A witty rogue, the other day, who sent me a letter subscribed “Detector,” proved me guilty of stealing a passage from one of Vida’s Latin poems, which I had never seen or heard of; yet there was so strong a general resemblance as fairly to authorize “Detector’s” suspicion. Lockhart remarks thereupon:— The lines of Vida which “Detector” had enclosed to Scott, as the obvious original of the address to “Woman,” in _Marmion_, closing with— “When pain and anguish wring the brow, A ministering angel thou!” end as follows: and it must be owned that if Vida had really written them, a more extraordinary example of casual coincidence could never have been pointed out. “Cum dolor atque supercilio gravis imminet angor, Fungeris angelico sola ministerio.” “Detector’s” reference is Vida _ad Eranen_, El. ii. v. 21; but it is almost needless to add there are no such lines, and no piece bearing such a title in Vida’s works. It was afterwards ascertained that the waggish author of this hoax was a Cambridge scholar named Drury. THE MOON HOAX. The authorship of the “Moon Hoax,” an elaborate description (which was first printed in the New York _Sun_) of men, animals, &c., purporting to have been discovered in the moon by Sir John Herschel, is now disputed. Until recently it was conceded to R. A. Locke, now dead; but in the _Budget of Paradoxes_, by Professor De Morgan, the authorship is confidently ascribed to M. Nicollet, a French savant, once well known in this country, and employed by the government in the scientific exploration of the West. He died in the government service. Professor De Morgan writes as follows:—“There is no doubt that it (the ‘Moon Hoax’) was produced in the United States by M. Nicollet, an astronomer of Paris, and a fugitive of some kind. About him I have heard two stories. First, that he fled to America with funds not his own, and that this book was a mere device to raise the wind. Secondly, that he was a _protegé_ of Laplace, and of the Polignac party, and also an outspoken man. The moon story was written and sent to France, with the intention of entrapping M. Arago—Nicollet’s especial foe—in the belief of it.” It seems not to have occurred to the sage and critical professor that a man who could steal funds, would have little scruple about stealing a literary production. It is, hence, more than probable that Nicollet translated the article immediately after its appearance in the New York _Sun_, and afterwards sent it to France as his own. A LITERARY SELL.