Page:Journal of the Conversations of Lord Byron (1824).djvu/156

 The leprosy of lust’ I discover, too, is not mine. ‘Thou tremblest,’—Tis with age then,’ which I am accused of borrowing from Otway, was taken from the Old Bailey proceedings. Some judge observed to the witness, ‘Thou tremblest;’—Tis with cold then,’ was the reply.

“These Specimens of Lamb’s I never saw till today. I am taxed with being a plagiarist, when I am least conscious of being one; but I am not very scrupulous, I own, when I have a good idea, how I came into possession of it. How can we tell to what extent Shakspeare is indebted to his contemporaries, whose works are now lost? Besides which, Cibber adapted his plays to the stage.

“The invocation of the witches was, we know, a servile plagiarism from Middleton. Authors were not so squeamish about borrowing from one another in those days. If it be a fault, I do not pretend to be immaculate. I will lend you some volumes of Shipwrecks, from which my storm in ‘Don Juan’ came.

“Lend me also ‘Casti’s Novelle, said I. “Did you never see in Italian,—