They drink and dance by their own light,
They drink and revel all the night:
Nothing in nature’s sober found,
But an eternal health goes round.
Fill up the bowl then, fill it high,
Fill all the glasses here; for why
Should every creature drink but I?
Why, man of morals, tell me why?
Whilst referring to Thomas Moore’s plagiarisms mention must be made of an article on the subject contained in Fraser’s Magazine, June 1841. It is too long to quote in full, but some of its principal statements may be given:
“Moore’s plagiarisms are intolerable. There is not a single original thought, conception, metaphor, or image, in the whole range of his works,—from the Posthumous Poems of Tom Little to his last dying speech—The Travels of an Irish Gentleman in Search of a Religion. Even the title of this nonsense is stolen from Erasmus’s Peregrinatio Religionis ergo. The man is an indefatigable thief. He has laid under contribution every imaginable book, from the biography of his namesake, Tom Thumb, to the portly folios of the fathers of the church. Perfectly unscrupulous in his marauding expeditions, and impartial in his attacks, he is found at one moment rifling a saint, and in the next pillaging a sinner. You have asked me for some specimens of his plagiarisms. You shall have them. Time will permit me to expose only a very few, so I shall plunge at once in medias res:—