conceptions on the great subjects which have
_occupied and_ absorbed the most glorious _of
human_ understandings."

The article in "The New Monthly" is on "The State of Parties." The
italics are mine.

Apparent plagiarisms frequently arise from an author's
self-repetition. He finds that something he has already published has
fallen dead--been overlooked--or that it is peculiarly _a propos_ to
another subject now under discussion. He therefore introduces the
passage; often without allusion to his having printed it before; and
sometimes he introduces it into an anonymous article. An anonymous
writer is thus, now and then, unjustly accused of plagiarism--when the
sin is merely that of self-repetition.

In the present case, however, there has been a deliberate plagiarism
of the silliest as well as meanest species. Trusting to the obscurity
of his original, the plagiarist has fallen upon the idea of killing
two birds with one stone--of dispensing with all disguise but that of
_decoration_.

Channing says "order"--the writer in the New Monthly says "grade." The
former says that this order is "far from holding," etc.--the latter
says it is "_very_ far from holding." The one says that military
talent is "_not_ conversant," and so on--the other says "it is _never
made_ conversant." The one speaks of "the highest and richest
objects"--the other of "the more delicate and abstruse." Channing
speaks of "thought"--the thief of "mental operations." Chaming
mentions "intelligence of the _highest_ order"--the thief will have it
of "the highest _and rarest_." Channing observes that military talent
is often "_almost_ wholly wanting," etc.--the thief maintains it to be
"_wholly_ wanting." Channing alludes to "_large_ views of human
nature"--the thief can be content with nothing less than "enlarged"
ones. Finally, the American having been satisfied with a reference to
"subjects which have absorbed the most glorious understandings," the
Cockney puts him to shame at once by discoursing about "subjects which
have _occupied and_ absorbed the most glorious _of human_
understandings"--as if one could be absorbed, without being occupied,
by a subject--as if "_of_" were here any thing more than two
superfluous letters--and as if there were any chance of the reader's
supposing that the understandings in question were the understandings
of frogs, or jackasses, or Johnny Bulls.

By the way, in a case of this kind, whenever th