_Hoax on Sir Walter Scott._--The following passage occurs in one of Sir
W. Scott's letters to Southey, written in September, 1810:
"A witty rogue, the other day, who sent me a letter subscribed
'Detector,' proved me guilty of stealing a passage from one of
Vida's Latin poems, which I had never seen or heard of; yet there
was so strong a general resemblance as fairly to authorise
'Detector's' suspicion."
Lockhart remarks thereupon:
"The lines of Vida which 'Detector' had enclosed to Scott, as the
obvious original of the address to 'Woman' in _Marmion_, closing
with--
"'When pain and anguish wring the brow,
A ministering angel thou!'
"end as follows: and it must be owned that if Vida had really
written them, a more extraordinary example of casual coincidence
could never have been pointed out.
"'Cum dolor atque supercilio gravis imminet angor,
Fungeris angelico sola ministerio.'
"'Detector's' reference is Vida _ad Eranen_, El. ii. v. 21.; but
it is almost needless to add there are no such lines, and no
piece bearing such a title in Vida's works. 'Detector' was, no
doubt, some young college wag; for his letter has a Cambridge
post-mark."
It may interest to know that the author of this clever hoax was Henry I.
T. Drury, then, I think, of King's College, Cambridge, and afterwards
one of the Masters at Harrow. The lines will be found in the _Arundines
Cami_.