The greatest man of the last age, Ben Jonson, was willing to give place
to the classics in all things: he was not only a professed imitator of
Horace, but a learned plagiary of all the others; you track him
everywhere in their snow. If Horace, Lucan, Petronius Arbiter, Seneca,
and Juvenal had their own from him, there are few serious thoughts which
are new in him.... But he has done his robberies so openly, that one may
see he fears not to be taxed by any law. He invades authors like a
monarch; and what would be theft in other poets, is only victory in
him.--J. DRYDEN. _Essay of Dramatic Poesy._
Steal! to be sure they will, and, egad! serve your best thoughts as
gipsies do stolen children--disfigure them to make them pass for their
own.--R. B. SHERIDAN. _The Critic._