I need not say that these are "ipsissima verba," and that I here insert the letter in full, as the warmest and most honourable palinode I could have received from a man so usually reserved and reticent as was my revered and excellent father.
The brother of my friend Benjamin Nightingale (to be more spoken of hereafter) was so fascinated with the book that he copied it all out in his own handwriting, word for word, and was jocularly accused of pretending to its authorship. I once met an enthusiast who knew both the two first series by heart,—and certainly he went on wherever I tried to pose him from the open volume,—my own memory being far less faithful. Similarly my more recent friend William Hawkes claims to have read the whole book sixty times; whereof this impromptu of mine is a sort of half proof:—
Impromptu.
"Sixty times, you tell me, friend,
You've read my books from end to end.
Perhaps not all my myriad rhymes,
But all my rhythmics sixty times.
Yes, friend, for I have heard you quote
My old Proverbials by rote
Page after page, and anywhere
Have heard you spout them then and there,
Though I myself had quite forgot
What I had writ, and you had not.
"Well, author surely never more
Was complimented so before;
For though I knew in years long past
An amiable enthusiast,
Who copied out in his MS.
My whole Proverbial, as for press,
Until he half believed that he
Was the real Simon M. F. T.,—
Yet thou, my worthy William Hawkes,
Hast beaten Nightingale by chalks,—
And, years ago, your friends for fame
Have given you Martin Tapper's name,
Because you constantly were heard
Quoting Proverbial word for word!
So then, by heart, as by the pen,
'I live upon the mouths of men,'
Ev'n as Ennius lived of old,
A life worth more than gems or gold."
Two more strange anecdotes may here find their place (others will occur elsewhere in this volume hereafter) respecting "Proverbial Philosophy." Joseph Durham, the sculptor, a great friend of mine, had been known to me for some years, and one day he gave me a curious little book, very ancient and dingy-looking, entitled "Politeuphuia, Wits' Commonwealth: London, 1667;" with this explanation, that he had picked it up at an old bookstall, and, finding it was written somewhat in proverbs gave it to me, adding, in his shrewd way, the humorous fancy that (until he had read it and couldn't discover a line or thought of exact similarity) possibly he might have checkmated me by showing me the mine from which I had dug my wisdoms! As I have before me a memorandum pasted into the booklet itself (it is a minute duodecimo) I will here quote exactly what I wrote in it at the time: the date being Albury House, May 24, 1865:—
"This little book has just been given to me by Durham; it is very scarce, so much so that the British Museum, he says, does not possess a copy; probably there are not six in the world. I never saw it, nor heard of it till now; just twenty-nine years after the publication of my Proverbial Philosophy. It is a curious coincidence that the headings of this Wits' Miscellany are similar to my own; as Of so and so throughout; I first wrote On so and so; but did not like the sound, and remembering it would be De in Latin, altered it to Of. The treatment also of the subjects has some apparent similitude; but in looking all through the book, it is strange that not one line, not one phrase, is the same as any of mine. Travelling on the same road, and in somewhat of the same proverbial rhythm, this is very curious; whilst it certainly acquits me of even unintended and unconscious plagiarism. The headings begin of God, of Heaven, of Angels, &c.,—and then of vertue, of peace, of truth, &c., and afterwards of love, of jealousie, of hate, of beauty, of flattery, &c., &c.,—all being aphoristic quotations from ancient authors. As before stated, the whole was unseen by me until nearly thirty years after I had published my independent essays on the same theses much in a similar key."
This is a parallel case to the recent statement in a printed book with characteristic illustrations respecting the non-originality of Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress; and Milton's Paradise Lost has been similarly disparaged, Mr. Plummer Ward having written and shown to me a pamphlet by himself to prove that some Italian poem seen by Milton in youth preceded him on the same lines;—while Mr. Geikie quotes from the Anglo-Saxon Cædmon papers nearly identical with some in Paradise Lost. But there is no end to assertions of this sort, impugning authorial honesty and originality: when authors write on the same topics and with much the same stock of words and ideas both religious and educational, it is only a marvel that the thoughts and writings of men do not oftener collide, and seem to be plagiaristic reproductions. I have spoken of all this at length, that if any one hereafter finds this "Politeuphuia" in the British Museum (which is welcome to have my copy if it lacks one), and years hence accuses my innocence of having stolen from it, he may know that I have thus taken the bull by the horns and twisted him over.