the illustrious examples of Fielding, Smollett, Cervantes and Le Sage. Postponing for a moment the questions of morality and originality, it can no longer be denied in any quarter that Dumas' influence, whether for good or evil, has been immense on both sides of the Channel. Indeed, we are by no means sure that his romances have not been more read by the higher class in this country than in his own. Nor, in glancing over his multifarious claims to rank amongst the leading spirits of his age must we forget his numerous Voyages' and Impressions de Voyages,' constituting altogether between twenty and thirty most amusing and instructive volumes of travels. But they are wholly unlike what are commonly called Travels, and constitute an entirely new style of writing. He has a prodigious memory, filled to overflowing with the genuine romance of history; he lights instinctively upon every local tradition that is worth recording; he has a quick eye for the picturesque and (above all) an exquisite perception of the humorous. He is about the best possible storyteller in print, and he rarely dwells too long on a ludicrous incident, nor forces us to keep company with his laughable characters till they grow wearisome. The wonder at his unprecedented fertility and versatility had led at one time to a very general belief that most of his publications were concocted by a set of 'prentice hands or journeymen, whom he paid at so much a sheet; and that the utmost he contributed to their handiwork was a masterly touch here and there and his name on the title-page. One of these, named Macquet, boldly laid claim to a lion's share in the composition of the best, and was strenuously supported by critics of authority. But Macquet was avowedly employed by Dumas for twenty years to hunt up subjects, supply accessories, or do for him what eminent portrait painters are wont to leave to pupils, namely, the preparation of the canvas, the mixing of the colours, the rough outline of the figures, or the drapery. That Macquet was capable of nothing better or higher, was proved by his utter failure as a novelist, whenever, both before and after the alleged partnership, he set up for himself. A curious attempt was then made to show by calculation that the number of pages which Dumas, according to his own account, must have composed Fabrique de Romans: Maison Dumas et Compagnie. Par Eugène de Mirecourt. Paris, 1845. Les Supercheries littéraires dévoilées. Par J. M. Quérard. Troisième Edition. Paris, 1859. Article Dumas' (Alexander Davy). This article, containing 152 pages of close print in double columns, is a collection of all the criticisms and attacks founded or unfounded, ever levelled against Dumas ; and although invaluable as a fund of information, it carries little weight as an authority by reason of its obvious exaggeration and injustice. during his literary life, was more than the most practised penman could have copied in the same space of time at the rate of sixty pages a day. But as his literary life lasted more than forty years, the required quantity per day is quadrupled or quintupled in this estimate; and the production of twelve or fourteen widely-printed pages, on the average, for a series of years is by no means a physical impossibility. This rate of composition was often exceeded by Sir Walter Scott; who wrote or dictated the Bride of Lammermoor' whilst suffering from cramp in the stomach to an extent that often compelled him to break off and throw himself on a sofa to writhe in agony. Lope de Vega is known to have written five full-length dramas in fifteen days, and his dramatic compositions, published or unpublished, have been computed to exceed two thousand. Edgeworth states, in his 'Memoirs,' as an ascertained fact on which heavy bets were laid and won, that a man could run faster with a carriage-wheel, which he propelled with the bare hand as a child trundles a hoop, than when he was entirely unencumbered, provided the prescribed distance were sufficient for the impetus or adventitious motion thus acquired to tell. This sounds more paradoxical and open to doubt than a statement made in our hearing by Dumas, that, when he warmed to his work, he can supply original matter faster than it could be transcribed by the readiest penman. His mode of life was thus described in the 'Siécle:' * He rises at six: before him are laid thirty-five sheets of paper of the largest size; he takes up his pen and writes in a hand that M. de Saint-Omer would envy till eleven. At eleven he breakfasts, always in company the author of "Monte Christo" is the most hospitable of men of letters: during this meal, in which he plays a good knife and fork, his spirits and his wit never flag. At twelve, he resumes the pen not to quit it again till six in the evening. The dinner finds him what he was in the morning, as lively, as lighthearted, as ready at repartee. If by chance he has not filled the allotted number of sheets, a momentary shade passes over his face, he steals away, and returns two or three hours later to enjoy the pleasures of the soirée. The year has three hundred and sixty-five days: we have described three hundred and sixty-five days of the famous novelist and dramatist.' 