The Lesson of the Water-Mill
Some of the most famous lyrics in the language have had their paternity disputed in this way. Among others, Wolfe’s “Burial of Sir John Moore,” upon which a number of imaginative Celts endeavored to father themselves, and Campbell’s “Exile of Erin,” which it is now pretended that he stole bodily, we believe from the traditional exile himself, McCann, if that was his name. They are very active here, and at this time—these barefaced purloiners of reputation—snapping up any little waif that may come under their observation.
Everybody remembers the young person of the softer sex, a Miss Peck, if we recall her name correctly, who said that ’twas she, and not Mr. William Butler, who wrote “Nothing to Wear,” which, of course, she had no means of proving beyond her mere assertion, which nobody was gallant enough to accept. A second instance of disputed authorship was ventilated a few months since in the Round Table, the thing in dispute then being a copy of verses entitled “The Long Ago,” and written by a Mr. Benjamin F. Taylor, of Chicago, who has had all sorts of hands grasping after his imaginary laurel, and rousing, through their friends, a mighty clamor for justice, which they richly deserved in the nearest literary pillory.
A third instance concerned the plaintive little lyric, “Rock Me to Sleep, Mother,” which was written by Florence Percy, otherwise Mrs. Akers. We say that it was written by her since she has included it in the blue and gold edition of her poems which was published not long ago in Boston. This
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