Here was she wont to go! and here, and here!
Just where these daisies, pinks, and violets grow,
The world may find the spring by following her.

Where she went the flowers took thickest root,
As she had sow'd them with her odorous foot.

When Herrick wrote:

Her pretty feet like snails did creep
A little out,

he was probably consciously stealing from Sir
John Suckling's Ballad upon a Wedding. In
doing so, he has afforded an illustration of
Samuel Butler's remark, that a plagiarist is
like an Italian thief, who never robs but he
murders too, in order to prevent discovery.
The corresponding passage in the earlier poet is
far more delicate and graceful:

Her feet beneath her petticoat
Like little mice stole in and out,
As if they fear'd the light.

Since Milton's obligations to the Sad Shepherdess
are evident throughout his Comus, it
will scarcely be doubted that in his Il Penseroso
he designedly made use of the song in Beaumont
and Fletcher's Nice Valour. The resemblance
is too striking to be attributable to
mere chance, or to an " unconscious echo."
Milton's lines are too familiar to need quotation;
the prototype runs thus:

Hence all you vain delights,
As short as are the nights
Wherein you spend your folly.
There's nought in this life sweet,
If man were wise to see't,
But only melancholy.

Nor can we readily believe that Pope was ignorant
of the source of the line, almost a proverb
among us—-

He can't be wrong whose life is in the right:

which is to be found in Cowley's poem on Crashaw:

His faith perhaps in some nice tenets might
Be wrong: his life, I'm sure, was in the right:

It would not be difficult to extend almost indefinitely
such a list as this, were it desirable to
do so. But it is, after all, a very trivial matter,
and few readers would care to pursue the subject
to the end of a paper comprising the results
of only a very moderate amount of diligence.
Lest any one who should have accompanied me
thus far should exclaim, with Browning's visitor
to the Conventicle:

. . . like Eve, when she plucked the apple,
I wanted a taste, and now there's enough of it,

I will append only one more instance. The
passages are from Shakespeare and Massinger:

What should be in that Cæsar?
Why should that name be sounded more than yours?
Write them together, yours is as fair a name;
Sound them, it doth become the mouth as well;
Conjure with them, &c.
JULIUS CÆSAR.

What is he?
At his best but a patrician of Rome—-
His name, Titus Flaminius; and speak mine,
Berecinthus, arch-flamen to Cybele;
It makes as great a sound.
BELIEVE AS YOU LIST.

The poets from whom these instances have
been selected, all stand too high for their fame
to be in any way affected by them, even were
they much more numerous and their connexion
much more evident. We owe too much to
these men, each and all, to carp at minute
blemishes, even were we disposed to consider
such coincidences as defects. It is not that we
regard them lightly that we dwell upon points
so microscopic; but, holding their words dear,
and cherishing them as a friend's voice, the
thinnest, faintest echo strikes upon an ear,
which, were its sense not sharpened by affection,
would be deaf to louder noises.

AN OLD BALLAD RE-WRITTEN.

ANNAN WATER.

"ANNAN water's roaring deep,
But my love Annie's wondrous bonny;
I'm loath that she should wet her feet,
For, oh! I love her best of ony.

"Go saddle me the bonny black,
Go saddle, quick, and make him ready;
For I will down the Gatehope Slack
And see my winsome little lady.

"And saddle me the bonny grey,
I'll lead her till the black is weary;
And fill me up a cup of wine,
For, eh! the storm is loud and dreary.

"I vowed to dance with her to-night,
I swore it on the lips of Annie;
I swore it with her hand in mine,
And not by one oath, but by many.

"Though Annan water ran with gold,
And I could scoop it out at leisure,
I'd give it all to have to-night
Two honey kisses from my treasure."

He's leaped upon his bonny black,
From either spur the blood was flying;
But ere he won the Gatehope Slack,
The horse was not an hour from dying.

And louder grew the angry Clyde,
From bank to brae the waters pouring;
They hungered for a drowning man;
'Twas for more food that they were roaring.

He's leaped upon the bonny grey,
He rode as straight and fair as any;
And he would neither halt nor stay,
For he was seeking bonny Annie.

He's ridden fast o'er field and fell,
Through moss and moor, and pool and mire;
His spurs with red were dripping fast,
And from her steel hoofs flashed the fire.

"Now, bonny grey, now play your part,
If ye're the steed to win my deary,
On corn and hay ye'll live for aye,
And never spur shall make you weary."

The grey she was of right good blood,
But when she reached the nearest ford,
She couldn't have gone a furlong more
Though you had smote her with a sword.

"O, boatman, boatman, bring your boat!
I'll give yon man good golden money
To put me o'er the darkening stream,
For I must cross to see my honey.

"I swore an oath to her last night,
And not one oath alone, but many,
That though it rained a stream of fire,
I'd cross and see my winsome Annie."

The sides are steep, the flood is deep.
From brae to bank the falls are pouring,
The bonnie grey mare sweats for fear,
To hear the Water Kelpy roaring.