6 We have now before us (received from Dumas) the original manuscript of a chapter of the Mémoires d'un Médecin,' obviously dashed off at a heat. The handwriting is large, round, and free, bearing a strong resemblance to that of Scott; who, according to Lockhart, rose at the same hour, and whenever (as was frequently the case) there was a distinguished company at * Ticknor's History of Spanish Literature,' vol. ii. p. 204. Abbotsford, Abbotsford, completed his allotted task before breakfast, so as to be free to attend to the amusement of his guests. The charge of plagiarism is one easily brought, and not easily parried except by showing that there is nothing new under the sun, and that the most inventive minds have not disdained to borrow from their predecessors. Virgil borrowed from Homer; Racine, from Euripides; Corneille (for his Cid), from a Spanish dramatist. 'Je prends mon bien ou je le trouve,' was the unabashed avowal of Molière. 6 Evil betide those who have said or written our good things before us,' was the half-comic, half-serious exclamation of a truly original wit. Shakespeare drew largely on chronicles, popular histories and story-books for his characters and plots: his Greeks and Romans frequently speak the very words placed in their mouths by Plutarch: Julius Cæsar' was preceded by a Latin play on the same subject, and (amongst other things) the famous Et tu, Brute? (which rests on no classical authority) was taken from it. Voltaire sedulously ran down Shakespeare to throw dust in the eyes of the French public and prevent them from discovering his obligations to the barbarian, as they designated the author of 'Hamlet.' L'Ermite' in 'Zadig' is a mere paraphrase of Parnell's poem, "The Hermit;' and the fable (Voltaire's) of 'Le Lion et le Marseillais' is borrowed from Mandeville. The framework and all the solid portions of Mirabeau's best speeches were notoriously supplied by Dumont; little being left for the orator but to infuse the Promethean fire and vivify the mass. In a recent notice of Talleyrand, we mentioned a note in the handwriting of his brother to the effect that the only breviary used by the ex-bishop was 'L'Improvisateur Français,' a voluminous collection of anecdotes and jests; the fraternal inference being that his conversational brilliancy was partly owing to this repository. Pascal copies whole pages from Montaigne without quoting him. Sheridan confessedly acted on Molière's principle or no-principle: he was indebted to Farquhar for the 'Trip to Scarborough:' the most admired bit of dialogue between Joseph Surface and Lady Teazle is the recast of a fine reflection in Zadig': * and consciously or unconsciously, Tom Jones and Bifil must have influenced the conception of Charles and Joseph Surface. With regard to the charges about the Shipwreck,' wrote Lord Byron to Mr. Murray, 'I think that I told you and Mr. Hobhouse years ago that there was not a single circumstance of it not * Astarté est femme; elle laisse parler ses regards avec d'autant plus d'imprudence qu'elle ne se croit pas encore coupable. Malheureusement rassurée sur son innocence, elle néglige les dehors nécessaires. Je tremblerai pour elle tant qu'elle n'aura rien à se reprocher.'-Zadig. Vol. 131.-No. 261. 6 taken taken from fact; not, indeed, from any single shipwreck, but all from actual facts of different shipwrecks.' So little was Tasso ashamed of occasional imitations of other poets, or incorporated details from history, that, in his commentary on his 'Rime,' he takes pains to point out all coincidences of the kind in his own poems. Scott lays particular stress in his Preface on the fidelity with which he has followed the narratives and traditions on which his romances are almost uniformly based, but he forgot to note that the scene in Kenilworth,' where Amy is kneeling before Leicester and asking him about his orders of knighthood, was copied from the 'Egmont' of Goethe. Balzac has appropriated for one of his novels an entire chapter of 'The Disowned.' Lamartine has been tracked to gleaning grounds, which he hoped to visit incognito, by Sainte Beuve. Dr. Ferriar has unsparingly exposed the poaching propensity of Sterne, who, besides making free with Rabelais and Burton, has been indirectly the means of dragging more than one author from obscurity by stealing from him. Lord Brougham left a translation of Voltaire's 'Memnon, ou La Sagesse Humaine,' to be published as an original composition of his own; and his executors, entering fully into the spirit of the testator, and carrying out his last wishes to the letter, have published it as he left it, without a hint, haply without a suspicion, of its quality. One of the fine images with which Canning wound up his peroration on the Indemnity Bill of 1818 was certainly anticipated by Madame de Stael.