Famous Single Poems
well he might be. Any author would be chagrined to have one of his poems copied by a guest and published without his consent! And it should be pointed out that it is only on the theory that he was really the author that such chagrin is understandable. If he was not the author, there was no reason why he should feel any concern as to the fate of the poem or care how often it was published. But if he was really the author, its unauthorized publication in this manner must have seemed to him very much like a betrayal of confidence.
No public and formal challenge of Dr. Moore's authorship of "A Visit from St. Nicholas" has ever been made; nevertheless, for more than a hundred years, the belief has persisted among the descendants of Henry Livingston that he and not Dr. Moore wrote it, and a great-grandson of Mr. Livingston, Dr. William S. Thomas of New York City, has for many years been assembling the evidence in the case. This evidence Dr. Thomas has been kind enough to place at the disposition of the present writer.
Henry Livingston was born on October 13, 1748, in his father's home, the old Livingston mansion, on the bank of the Hudson about a mile south of Poughkeepsie, and passed most of his life on an estate of 250 acres near by, known as "Locust Grove," given him by his
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