who were exasperated at the ruin of their cause having escaped miraculously from a furious band who had come to kill him, and who not having found him, had shot him in effigy-Rossini only preserved his life, and his great mind has been shattered by such terrible emotion. Great composers would seem to be especially liable to these attacks of mental derangement. Mozart, Donizetti, and now Rossini, are on the list of illustrious victims. NOTICES OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. A Tour in the United States. By Archibald Pren'tice. The record of a tour undertaken for the purposes of health and information in the summer of last year, by a man well qualified to judge of the capacities, manners, and prospects of the American people. Mr. Prentice was a member of the Council of the late "League;" and he brings the subject of free commerce prominently forward in these letters-but not in a way to annoy even the most fastidious and anti-political reader. On all other points he is singularly free from prejudice, and gives his impressions of men and things in a calm and dispassionate tone which at once entitles them to confidence. If we cannot assert that Mr. Prentice has added much to our knowledge of the country visited, we can say that he has added a pleasant gossipping book to our library of transatlantic travel. An hour or so could hardly be more amusingly spent than in following him from the "staid and aristocratic" festivities of Astor House, in New York-now become not less famous in story than our own "Clarendon"-to his anchorage in the Mersey, after a passage of just ten days; which he reminds us, in conclusion, is just the length of his last sea voyage, twenty years ago, from Glasgow to Liverpool.-Literary Gazette. History of Mary Queen of Scots. By Jacob Abbott. With some nice engravings, representing Scotland three hundred years ago, and the principal scenes in the sorrowful life of Mary, this is an interesting volume for youthful readers. No discussions, either political or moral, of a nature unsuited to their age, are admitted, and there is simply the tale of royal sufferings to occupy the mind with pictures of stern and unstable times.-Literary Gazette. Frontenac; a Poem. By Alfred B. Street. Mr. Street is one of the writers of whom his country has reason to be proud. His originality is not less striking than his talent. In dealing with the romance of North American life, at a period when the red man waged war with the European settler, he has skilfully preserved that distinctive reality in ideas, habits, and action, characteristic of the Indian tribes, while he has constructed a poem of singular power and beauty. In this respect, "Frontenac" is entirely different from "Gertrude of Wyoming," which presents us only with ideal portraiture. Mr. Street has collected all his materials from nature. They are stamped with that impress of truth which is at once visible, even to the inexperienced eye, and, like a great artist, he has exercised his imagination only in forming them into the most attractive, picturesque, and beautiful combinations. tion by saying that it resembles one of Cooper's Indian romances thrown into sweet and various verse. The frequent change of metre is not, we think, advantageous to the effect of the poem as a whole, and the reader uninitiated in the pronunciation of Indian proper names may find their frequent recurrence a stumbling-block as he reads; but the rapidity of the narrative, the exciting incidents of strife and peril which give it life and animation, and the exquisite beauty of the descriptive passages, must fascinate the mind of every class of readers, while the more refined taste will dwell with delight on the lovely images and poetic ideas with which the verse is thickly studded.-Britannia. Visits to Monasteries in the Levant. By the Hon. Robert Curzon, Jun. A subject full of interest and character is here treated with that neat and gentlemanly pleasantness of style which would impart piquancy to topics in themselves far more threadbare. Mr. Curzon's "visits" to the monasteries were principally paid a dozen years ago, before the summer tourist had begun to turn to the East, as though the journey were a mere "nothing." But by none among the travelling brotherhood or sisterhood have the haunts there sojourned in been so dwelt upon as in any respect to forestall Mr. Curzon's book.-Spectator. Memoirs and Correspondence of Sir Robert Murray Keith, K. B. Edited by Mrs. Gillespie Smyth. 2 vols. This correspondence is worthy the pious care with which it has been collected and produced. Sir R. M. Keith was a favorable specimen of the English ambassador in the last century. With him, diplomacy was not regarded as a kind of amateur trifling, at once amusing and profitable, but a serious profession, requiring skill, experience, and diligence. His social qualities and ready wit, while they gained him the favor of every one with whom he was brought into contact, never interfered with his regular transaction of business. Under the most bland exterior he concealed a resolute spirit and a sound judgment. His honesty was incorruptible; his truth never suffered suspicion; nor did his honor ever contract a stain.