Some of your readers may remember a speech in parliament by, as I think,
Lord Plunket, in which his lordship argued with great eloquence in
behalf of the Bill for the Emancipation of the Roman Catholics. Among
many passages therein of equal truth and rhetorical power, there was one
long afterwards much quoted, paraphrased, and praised. It was that in
which he reminded the House, that those for whom he pleaded were
fellow-subjects of the same race, offspring of the same Creator, alike
believers in the One true God, the equal recipients of His mercies,
appealing for {227} His blessings though the medium of the same faith,
and looking forward for salvation to the One Intercessor, Mediator, and
Sacrifice for all,--men, who, as they did, addressed the Eternal in the
form of that "Universal prayer"--Our Father--the authority and the
privilege of one common parentage, offered by the all in the union of
the same spirit, in the conviction of the same wants, in the aspiration
of the same hope. I say, I think Lord Plunket so spoke, for I write from
memory dating from the period when George the Third was king. Now be
this so: according to the dogmas of some critics, Lord Plunket may be
convicted of an eloquent plagiary. Read the following extract from a
missive by S. Agobard, to be found in the _Bibl. Vet. Patrum_, tome
xiii, page 429., by Galland, addressed "Ad præfatum Imperatorem,
adversus legem Gundobadi et impia certamina quæ per eam geruntur," and
say whether, in spite of the separation of centuries, there does not
appear a family likeness, though there were no family acquaintance
between them; Saint Agobard being Bishop of Lyons in the ninth centry,
and Lord Plunket Attorney-General for Ireland in the nineteenth.
The Saint is pleading against the judical ordeal:
"Illi autem profecti, prædicaverunt ubique Domino cooperante;
annuntiataque est ab eis omni creaturæ; id est, cunetis
nationibus mundi; una fides indita per Deum, una spes diffusa
per Spiritum Sanctum in cordibus credentium, una caritas nata in
omnibus, una voluntas, accensum unum desiderium, tradita una
oratio; ut omnes omnino ex diversis gentibus, diversis
conditionibus, diverso sexu, nobilitate, honestate, servitute
diversa, simul dicant uni Deo, et Patri omnium; Pater Noster qui
es, &c., sicut unum Patrem invocantes, ita unam santificationem
quærentes, unum regnum postulantes, unam adimpletionem
voluntatis ejus, sicut fit in coelo optantes; unum sibi panem
quotidianum dari precantes et omnibus dimitti debita."
To which other passages might be added, as, in fact, S. Agobard pursues
the one idea until he hunts it down to the one effect of sameness and
common antithesis. Should we say Lord Plunket had read these passages,
and is thereby convicted of eloquent plagiary? I say, No! Lauder then
equally convicted Milton of trespassing on the thoughts of others, by
somewhat apposite quotations from the classics. We are, in truth, too
much inclined to this. The little, who cannot raise themselves to the
stature of the great, are apt to strive after a socialist level, by
reducing all to one same standard--their own. Truth is common to all
ages, and will obtain utterance by the truthful and the eloquent
throughout all time.