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 PS 1029.A7Z7 1870 
 
 A vindication of the claim of Alexander 
 
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The original of tiiis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924022000107 
 
Who Wrote 
 ROCK ME TO SLEEP? 
 
 \_ 
 
 be i^t^^ 
 
 7^ 
 
 — ^T^ 
 
 /5Ux^/i^*V;^ 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The two accompanying articles discuss a ques- 
 tion of interest lo the public, but of far deeper 
 interest to Mr. Ball and his friends. The claim 
 made by Mrs. Akers, and the publication as her 
 own, of six verses of his beautiful poem, "Rock me 
 to Sleep," placed him in a situation of great em- 
 barrassment-. For nearly ten years previous to such 
 publication, he had from time to time read these 
 verses, with the other nine of which the poem is 
 composed, to his many friends, as his own compo- 
 sition. They had often been commented upon, 
 admired and enjoyed. He sought no reputation 
 as a poet. He had never published a verse, or per- 
 mitted it to be published by his friends. He sought 
 no honors from an admiring public. He neither 
 wished his name blazoned in the public press, or 
 his works offered for sale at the booksellers' stalls. 
 He found his happiness in the refined enjoyments 
 of his interesting and cultivated family circle, and 
 in the society of his many friends, who were 
 attracted by the varied charms of his home, and 
 his own most remarkably genial and generous na- 
 ture. 
 
 He was little solicitous in regard to the injury 
 to his literary reputation, but he felt keenly the 
 imputation upon his honor. And yet he was most 
 
IV. 
 
 reluctant to appear before the public to vindicate 
 his claim to the authorship of the Poem. His 
 delicate, sensitive nature shrank from the contro- 
 versy, and all the more so as it must be waged ftot 
 only with a lady, but with one who had already 
 gained an enviabte reputation by her poetic efforts. 
 With the most ample materials within his reach for 
 the perfect vindication of his claim, he was reluc- 
 tant to enter the arena and make the necessary 
 exposure. 
 
 But the course to be pursued in the premises 
 was not left entirely to the decision of Mr. Ball. 
 His friends, having not only the most perfect con- 
 fidence ill his integrity, but knowing also that there 
 was the most abundant and conclusive evidence to 
 establish his claim to the authorship, determined 
 that it should be vindicated. 
 
 Fortunately that labor of love fell into the 
 hands of the Hon. O. A. Morse, of Clierry Valley. 
 Both his cultivation and his tastes peculiarly fitted 
 him for the work. The evidences of liis cultivated, 
 poetic nature, and of his large legal experience 
 abound throughout the pamphlet. It is classical, 
 logical, and overwhelmingly conclusive and unan- 
 swerable. 
 
 This vindication appeared in the Spring of 1867, 
 with an introduction by Mr. liuther R. Marsh, 
 of New York, a gentleman whose tastes and studies 
 were similar to those of Mr. Morse. While it 
 brought out a number of light and flippant arti- 
 cles from the friends of Mrs. Akers, which appeared 
 from time to time in the papers, no serious attempt 
 
1 
 
 was made to answei- it, still less to contradict the 
 facts therein so fully established. 
 
 But in the following Summer Mrs. Akers felt 
 constrained to write the most unfortunate letter of 
 her life, found on the third and fourth pages of the 
 Second Article ; and this elicited from Mr. Ball the 
 two letters which follow it. 
 
 No further reply has ever been received from 
 Mrs. Akers. No suit has ever been commenced 
 against Mr. Ball or Mr. Dodd to settle the question 
 on proper evidence before a legal tribunal. Mrs. 
 Akers has never since been heard from either by a 
 reply to the letters, by suit, or in the public prints. 
 
 In the minds of all unprejudiced persons, ^hese 
 facts will forever settle the question of authorship. 
 
 But to make the vindication complete before the 
 world, it was necessary that the additional testimo- 
 ny, especially the letter of the Hon. Goo. W. 
 Wright and the above mentioned correspondence, 
 should be made public. 
 
 Another friend of Mr. Ball not only volunteered 
 his services, but begged the privilege of writing a 
 reply to what had been pnblished in behalf of Mrs. 
 Akers and of producing the new proofs, t'jgethcr 
 with the correspondence between her and Mr. 
 Ball. 
 
 This article appeared in the number of the 
 Northern Monthly for the month of March, 
 1868. It was exhaustive and unanswerable. 
 Two years have since elapsed, and no reply has 
 
been attempted. "Whoever reads the article will 
 need no assurances that none ever will be. 
 
 Nothing therefore remains to be done but to per- 
 petuate the evidence of this vindication — to put 
 these articles in a permanent form, and within 
 reach of all who in future years may take an inter- 
 est in the question at issue. 
 
 As one of Mi'. Ball's many friends and admirers 
 — as one who admires him both as a poet and as 
 a man, I have, without his knowledge or request, 
 assumed to myself this humble duty. It is a feeble 
 tribute which I gratetully and with pleasure pay 
 to his refined poetic tastes — his honor as a gentle- 
 man, and his integrity as a man. 
 
 E. W. LEAVENWORTH. 
 Syracuse, March 1st, 1870. 
 
Who Wrote 
 
 ROCK ME TO SLEEP ? 
 

 
 VINDICATION 
 
 or THE 
 
 CLAIM OF ALEXANDER M. W. BALL, 
 
 » 
 
 OF ELIZABETH, N. J., 
 
 TO 
 
 THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE POEM, 
 
 Uptt me to 5l«p, iftotter. 
 
 By 0. A. ^MORSE, 
 
 0/ Cherry Valley, N. T. 
 
