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THE LION'S HEAD.

We are happy to find that the question asked by a Reviewer in our last Number is satisfactorily answered in the subjoined Letter.

DEAR SIR,

To the Editor of the London Magazine.

In the Review of the Batavian Anthology in your last Number was the following sentence: "We were particularly struck by a remarkable coincidence, both in point of idea and expression, between a line in the last-mentioned poem (The Nightingale,) and one from a lately-published English Tragedy, which we have somewhere met with: in the first, the Nightingale is thus described

A singing feather he a wing'd and wandering sound:

in the latter, we find these words

When that wing'd song, the restless Nightingale
Turns her sad heart to music:

Both the above passages are eminently beautiful; the ideas, and even the words are the same in both; but which writer (as Puff says) thought of them first? Had the Dutch Poet's Dragoman, when he wrote his line, a singing in his head, the burthen of which was the English lay? The original, if produced, would answer this question."

To satisfy the Reviewer, and to prove that the resemblance alluded to must have been accidental, I subjoin the original:

literally:

Een zingend veedertje en een gewieckt geluijt—

A singing feather and a winged sound.

Whilst I am on this subject, I cannot refrain from hazarding an opinion, that the learned, but perhaps too critical, writer of "Recent Poetical Plagiarisms and Imitations," would be much nearer the truth, were he to alter the title to "Recent Poetical Plagiarisms, Imitations, and Coincidences;" thus allowing that men may sometimes hit upon the same ideas without being imitators, and possess the same powers of imagination, elicit the same bursts of passion, and be governed by the same intense feelings, without having "envied their neighbour's goods," or descended to the almost nonentity of copyists. The subjoined passages will explain my meaning →

J'aime Britannicus; je lui fus destinée,
Quand l'empire devoit suivre son hyménée.
Mais ces même malheurs qui l'en ont écarté,
Ses honneurs abolis, son palais déserté,
La fuite d'une cour que sa chûte a bannie,
Sont autant de liens que retiennent Junie.

Racine's Britannicus, Act 2, Sc. 3.

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The ideas of the English and French authors strongly resemble each other, yet why are we to suppose that Milman has borrowed from Racine? Nature is not such a niggard of her favours as to apportion to every individual one particular sphere of thought or action from which he may not swerve. If men often think alike, (which few I suspect will doubt) why should we conclude that the resemblance must cease when their thoughts are committed to paper, or what should prevent two persons, who, unknown to each other, are dramatizing the same story, from being betrayed by the nature of similar situations into a similar expression of their feelings, although those feelings, generally speaking, may have little in common?

I am, &c. &c. V. D.

John Lacy's" Epistola Amicabilis" to Terentius Secundus in our next. It is hard to convey unpalatable truths in grateful terms, but we hope they will "infuse a new portion of vigor into the Dramatic Constitution."

The "Excursion" is the product of an amiable and contemplative mind, awake to the beauties of nature: the style, however, wants power, and the story incident.

Our Carlisle correspondent will, perhaps, on a re-perusal, acknowledge our prudence in declining his "Young Friend's" oblation. It preserves an inauspicious mediocrity throughout: the "golden mean" may be kept with advantage anywhere but in works of genius.

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"The Hunting Parson" is not among the elect.

An Essay on the Character of Ophelia, by Mr. William Farren, will appear in our next.

We should have answered Philocant's two Letters much earlier, could we have answered them favourably; or rather, could we have answered them favourably we should not have answered them at all.

"Sketches of American Population" might have been more interesting, but could scarcely be less so.

Many other communications, to which we cannot give particular answers, are left with our publishers.

THE

London Magazine.

APRIL, 1824.

DIALOGUES OF THREE TEMPLARS

ON POLITICAL ECONOMY,

CHIEFLY IN RELATION TO THE

PRINCIPLES OF MR. RICARDO.

