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By Root 17084 0

of commenting, at any length, upon this imitation, which is too palpable to be mistaken, and which belongs to the most barbarous class of literary piracy: that class in which, while the words of the wronged author are avoided, his most intangible, and therefore his least defensible and least reclaimable property, is appropriated. Here, with the exception of lapses which, however, speak volumes, (such for instance as the use of the capitalized "Old Year," the general peculiarity of the rhythm, and the absence of rhyme at the end of each stanza,) there is nothing of a visible or palpable nature by which the source of the American poem can be established. But then nearly all that is valuable in the piece of Tennyson, is the first conception of personifying the Old Year as a dying old man, with the singularly wild and fantastic manner in which that conception is carried out. Of this conception and of this manner he is robbed. What is here not taken from Tennyson, is made up mosaically, from the death scene of Cordelia, in "Lear" — to which I refer the curious reader.

In "Graham's Magazine" for February, 1843, there appeared a poem, furnished by Professor Longfellow, entitled "The Good George Campbell," and purporting to be a translation from the German of O. L. B. Wolff. In "Minstrelsy Ancient and Modern, by William Motherwell, published by John Wylie, Glasgow, 1827," is to be found a poem partly compiled and partly written by Motherwell himself. It is entitled "The Bonnie George Campbell." I give the two side by side:

MOTHERWELL.

Hie upon Hielands

And low upon Tay,

Bonnie George Campbell

Rade out on a day.

Saddled and bridled

And gallant rade he;

Hame cam his gude horse,

But never cam he.

Out cam his auld mither

Greeting fu' sair,

And out cam his bonnie bride

Rivin' her hair.

Saddled and bridled

And booted rade he;

Toom hame cam the saddle,

But never cam he.

"My meadow lies green,

And my corn is unshorn;

My barn is too big,

And my baby's unborn."

Saddled and bridled

And booted rade he;

Toom hame cam the saddle,

But never cam he.

LONGFELLOW.

High on the Highlands,

And deep in the day,

The good George Campbell

Rode free and away.

All saddled, all bridled,

Gay garments he wore;

Home his gude steed,

But he nevermore.

Out came his mother,

Weeping so sadly;

Out came his beauteous bride

Weeping so madly.

All saddled, all bridled,

Strong armor he wore;

Home came the saddle,

But he nevermore.

My meadow lies green,

Unreaped is my corn.

My garner is empty,

My child is unborn.

All saddled, all bridled,

Sharp weapons he bore:

Home came the saddle,

But he nevermore!

Professor Longfellow defends himself (I learn) from the charge of imitation in this case, by the assertion that he did translate from Wolff, but that Wolff copied from Motherwell. I am willing to believe almost anything rather than so gross a plagiarism as this seems to be — but there are difficulties which should be cleared up. In the first place how happens it that, in the transmission from the Scotch into the German, and again from the German into the English, not only the versification should have been rigidly preserved, but the rhymes, and alliterations? Again; how are we to imagine that Mr. Longfellow with his known intimate acquaintance with Motherwell's "Minstrelsy" did not at once recognise so remarkable a poem when he met it in Wolff? I have now before me a large volume of songs, ballads, etc. collected by Wolff; but there is here no such poem — and, to be sure, it should not be sought in such a collection. No collection of his own poems has been published, and the piece of which we are in search of must be fugitive — unless, indeed, it is included in a volume of translations from various tongues, of which O. L. B. Wolff is also the author — but of which I am unable to obtain a copy. It is by no means improbable that here the poem in question is to be found — but in this case it must have been plainly acknowledged as a translation, with its original designated. How, then, could Professor Longfellow