The following may be a casual coincidence, but seems more likely to have arisen in the same way. Campbell, in his Pleasures of Hope, says,

So speaks affection, ere the infant eye

Can look regard, or brighten in reply:

and Lord Byron in his Bride of Abydos,—

But ere her lip, or ev'n her eye,

Essay'd to speak, or look reply.

Goldsmith's well-known exclamation in the Traveller,

Creation's heir, the world, the world is mine!

may be presumed to have had some share in shaping the last line of another passage in the poem just quoted,

A very striking coincidence has been pointed out in one of our periodical journals, between a passage in the 3d Canto of Childe Harold and some lines in the World before the Flood, which, it is not necessary to inform the reader, made its appearance many years earlier :—

All else that breathed below the circling sky
Were link'd to earth by some endearing tie,
He only, like the ocean-weed uptorn,
And loose among the world of waters borne,
Was cast companionless, from wave to wave,
On life's rough sea-and there was none to save.

MONTGOMERY.

For I am as a weed

Flung from the 'rock, on ocean's foam to sail,

Where'er the surge may sweep, the tempest's breath prevail.

BYRON.

Here the similarity is not, as in the preceding instances, so much in the expression as in the idea, which is new and beautiful, and could scarcely be quite forgotten by any man of taste and feeling after he had once read it. There is little doubt as to the way in which it sprung up in the mind of "The Childe."

It may be worth while to notice another coincidence between the same poets. Lord Byron, in one of his minor poems, has the following lines:-

And the midnight moon is weaving

Her bright chain o'er the deep;
Whose breast is gently heaving,

As an infant's asleep.

Montgomery, before this, had written in his Cast Away Ship,

The deep, that like a cradled child

In breathing slumber lay,

More warmly blush'd, more sweetly smiled
As rose the kindling day.

And Cowper before him,

Ocean exhibits, fathomless and broad,
Much of the power and majesty of God.

He swathes about the swelling of the deep,

That shines and rests, as infants smile and sleep.

It is very probable that the idea is still older.

But two more striking instances of imitation than any hitherto adduced, are to be found in Campbell's Pleasures of Hope.

At the end of Pope's version of Homer, there is a translation of the Battle of Frogs and Mice by Dr. Parnel, in which may be found the following couplet:

Now front to front the marching armies shine,
Halt ere they meet, and form the lengthening line.

After this Campbell has,—

Now front to front the banner'd hosts combine,
Halt ere they close, and form the dreadful line.”

The other coincidence alluded to is not less literal:

the good he scorn'd

Stalk'd off reluctant, like an ill-used ghost,

Not to return; or if it did, its visits,

Like those of angels, short and far between.”
BLAIR'S Grave.

This passage will immediately strike the reader as having been the prototype of that often-quoted expression in Campbell:

What though my winged hours of bliss have been

Like angel-visits, few, and far between!"

From the extracts which follow, it would appear that Lord Byron has been indebted to a fine passage in Christabel. Coleridge is speaking of the estrangement of two who "had been friends in youth ;—"

But never either found another

To free the hollow heart from paining—

They stood aloof, the scars remaining,
Like cliffs, which had been rent asunder;
A dreary sea now flows between,
But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder
Shall wholly do away, I ween,

The marks of that which once hath been.

COLERIDGE's Christabel

Now where the swift Rhone cleaves his way between
Heights, which appear as lovers who have parted

In haste, whose running depths so intervene

That they can meet no more, though broken-hearted.

BYRON'S Childe Harolde, Cant. 3.

What makes it more probable that the former of these two passages suggested the latter, is the circumstance of Lord Byron's having prefixed Coleridge's lines as a motto to his celebrated Farewell to Lady Byron, not long after which the third Canto of Childe Harold was composed. It may be remarked, by the way, that the noble lord is far from having improved on his original, and perhaps Coleridge's superiority may be partly explained by a well-known principle in criticism-that an illustration of mental phenomena by a reference to the material world is always more pleasing, as it is more natural, than an attempt to throw light on the appearances of outward objects by comparing them to the feelings and operations of the mind.

If Lord Byron is sometimes indebted to others, others also are indebted to him. More than one instance of this might, if necessary, be produced from Lalla Rookh. Every reader who has read the Corsair will recollect the affecting separation of Conrad and Medora, and some probably will have been struck with several points of resemblance to it in the parting of Hafed and Hinda in the Fire-Worshippers of Moore.

The following lines contain Conrad's announcement of his departure and the beginning of Medora's reply:

"But-oh Medora! nerve thy gentler heart;

This hour again-but not for long-we part."

“This hour we part!— my heart foreboded this:
Thus ever fade my fairy dreams of bliss."

