﻿PLAGIAKTSM AMONG 



ELIZABETHAN^ PAMPHLETEEES 



145 



An Example of Plagiarism among Elizabethan Pamphleteers : 



Samuel Rowlands' Greenes Ghost Haunting Conie-catchers. 



"And some .... think to divert the sagacity of their readers 

 from themselves and cool the scent of their own fox-like thefts, when yet 

 they are so rank as a man may find whole pages together usurped from one 

 author." — Ben Jonsox, Discoveries. 



Pbigiarism is a breach of literary ethics. Today we look upon 

 it as a veiy serious breach. Failure to use quotation marks where 

 present day standards demand them is the one unpardonable sin a 

 writer can conmnt. Such an offender is at once branded as an 

 atrocious, thieving jDirate. ^Moreover, very tangible methods have 

 been devised for punishing him who maliciously or even innocently 

 lifts another man's copy. Aside from flying in the face of public 

 disfavor, the plagiarist is now accountable to copyright laws, na- 

 tional and international. This has not, however, always been the 

 case. There have been periods in the history of English letters — 

 the Elizabethan is especially in point — when professional writers, 

 like a certain number of college freshmen, believed very thoroughly 

 in the saying. "There is nothing new under the sun." Therefore 

 why scruple to use the scissors and paste method ? Wliy not clip a 

 little here and a little there? Legion is the number of college 

 themes, and numerous the Elizabethan pamphlets — not to mention 

 other productions — thus patched up, and afterwards brought out 

 with a great flourish. 



All Elizabethans, from Shakespere down to the veriest ballad- 

 nionger, were mucli freer in regard to borrowing than x^resent day 

 standards would allow. The whole cpiestion of Elizabethan pla- 

 giarism might seem, therefore, to be very unified and simple : 

 every writer stole from every other writer mthout leave or license. 

 Unfortunately, the truth about even so simple a cpiestion objects 

 to being pigeon-holed ; it baffles aphoristic and dogmatic statement. 

 In making a few distinctions I hope not injudiciously to "straine 

 Gnats and passe over Elephants;" I want no pang of conscience 

 upon hearing Samuel Rowlands say to the Bellman, ' ' But you good 

 sir, like a Spider to entrappe onely the smallest flies, suffer the 

 great ones to flie through, you scowre the ditch of a company of 

 croaking frogs, when you leave behinde you an inflnite nimiber of 

 venomous Toades."^ 



It is well lvno\vn that Shakespere, according to present day 

 standards, was an out and out plagiarist. It is also a matter of 



^ Mariin MarJc-ail (Hnnterian Club edition. 1880.) II, 14. 



28489—2 