ADVERTISEMENT.-I have resolved to fling my analysis of Mr. Ricardo's system into the form of Dialogues. A few words will suffice to determine the principles of criticism which can fairly be applied to such a form of composition on such a subject. It cannot reasonably be expected that dialogues on Political Economy should pretend to the appropriate beauty of dialogues as dialogues-by throwing any dramatic interest into the parts sustained by the different speakers, or any characteristic distinctions into their style. Elegance of this sort, if my time had allowed of it-or I had been otherwise capable of producing it, would have been here misplaced. Not that I would say even of Political Economy, in the words commonly applied to such subjects, that "Ornari res ipsa negat, contenta doceri:" for all things have their peculiar beauty and sources of ornament-determined by their ultimate ends, and by the process of the mind in pursuing them. Here, as in the processes of nature and in mathematical demonstrations, the appropriate elegance is derived from the simplicity of the means employed, as expressed in the Lex Parcimonia ("Frustra fit per plura, quod fieri fas erat per pauciora"), and other maxims of that sort. This simplicity however must be looked for in the order and relation of the thoughts, and in the way in which they are made to lead into each other, rather than in any anxious conciseness as to words; which on the contrary I have rather sought to avoid in the earlier Dialogues-in order that I might keep those distinctions longer before the reader from which all the rest were to be derived. For he, who is fully master of the subject of Value, is already a good political economist.-Now, if any man should object that in the following Dialogues I have uniformly given the victory to myself, he will make a pleasant logical blunder: for the true logic of the case is this-Not that it is myself to whom I give the victory; but APRIL, 1824.

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that he, to whom I give the victory (let me call him by what name I will), is of necessity myself; since I cannot be supposed to have put triumphant arguments into any speaker's mouth, unless they had previously convinced my own understanding.-Finally let me entreat the reader not to be impatient under the disproportionate length (as he may fancy it) of the opening discussions on Value: even for its own sake, the subject is a matter of curious speculation: but in relation to Political Economy it is all in all: for most of the errors (and, what is much worse than errors, most of the perplexity) prevailing in this science take their rise from this source. Mr. Ricardo is the first writer who has thrown light on the subject: and even he, in the last edition of his book, still found it a "difficult" one (see the Advertisement to the third edition.) What a Ricardo has found difficult cannot be adequately discussed in few words: but, if the reader will once thoroughly master this part of the science, all the rest will cost him hardly any effort at all.

INTRODUCTORY DIALOGUE.

(Speakers throughout the Dialogues are Phædrus, Philebus, and X. Y. Z.)

Phaedrus.-This, Philebus, is my friend X. Y. Z. whom I have long wished to introduce to you: he has some business which calls him into this quarter of the town for the next fortnight: and during that time he has promised to dine with me; and we are to discuss together the modern doctrines of Political Economy; most of which, he tells me, are due to Mr. Ricardo. Or rather I should say that I am to become his pupil: for I pretend to no regular knowledge of Political Economy, having picked up what little I possess in a desultory way amongst the writers of the old school; and of that little, X. obligingly tells me that three-fourths are pure error. I am glad therefore that you are in town at this time, and can come and help me to contradict him. Meantime X. has some right to play the tutor amongst us; for he has been a regular student of the science: another of his merits isthat he is a Templar as well as ourselves, and a good deal senior to either

of us.

· Philebus. And for which of his merits is it that you would have me contradict him?

Phæd. Oh for all of them, and as a point of hospitality. For I am of the same opinion as M

a very

able friend of mine in Liverpool, who looks upon it as criminal in a high

degree to assent to anything a man says: the nefarious habit of assenting (as he justly says) being the pest of conversation by causing it to stagnate. On this account he often calls aside the talking men of the party before dinner, and conjures them with a pathetic earnestness not to agree with him in anything he may advance during the evening: and at his own table, when it has happened that strangers were present who indulged too much in the habit of politely assenting to anything which seemed to demand no particular opposition, I have seen him suddenly pause with the air of the worst used man in the world and exclaim-" Good heavens! is there to be no end to this? Am I never to be contradicted? I suppose matters will soon come to that pass that my nearest relations will be perfidiously agreeing with me, and I shall not have a friend left on whom I can depend for the consolations of opposition."

Phil. Well, Phædrus, if X. Y. Z. is so much devoted as you represent to the doctrines of Mr. Ricardo, I shall perhaps find myself obliged to indulge your wishes in this point more than my own taste in conversation would lead me to desire.

X. And what, may I ask, is the particular ground of your opposition to Mr. Ricardo?

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