Pinakidia [pp. 573-582]

SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER.
immediate cotemporaries. If the Lacon of Mr. Colton
is any better, its superiority consists altogether in a
deeper ingenuity in disguising his stolen wares, and in
that prescriptive right of the strongest vwhlich, time out
of mind, has decided upon calling every Napoleon a
conqueror, and every Dick Turpin a thief. Seneca;
MIaclliavelli;* Balzac, the author of "La Maniere de
bien Penser;" Bielfceld, the Germnan, who wrote, in
Frenchl, "Les Premiers Traits de L'Eriudition Utiverselle;" Rochefoucault; Bacon; Bolingbroke; and especi lly Burcden, of" Materials for Thinking" memory,
possess, amnong them, indisputable claims to the ownership of nearly every thing worth ow ninig in the book.
Of the latter species of theft, we see frequent
specimens in the continental magazines of Europe,
arnd occasionally meet with them even in the lower
class of periodicals in Great Britain. These specimens are usually extracts, by wholesale, from such
wvorks as the " Bibliothlque des Memorabilia Literaria," the "Recueil des Bons Pensecs," the "Lettres
Edifiates et Cucieuses," the "Literary Memoir," of
Silleiigr6, the "Melanges Literaires" of Stard and
Andre, or the "Pieces [nterressantes et peu Conllues"
of La Place. D'Israeli's "Curiosities of Literature,"
" Literary Character," and "Calamities of Authors,"
have, of' late years, proved exceedingly convenient to
some little American pilferers in this line, but are nows
becomingi, too generally known to allow much hope of
their good things being any longer appropriated with
impunity.
Such collections, as those of which we have been
speaking, are usually entertaining in themselves, and,
for the most part, we relish every thing about them save
their pretensions to originality. In offering, ourselves,
something of the kind to the readers of the Messenger,
we wish to be understood as disclaimini, in a great
degree, every such pretension. Most of the following
article is original, and will be readily recognized as
such by the ciassical and genteral readler-some portions
of i, may have been written down in the vwords, or nearly
in the wvords, of the primitive authorities. The whlole
is taken from a conftused mass of margional notes, and
entries in a common-place-book. No cer tain arrangement has been considered necessary; and, indeed, so
heterogeneous a farrago it would have been an endless
task to methodize. We have chosen the heading Piliakidia, or Tablets, as one sufficiently comprehensive. It
was used, foria sormewhat similar purpose, by Dionysius of Harlicarnassus.
The whole of Bulwer's elaborate argument on the immortality of the soul, wvhich he has put into the mouth
of the" Ambitious Student," may be confuted thlroulgh
the authlor's omission of one particular point in his
summary of the attributes of Deity-a point which we
cannot believe omitted altogether thlrough accident. A
single link is deficient in the chain-but the chain is
worthless wvitliout it. No man doubts the immortality
of the soul-yet of all truths this truth of immortality
is the most difficult to prove by any mere series of syl
* It is remarkable that much of what Colton has stolen from
Machiavelli,was previously stolen by Machiavelli from Plutarch.
A MS. book of the.pophthegms of the dncients, by this latter
writer, having fallen into Machiavelli's hands, he put them
near]ly all into the mouth of his hero, Castrucio Castricani.
logisms. We would refer our readers to the argument
here mentioned.
The rude rough wild waste has its power to please,
a line in one Mr. OCdiorne's poem, "The Progress of
Refinement," is pronounced by the American author of
a book entitled "Ante-Diluvian Antiquities," "the very
best alliteration in all poetry."
The Turkish Spy is the original of many similar
works-among the best of which are Montesquieu's
Persian Letters, and the British Spy of our own WVirt.
It was written undoubtedly by John Paul M\arana, an
Italian, ins Italian, but probably was first published in
French. Dr. Johnson, who saw only an English translation, supposed it an English work. Marana died in
1693.
The hnter and the deer a shade
is a much admired line in Campbell's Gertrude of Wyoniing-buit the identical line is to be found in the poems
of the American Freneau.
Corneille's celebrated,Moi of Medea is borrowed
from Seneca. Racine, in Plicedra, has stolen nearly the
whole scene of the declaration of love firom the same
puerile writer.
The peculiar zodiac of the comets is comprised in
these verses of Cassini Antinous, Pegasusque, Andromeda, Taurus, Orion,
Procyon, atque Hydrus, Centaurus, Scorpius, Arcus.
Speaking of the usual representation of the banquetscene in Macbeth, Von Rautner, the German historian,
mentions a shadowy figure thrown by optical means
into the chair of Banquo, and producing intense effect
upon the audience. Erislen, a German optician, conceived this idea, and accomplished it without difficulty.
A religious hubbub, such as the world has seldom
seen, was excited, during the reign of Frederic II, by
the intagined virulence of a book entitled " lThe Three
Imnpostors." It was attributed to Pierre des Vignes,
clhacellor of the king, who was accused by the Pope
of having treated the religions of Moses, Jesus, and
Mahomet as political fables. The workl in question,
however, which was squabbled about, abused, defended,
and familiarly quoted by all parties, is well proved never
to have existed.
The word TvXn, or Fortune, does not appear once
in the whole Iliad.
The "Lamentations" of Jeremiah are written, with
the exception of the last chapter, in acrostic verse: that
is to say, every line or couplet begins, in alphabetical
order, with some letter in the Hebrew alphabet. In
the third chapter each letter is repeated three times suecessively.
The fullest account of the Amazons is to be found in
Diodorus Siculus.
Theophrastus, in his botanical works, anticipated the
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