582 
Mcbtrto. 
Quid sit pulclirum, quid turpe, quid utiie, quid non.—H ok. 
Biographical Sketches and Authentic Anecdotes of Horses and 
the allied Species; with Engravings. By Captain Thomas 
Brown, F. L. S., M.R.P. S., M.K. S., &c. Edinburgh, 1830. 
Price 9s. 
In a selection of “ Biographical Sketches and Anecdotes,” we 
do not expect to find much original composition. The author 
of such a work claims the privilege of laying all his predecessors 
and contemporaries under contribution; and, if he honourably 
acknowledges the sources whence he derives his information, his 
work is valuable in proportion as he judiciously gleans from every 
quarter: nay, w r e will allow him not only to collect the flowers, 
but to borrow likewise those touches of sentiment or links of 
science by which others have been accustomed to bind up their 
intellectual bouquets. When, how r ever, an impudent intruder 
culls, without leave or license, the fairest productions of every 
parterre, and, to conceal the robbery, strips the moss-rose of its 
fringed calyx, and plucks away many of the varied petals of the 
carnation, and overpowers the sweet scent of the jasmine by 
the sickening odour of the lilach, and compounds, at length, a 
nosegay, ill-arranged, and void of beauty, yet its several parts 
still faintly recognised, and now disgracing the rightful owners 
of whose demesnes they were before the ornament, such a plun¬ 
derer deserves exposure and punishment; and we could tell 
him, in the w ords of old Isaac Barrow, that thus “ to break open 
the closet of a man's heart, to ransack liis mind, and to pilfer 
aw r ay his thoughts, may well be deemed a w r orse sort of bur¬ 
glary or theft, than to break open doors, to rifle trunks, or to pick 
pockets.” Such, however, is the modern system of book-making. 
We are afraid that the w ork before us, containing much that 
is amusing, is not altogether free from the chargee of piracy. 
We do not demand that the authority for every anecdote should 
be given, although that would be satisfactory to the reader ; but 
the public has a right to require that the source whence the 
more scientific part is derived should be honestly stated; and 
contemporary authors have a right to complain if their ideas are 
stolen, while their language is strangely garbled to escape the 
legal proof of plagiarism. 
