E.N.W

Southwark, April 29 1850.

* * * * *

BORROWED THOUGHTS.

Crenius wrote a dissertation _De Furibus Librariis_, and J. Conrad
Schwarz another _De Plagio Literario_, in which some curious
appropriations are pointed out; your pages have already contained some
additional recent instances. The writers thus pillaged might exclaim,
"Pereant iste qui _post_ nos nostra dixerunt." Two or three instances
have occurred to me which, I think, have not been noticed. Goldsmith's
_Madame Blaize_ is known to be a free version of _La fameuse La
Galisse_. His well-known epigram,--

"Here lies poor Ned Purdon, from misery freed,"

is borrowed from the following by the Chevalier de Cailly (or d'Aceilly,
as he writes himself) entitled,--

"_La Mort du Sieur Etienne_.

"Il est au bout de ses travaux,
Il a passé le Sieur Etienne;
En ce monde il eut tant des maux,
Qu'on ne croit pas qu'il revienne."

Another well-know epigram,--