Compare this with the impassioned exclamation of Hinda under similar circumstances:

Whatever obligation Mr. Moore here laid himself under, has been, however, wholly cancelled by his noble friend in his recent poem of Beppo. A beautiful extract from that production has made its appearance in several reviews and newspapers, and been deservedly praised; but no critic has yet noticed that it is merely an amplification of a thought in Lalla Rookh. This will be apparent to all by placing the two passages together.

"While she, who sung so gently to the lute
Her dream of home, steals timidly away,
Shrinking as violets do in summer's ray,-
But takes with her from Azim's heart that sigh
We sometimes give to forms that pass us by
In the world's crowd, too lovely to remain,
Creatures of light we never see again!

MOORE.

One more example of coincidence shall conclude. In Rhodes's Peak Scenery the reader will find the subjoined extract from one of the poems of the Rev. P. Cunningham. The poet is speaking of Burke:

He from whose lips such elocution flows,

As peace to stormy senates can impart;

He, who with softness of the feather'd snows,

Falls on the sense, then melts into the heart.

"The third and fourth lines in the preceding stanza," says Mr. Rhodes, "are inimitably fine, though the símile itself is borrowed from Homer. They likewise suggest the recollection of a very beautiful couplet in Burns, which Cunningham could not have seen,"

Or as the snow falls in the river,

A moment white-then gone for ever.

This quotation from Mr. Rhodes's elegant work is introduced for the sake of presenting along with it an extract from Lalla Rookh, which bears șo close a resemblance in both thought and expression to Cunningham's lines, that it is almost impossible to conceive Mr. Moore had not seen them:

For mine is the lay that lightly floats,

And mine are the murmuring, dying notes,
That fall as soft as show on the sea,

And melt in the heart as instantly!

The Light of the Haram.

The preceding instances of thoughts and expressions in different writers were not collected in any direct search, but are a few of a considerable number which left an impression on the memory in the course of reading.

Some have been suppressed, because, although by some peculiarity in the rythm, or connection of word, or phraseology, they might palpably indicate their origin to the mind of one person, yet it might be difficult to place them in the same light to the conception of another.

It is possible that some of the resemblances pointed out may have been the result of casual coincidence or direct plagiarism; but they may, I think, be better accounted for on the principle already explained. It must never theless, be granted, that even when imitation is undesigned, it detracts almost, if not entirely, as much from the intellectual merit of a writer as if it were

On the peculiar Bias of Youth in selecting their Profession.

95

intentional; and no man can fairly claim praise for thoughts and expressions, however beautiful, which have been thus suggested to his mind by the writings of others, except in so far as he has improved on his original. Works of real genius need not shrink from a test like this. After they have been ransacked from beginning to end, the amount of all their undesigned imitations and unconscious plagiarisms, will be found but dust in the balance, of no avail when weighed against their solid claims to admiration. The design of the present paper is by no means to strip one laurel from the brow which it has adorned; but on the contrary to lead us to liberal construction of literary coincidences, while it may possibly tend to throw some light on the process of the mind in composition.

Sheffield, Aug. 21, 1818.

S.

PECULIAR BIAS TO BE ATTENDED TO, IN SELECTING FOR YOUTH THEIR FUTURE PROFESSION.

To the Editor of the Northern Star:

THE slight attention paid to the peculiar bias of youth in selecting for them a future profession is always to me a matter of surprise, particularly when I consider the excellent plans of education universally adopted in this country; nor can any one fail to be astonished at finding that with all the improvements we have made in other respects, this most essential point remains almost, I might say altogether, unregarded. Far from approving of an implicit compliance with all the inconsistent wishes which the fickle minds of youth will naturally indulge, I still think the parent ought to pay some deference to the inclination of his children, and prefer educating them for that calling to which they may feel partial, rather than compel them to embrace one, for which, however eligible in other points, it is evident they have no relish.

It would be to argue against facts incontrovertibly proved, were I to contend that, unless we choose our own trade or profession, we shall never succeed in it; yet this may fairly be asserted, that if the child's inclination does not coincide with the parent's choice, he will never pursue his avocations with that cheerfulness and alacrity so necessary to his comfort, as well as his prosperity.

He who has at all accustomed himself to consider the impulses and feelings of his own breast, will need no other argument to convince him, that where our inclinations and our duty move not in unison, the efforts we make will be languid and imbecile; that in proportion as these approach to, or separate from each other, in like proportion will our energies increase or diminish; and that when these are directly hostile to each other, great indeed must be the firmness, great the resolution which will enable us to discharge our duty with justice and fidelity.

Perhaps a more convincing proof of the truth of these remarks cannot be advanced than the following example of talents, which, by being diverted from their natural course, have in a great degree lost their proper effects, and become useless to their possessor as well as society.-Destined for one of the learned professions, Lorenzo, from his earliest years evinced a