_To the Editor of the States Rights Sentinel:_
SIR:--Some friends, whose opinions are entitled to deference, deem it
incumbent on me to avow, or disavow the authorship of a dozen couplets,
lately become a matter of grave and high controversy. Though supposed
for twenty years past to be mine, they have recently been ascribed, by
sundry acute critics, first to O'KELLY, and then to ALCÆUS. Disdaining,
heretofore, to notice such charges of plagiarism, from a perfect
confidence in the ultimate power of TRUTH, and a contempt for this
petty species of annoyance, my silence is now broken, only in
compliance with the wishes of those whom I esteem. Valuing these rhymes
very differently from others, it becomes me, on so unimportant a
subject, merely to avow myself the author. The lines in question, then,
good or bad, are mine alone; neither Alcæus nor O'Kelly has the
smallest right to them. Originally intended as a part of a longer poem,
which, like the life of him for whose sake I projected it, was broken
off, unfinished; they were published without my knowledge or consent,
and, however the contrary may have been assumed, contain no personal
allusions. Whatever _my_ life may be like, whether roses or thorns, the
public is in no danger of being troubled with my confidence.