Employ thy youth as I employ my age;
Succeed to these my cares, and rouse the rest;
He serves me most who serves his country best.”
The similarity of the last line to the celebrated expression used by President Hayes is striking. It is probable he was at some period of his life a close reader of the Iliad, and that this expression found a lodgement in his mind, to crop out in a slightly modified form after many years.
Mark Twain Accused of Plagiary
Mark Twain having dedicated a recent book of his “to Mr. Smith wherever he is found,” will, doubtless, be interested to learn that the gentleman in question is to be discovered in the current London Post Office Directory alone to the very considerable extent of sixteen and a half columns. But will Mr. Twain be surprised to hear that the notion of this Smith dedication of his is not a new one? Surely he must be aware that an earlier American humorist, Artemus Ward, prefaced one of his volumes with a similar inscription, and gave it additional point, too, by adding a sincere hope that every one of his “dedicatees” would purchase a copy of the book. So that, apparently, and not by any means for the first time, a stolen idea has been spoiled in the stealing.
The Bill of Fare
A German gastronomical publication gives the following account of the origin of the menu: At the meeting of Electors in Regensburg in the year 1489, Elector Henry of Braunschweig attracted general notice at a state dinner. He had a long paper before him to which he referred every time before he ordered a dish. The Earl of Montfort, who sat near him, asked him what he was reading. The Elector silently handed the paper to his interrogator. It contained a list of the viands prepared for the occasion, which the Elector had ordered the cook to write out for him. The idea of having such a list so pleased the illustrious assembly that they introduced it each in his own household, and since that time the fashion of having a menu has spread all over the civilized world.
Ancestry
On one occasion Mr. John Bright said, in the course of a speech, “The noble lord comes of a race distinguished, I am told, as having come over with the Conqueror. I never heard that any of them have since been distinguished for anything else.” This sentiment, though probably Mr. Bright knew it not, found epigrammatic expression in France more than a century ago, in a distich composed when A. Courtenay, in compliment to his birth, was elected a member of the Academy: