PARALLEL PASSAGES One of the most elegant of literary recreations is that of tracing poetical or prose imitations and similitudes; and there are few men of letters who have not been in the habit of making parallel passages, or tracing imitation in the thousand shapes it assumes. -D'ISRAELI. She fair, divinely fair, fit love for gods. MILTON, "Paradise Lost." A daughter of the gods, divinely tall, TENNYSON, "Dream of Fair Women." Auld Nature swears the lovely dears And then she made the lasses, O. BURNS, "Green Grow," etc. This thought was anticipated in "Cupid's Whirligig," a play by Edward Sharpham, first printed in 1607: "Man was made when Nature was but an apprentice, but woman when she was a skilful mistress of her art." So wrote Addison, in the well-known hymn. Young writes in the "Christian Triumph,"— Eternity, too short to speak Thy praise! These writers were contemporaries. Did the same thought occur to each independently, or did one borrow from the other? In Dr. Johnson's epitaph on Goldsmith, in Westminster Abbey, occurs the expression, "Nihil tetigit quod non ornavit." The Archbishop of Canterbury, in drawing a comparison between the eloquence of Cicero and that of Demosthenes, says, "He adorns everything he touches." Authority melts from me. "Antony and Cleopatra," iii, 2. Authority forgets a dying king. TENNYSON, "Mort d'Arthur." Woe to thee O land when thy king is a child. Ecclesiastes, x, 16. Woe to the land that's governed by a child. "Richard III.," ii, 3. Falstaff, in the Second Part of "King Henry IV.," act i, scene 2, says, "I am not only wit in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men." If Plato may be believed, Socrates made use of a similar expression about two thousand years before Shakespeare was born. Speaking to Protagoras, Socrates says, "For who is there but you? who not only claim to be a good man, for many are this, and yet have not the power of making others good. Whereas you are not only good yourself, but also the cause of goodness in others."-Jowett's Translation. Time flies, my pretty one! These precious hours are very sweet to thee; make the most of them. Now, even now, as thou twinest that brown curl on that fingersee! it grows gray! FREDERICK LOCKER, "My Confidences." I will not argue the matter; time wastes too fast. Every letter I trace tells me with what rapidity Life follows my pen; the days and hours of it, more precious-my dear Jenny-than the rubies about thy neck, are flying over our heads like light clouds of a windy day, never to return more; everything presses onwhilst thou art twisting that lock,-see! it grows gray! STERNE, "Tristram Shandy." Sir, for a quart d'ecu* he will sell the fee simple of his salvation, the inheritance of it, and cut the entail from all remainders. "All's Well that Ends Well," iv., 3. Who, if some blockhead should be willing A well-made bargain would esteem it, CHURCHILL, "The Ghost." Many witty authors compare the present time to an isthmus or narrow neck of land, that rises in the midst of an ocean, immeasurably diffused on either side of it. -Spectator, 590. *The fourth part of the smaller French crown, about sixteen cents. Lo, on a narrow neck of land, "Twixt two unbounded seas I stand Secure, insensible. WESLEY. This narrow isthmus 'twixt two boundless seas, The past, the future, two eternities. MOORE, "Lalla Rookh." Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing, Only a signal shown, and a distant voice in the dark ness; So on the ocean of life we pass and speak one another, Like driftwood spars which meet and pass So on the sea of life, alas! Man nears man, meets, and leaves again. We twain have met like ships upon the sea, On lonely paths, through mist, and cloud, and foam, The Rev. John Beecher, who may be remembered in connection with a criticism upon one of Lord Byron's poems, was the author of this passage: "As ships meet at sea a moment together, when words of greeting must be spoken, and then away again in the darkness; so men meet and part in this world." The increasing prospect tires our wandering eyes, And climb the Mount of Blessing, whence, if thou Look higher, then perchance thou mayest-beyond A hundred ever-rising mountain lines, And past the range of Night and Shadow,-see The high heaven dawn of more than mortal day. TENNYSON, "Tiresias." Cowley, in his "Davideis," says of the Messiah : And Pope, in his "Essay on Criticism," referring to the Grecian and Roman poets, says: Nations unborn your mighty name shall sound, And worlds applaud that must not yet be found. In the ballad of Lochinvar, in "Marmion," are the following lines: She looked down to blush, And she looked up to sigh, And a tear in her eye. In Samuel Lover's song, "Rory O'More," we also find this: Now Rory be aisy, Sweet Kathleen would cry; Reproof on her lip, But a smile in her eye. In the Greek "Anthology" is an epigram by an unknown writer, which is thus translated: |