* The embryo of Macaulay's 'New Zealander' has been discovered in Horace Walpole's curious traveller from Lima; and the Theodora of 'Lothair' bears so strong resemblance to the Olympia of Half a Million of Money,' as to raise a compromising conviction of identity. But these are trifles. On one of the most solemn and memorable occasions within living memory, in expressing as leader of the House of Commons the national feeling of gratitude and admiration for the hero of a hundred fights, Mr. Disraeli took boldly and bodily, without the change of a word, rather more than a third of his prepared oration from the translation of an article in a French review, on a French Marshal, by M. Thiers. We have been at some pains to illustrate the various shades and degrees of what is commonly called plagiarism; because Dumas has been accused of all of them, from the gravest to the lightest, and needs all the support and sanction that can be derived from example and authority. If we are to put faith in *If in the hour of peril the statue of Liberty has been veiled for a moment. let it be confessed in justice that the hands whose painful duty it was to spread that veil, have not been the least prompt to remove it.' 6 his assailants, he has pushed to extravagance the appropriation doctrine of Moliére: he has rivalled not only the broom-maker who stole the materials, but the one who stole his brooms readymade: he has taken entire passages like Mr. Disraeli, complete stories like Voltaire and Lord Brougham; and as for plots, scenes, images, dialogues, if restitution to the original proprietors were enforced, he would be like the daw stripped of its borrowed plumes, or (to borrow a less hackneyed image from Lord Chatham) he would stand before the world, like our first parents, naked but not ashamed.' But somehow these charges, though pointedly urged, have utterly failed in their main object: there is no denying the real genius, the genuine originality, of the man after all: and the decisive test is that what he takes assimilates to what he creates, and helps to form an harmonious whole, instead of lying, 'like lumps of marl upon a barren moor, encumbering what they cannot fertilise.' Nor is his one of those puny reputations that must be kept alive by nursing, that cannot bear exposure, that go down at once before a storm. On the contrary, it has almost invariably been confirmed and augmented by the most formidable attacks levelled at him, as a great flame is increased and extended by the wind which blows out a small one. The autobiography of such a man could not well fail to abound in curious information, lively anecdote, and suggestive reflection; nor are these Memoirs wanting in merits of a more sterling order. They contain some capital canons of criticism; and, despite of the irrepressible influences of national and personal vanity, they are marked by a pervading spirit of kindly feeling and good sense. If ill-disposed to spare the errors and weaknesses of his political adversaries, he is almost always candid and generous towards his literary rivals. His highest admiration is reserved for real genius and true greatness; although the one may be fallen and the other out of fashion. It is never the reigning dynasty, nor the actual dispensers of favour and fortune, that are the objects of his most enthusiastic praise, but the friends or patrons who sacrificed their prospects to their principles, and lingered in exile, or died poor. We wish we could add that he had kept himself equally free from interested considerations in his choice of topics and materials; for it is impossible not to fancy that many of these have been pressed into the service with an exclusive eye to bookmaking. For example, a long chapter is filled with an abstract of Moore's Life of Byron; and each volume contains episodical narratives of public events which have no peculiar bearing on his life. Still, we should gladly hail his reminiscences as a valuable contribution to the literary and poli |