appears to be specially suited to delineations of natural scenery, music, and love; and instances might be quoted from every poet, ancient or modern, which bear so close a resemblance to each other as to pass for imitations; yet which, in reality, are but echoes of Nature's universal voice, awakened in the poet's responsive breast. LITERARY IMPOSTURES. AKIN to the subject of "Plagiarism" is that of Literary Impostures, some of which indeed are plagiarisms upon a large scale. Among the most remarkable of these, within the last hundred years, are Chatterton's "Rowley Poems," Macpherson's "Poems of Ossian," the Marquis de Surville's "Poems of Madame de Surville, Henri Beyle's "Letters on Haydn," Count de Courchamps' "Memoirs of the Marquise de Créquy," and the "Memoirs of Cagliostro," by the same writer. The controversy respecting the authenticity of the poems which Chatterton has given to the world as those of Thomas Rowley, a priest of the fifteenth century, has ceased to have any interest for the literary inquirer. It is now generally admitted that those poems have nothing in them of the fifteenth century but the antiquated spelling, in which Chatterton's acquaintance with the literature of that period enabled him to dress them up. The sentiments and even the imagery are, for the most part, of a modern cast; while the borrowed thoughts which they contain (borrowed from poets of a date posterior to that of their pretended origin) leave no room to doubt that the "marvellous boy" was himself the author of those singular productions. Thomas Rowley, as a poet, is now no better than a myth. A Macpherson's "Ossian" is in the same predicament. It is possible indeed that a bard, such as Ossian is represented to have been, lived in the third century, and wrote poetical rhapsodies of a somewhat similar character to those published by Macpherson; but the original compositions, of which his "Poems of Ossian" profess to be translations, are nowhere to be found. few fragmentary ballads, preserved by oral tradition among the Scottish peasantry, are all that has come down to us; and upon these Macpherson has stereotyped his " Poems of Ossian ;” but whether those fragments are the production of a poet of that name and age, or of some bard of more modern date, will ever remain among the mysteries of literature. A noticeable circumstance in connexion with the "Poems of Ossian" is the influence which they exercised on the literary mind of France immediately before the breaking out of the great Revolution and during the first quarter of the |