-Britannia. The Earth's Antiquity in harmony with the Mosaic Record of Creation. By James Gray, M.A. A welcome light to many yearning for settled opinions on this interesting question. No distortion of facts here; no violence of supposition-volcanoes raging and coal running down their sides, coal mixed with silex, called shale, flying up above the surface, &c.; no compromise either on the side of Scripture We can best give an idea of Mr. Street's produc-or of science; but a solution (we trust satisfactory to all but the bigoted) upon a basis preserving the integrity of both records-the written and the operated alike. The origin of the work was the desire to allay an anxiety raised in the author's mind by the startling statements made at meetings of the British Association respecting the earth's vast antiquity. The Rector of Dibden searched for a work to elucidate, in consistency with the Divine Revelation, the facts of an archaic earth; but no such work being found, a personal investigation has happily resulted in the removal of his many doubts and scruples. And the object of the pages before us is to show to others that, "although geology does indeed, in its disclosures relative to an antique world, make large demands upon our belief, and call for a considerable modification of currently entertained biblical interpretations, yet, that the Scriptures of God remain in the midst of these novel revelations conspicuous still as the great standard of truth, manifesting more and more, from every scrutiny, their origin from the one Omniscient Mind, whose finger and whose tongue, whatever may be the apparent discrepancy, ever are in unison, speaking one voice, revealing one consentaneous course of action, alike in his works and in his word."—Literary Gazette. Trans Campaign in France in the Year 1792. lated from the German of Goethe. By Robert Farie. This translation of the great German's experience of the invasion of France in the famous campaign of the Duke of Brunswick is not inopportune at this time, when partisan zeal is clamoring loudly for armed intervention in more than one European country-against the sense of the majority of the people. It may be of use at such a moment to go over the horrors and disasters of the campaign of 1792 with such a guide. The book is rendered into its new tongue, on the whole, smoothly and idiomatically-Athenæum. The Sea Lions; or, the Lost Sealers. By the Author of "The Red Rover." Three vols. Bentley. Mr. Fenimore Cooper had some of the qualities which might have made him the Defoe-as he has occasionally been called the Scott-of America. But defective taste, absence of artistic purpose, and want of mercy on his public have been too strong for his genius. No novel by the author of "The Red Rover" can be utterly disregarded; but few among his recent essays can hope to stand upon the same shelf as their progenitors, produced at a period ere his faults were so fully fixed.--Athenæum. Adventures in the Lybian Desert and the Oasis of Jupiter Ammon. By Bayle St. John. Murray. That the common Eastern tour would by no means continue to satisfy the ambition of even the average Eastern tourist must have been foreseen for some time; and accordingly varieties of enterprise are now beginning to attract the halter or the sojourner at Cairo or at Alexandria. English ladies are not content to return home unless they have ridden up into the Rock City of Petra: gentlemen who used to find the Desert by itself wild enough for their ambitions, must now "do" the Oases if they intend to be distinguished among the fraternity of travellers. Only one Englishman, Mr. St. John believes, had before his own visit in September, 1847, penetrated so far as Jupiter Ammon's "island in the sea of sand." The book is agreeably devoted to his adventures on the journey to "the fane of Ammon" and back again.-Athenaeum. The History of England during the Thirty Years' Peace. Vol. i., 4to. This historical work will extend from 1816 to 1846. The first part was compiled by Mr. Knight, the publisher; the remainder by Miss Martineau. The volume contains nearly six hundred pages, is illustrated by the portraits of many eminent men, and a number of well-executed maps. It extends from 1816 to 1830, embraces the struggle for Catholic Emancipation, and brings us down to the era of the Reform Bill. The work appears to us fairly written, although contemporaneous history is difficult to write without prejudice to some party, especially by those who have entered eagerly into the struggles described. The volumes are most valuable, and will be most valued as records of dates and of facts; and in that point of view they were required in the form in which they are now published.-Tait's Magazine. A Fable for Critics. New York: Putnam. It is the great fault of American smartness that it will be too smart. The wit of our transatlantic neighbors is waste and wilful--the fun spasmodic. The American humorist loves the cap and bells of the old jester; but shakes them, nevertheless, with a variation of his own. The sharp and exaggerated forms of his 'cuteness are the one, single distinguishing characteristic which the national literature has as yet displayed. continually marred by its over liveliness. Whim The book before us is a very clever jeu d'esprit, and sense and quaint thinking and fanciful expression and facility of rhyming, which should have been the materials of a clever satire, are all allowed to exhaust themselves to no effect, because the author has none of them "well in hand." Epigrams with real sharp points make no wounds because they fly so very light of feather. The title-page itself gives the key-note of the liveliness, but certainly not that of the cleverness beneath. It is as follows: "Reader! walk up at once (it will soon be too late) and buy at a perfectly ruinous rate A Fable for Critics; or better-I like, as a thing that the reader's first fancy may strike, an old fashioned title-page, such as presents a tabular view of the volume's contents-a Glance at a few of our Literary Progenies (Mrs. Malaprop's word) from the Tub of Diogenes; that is, a Series of Jokes By a Wonderful Quiz, who accompanies himself with a rub-a"dub-dub, full of spirit and grace, on the top of the tub. Set forth in October, the 21st day, in the year '48, by G. P. Putnam, Broadway." In fact, here is much that is true in criticism and clear in characterization, discredited by the farce of the tone and the frippery of the language.-Athenæum. |