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PATRICK LEE DEAN
PRINCE
continued from page 11
even translated into several foreign languages. It
also appeared in Augustus Baldwin Longstreet's
famous book Georgia Scenes, published in 1835
and reprinted 10 times during the 19th Century.
In 1880, Thomas Hardy published his novel
Tht Trumpet Major, which takes place in England
during the Napoleonic Wars. Chapter 23 of the
novel, "Military Preparations on an Extended
Scale," contains passages describing a militia drill,
in a small village in rural England, of raw recruits
who are supposed to be training for the possi
bility of a French invasion. Within two years of
the novel's publication, charges that the militia
drill scene in the novel had been plagiarized from
an American author were being made in newspa
pers. In an article entitled "Will Mr. Hardy
Explain?", one correspondent wrote in 1882, "It
will need no acuteness of vision to see that there
is something more than an accidental similarity
between the description given by Mr. Hardy... and
the American sketch."
Space limitations prevent reproducing, for
comparison purposes, the entire Prince sketch and
the relevant passages of the 23rd chapter of
Hardys novel. However, comparing only a few por
tions of the twc works should make it clear
beyond any doubt that Hardy appropriated
Prince's sketch:
that had happened was that "a page or two of
historical and biographical matter ha[d] been
embodied in fiction... " Actually, of course, the
dnll scene was based, not on a work of history or
biography, but on a story that was obviously a
piece of satirical fiction. Cart Weber has observed
that Hardy's letter "shows either careless reading
or an uneasy conscience."
Fifteen years after The Trumpet Major was pub
lished, literary critics were still complaining that
Hardy was ignoring the serious charge of plagia
rism against him. Finally, in 1896, in a public
reply to the charge, Hardy wrote a published letter
to a literary magazine admitting that some of the
details of his drill scene had been "suggested" by
a description of militia in an 1817 book on the '
Napoleonic Wars, "a description which I under
stood to refer to the English peasantry." Written
by C. H. Gifford, the 1817 history book Hardy
cited had reproduced Prince's sketch in its
entirety in a chapter entitled "Satire upon
American Discipline." In his book, Gifford
explained that he hcd included the chapter to
"gi 'e some idea of American tactics." In view of
this, Hardy's assertion that he had once under
stood the sketch to refer to English peasants
appears dissembling. As for his claim that the
sketch "suggested" his drill scene, the fact is, as
Carl Weber has noted, that Hardy's borrowing from
Prince amounted to "about two hundred and sixty
words, together with the general purport of three
Prince: "But as every man was anxious to bee
how the rest stood, those on the wings pressed
forward for that purpose, till the whole line
assumed nearly the form of a crescent"
Hardy: "Every m3n was anxious to see how the
rest stood, those at the end of the line pressed
forward for that purpose, till the line assumed the
form of a horseshoe."
Prince: "This was accordingly done; but
impelled by the same motives as before, they soon
resumed their former figure, and so they were per
mitted to remain."
Hardy: "They dressed forthwith; but impelled
by the same motive they soon resumed their
former figure, and so they were despairingly per
mitted to remain."
Prince: '"Tention the whole! To the left-left,
no-right-that is, the left-I mean the right, left,
wheel, march!"
Hardy: "'Tention! To the right-left wheel. I
mean-no, no-right wheel Mar-r-rch!
Even though the charges of plagiarism were
weighty and repeated over and over again in
American and English periodicals, Hardy refused
for years to make a public reply. "Hardy combined
the activities of 'Brer Fox' and the Tar-Baby: he lay
low and said nothing," Cart J. Weber, a leading
authority on Hardy, caustically commented.
Privately, however, in an 1882 letter to an
American book editor. Hardy dismissed the
charges, claiming that the novel's drill scene was
"based on a letter of an eyewitness" and that all
full pages of the noveL"
In 1896, when a new edition of The Trumpet
Major was published, Hardy added a preface in
which he again stonewalled. Hardy wrote: "The
drilling scene of the local militia received some
additions from an account given in so grave a
work as Gifford's History of the Wars of the French
Revolution... But on reference to the History I find
I was mistaken in supposing the account to be
advanced as authentic or to refer to rural
England." Once again Hardy was struggling to
deny the undeniable—that he had been exposed
as a common plagiarist. He had not merely
"received some additions." And it is impossible to
believe that Hardy was truthful in claiming that
he had once believed Prince's humorous satire
about rural Georgia to be "authentic (history]" or
to "refer to rural England."
Hardy is known to have plagiarized other
authors, but his lifting of Prince's sketch is the
most notorious. Indeed, it is one of the most
clearly demonstrated examples in literary history
of a great novelist stealing the intellectual prop
erty of another author. Hardy's weak and evasive
denials of the charge that parts of Chapter 23 of
The Trumpet Major had been stolen from another
author constitute, in Carl Weber's memorable
words, "fight[ing] in eqgshell armor." Amazingly,
therefore, it is a matter of historical fact that
Prince Avenue was named after a man who,
am^ng his other achievements, wrote a story that
incontrovertibly was plagiarized by Thomas Hardy.
(To be continued)
Donald E. Wilkes, Jr.
Donald £. Wilkes, Jr. is Professor of Law in the
UGA School of Law.
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