 WITH AN INTBODUCTOEY NOTE FROM 
 LUTHER R. MARSH. 
 
 New York : 
 
 M. W. DODD, 506 BROADWAY. 
 
 1867. 
 
Entered according to Act of CongreBS In the year 1867, 
 
 By M. W. DoDD, 
 
 In the Clerk's Office of the Bistrict Court of the United States, 
 
 for the Southern District of New Tork. 
 
INTRODUCTORY NOTE, 
 
 New York, February 15, 1867. 
 
 My dear Sir : 
 
 I do not yet see, in print, the article which 
 you permitted me to read in manuscript, vin- 
 dicating the claim of our friend Mr. Ball, 
 to the authorship of the poem, which has 
 found lodgment in the public favor, "Rock 
 me to sleep." I hope the friendship which 
 caused you to write it will not cool, ere you 
 consummate the defense by giving it to type. 
 So many emulous pens claim the lines, and 
 one especially asserts with such earnestness, 
 and help of publishers, its right to appro- 
 priate them, that the real author is in danger 
 of losing his offspring ; and, soon, nothing 
 short of a writ of Tiabeas corpus and judg- 
 ment thereon, will restore to the father the 
 
custody of his own child. Indeed already, 
 he stands in an equivocal position in the 
 estimation of those who are unacquainted 
 with him, and who are less familiar with the 
 facts than we are. Through the zeal of his 
 friends, his claim to the poem has acquired 
 such publicity, that he is now driven to the 
 alternative of defending his right, or here- 
 after remaining clouded with the suspicion 
 of having put forth unfounded pretensions. 
 A man's duty to himself and family sometimes 
 calls on him to wage a contest he would else 
 shrink from and abandon. These considera- 
 tions, in a great measure, have been overcome 
 in him, by a chivalric forbearance towards 
 his chief contestant, and she would have 
 walked, mistress, over the field, had not you, 
 whose leisure permitted, whose tendencies 
 are in the way of such an investigation, and 
 whose character gives voucher for every 
 statement of fact, undertaken of your own 
 accord, unsolicited by him, the arranging of 
 some of the prominent proofs in his behalf. 
 As I remember your article, there were 
 
some classes of evidence which you did not 
 deem it necessary to invoke, such as the 
 domestic testimonies — the absolute declara- 
 tions of wife and children as to dates and 
 facts — and other cumulative proof; but 
 enough was presented, I thought, to settle the 
 question of authorship, and to illustrate a 
 very curious phenomenon in literature. 
 Cordially Yours, 
 
 LuTHEK E. Marsh. 
 
 Hon. Oliver A. Morse, 
 Cherry Valley. 
 
VINDICATION. 
 
 Many lovers of lyric poetry, for a few years 
 past, liave been delighted with a poem, which is 
 really a fragment of a poem, whose burden is 
 " Rock me to sleep, mother." This fragment has 
 been floating in the newspapers under the nom de 
 plume of Florence Percy, and likewise has been 
 published as a song set to music. The power and 
 tenderness of feeling evinced in it, the harmo- 
 niousness and elegance of its versification, and 
 the deep sweet flow of its sentiment render it 
 popular and admired by all classes of readers. 
 The whole poem may be ranked among the gems 
 of American literature, nor is it perhaps too. much 
 to say, that as a plaintive refrain of filial love, it 
 is not surpassed in our language. The lines of 
 Cowper to his mother's picture awaken the same 
 emotions, but in a less degree than these exquisite 
 
8 
 
 verses, and certainly are inferior to them, as a 
 longing and a cry that cannot be suppressed, for 
 converse with the spirit of a beloved departed 
 mother. It may be a question, whether in Cow- 
 per's day, the spiritual atmosphere of England 
 was not such, as to render impossible, even to the 
 most refined and acute souls, any such vivid recog- 
 nition and perception of beloved beings in the 
 other world, as is manifested in these lines. 
 
 A controversy has arisen respecting the author- 
 ship of this production, which promises to make 
 a curious item in literary history. The six verses 
 of the poem which have been in the newspapers 
 and set to music, are claimed by various persons, 
 and on the 13th of June 1865, a note, of which 
 the following is a copy, was published in the New 
 York Evening Post : 
 
 LITEEARY MISAPPEOPRIATION. 
 
 To the Editor of the Evening Post. 
 
 Please allow me sufficient space in your columns for 
 a few words concerning a little poem entitled, " Rock me 
 to sleep," which unwisely enough, as it has proved, I wrote 
 and published five years ago, the authorship of which, 
 by some queer freak of taste, has been repeatedly claimed 
 
by eight or ten persons, not one of wtom ever saw the 
 poem until it appeared in print. 
 
 I am certainly one of the last individuals in the world 
 to take the humiliating position of contending in public 
 or otherwise, for a matter of literary credit; .and so long 
 as this question was merely that of ability to write the 
 poem in dispute it was simply amusing to me. 
 
 But when it assumes, as it has latterly done, the attitude 
 of a slander, liable to set me wrong in the opinion of 
 many whose regard is dearer to me than any newspaper 
 praise could be. When I hear myself good naturedly 
 designated in society, as the lady who pretends to have 
 written, etc., it is high time to state the facts. 
 
 I certainly wrote the song in question, and sent it from 
 Italy in May, 1860, to the Philadelphia Saturday Even- 
 ing Post, in which it immediately appeared, with the 
 signature of " Florence Percy," a name which I mis- 
 takenly adopted when a school girl. 
 
 I remember laughing heartily at an enthusiastic friend 
 of mine, who, reading for the hundredth time, as only he 
 could read, Bulwer's sweet little lyric commencing 
 
 " When stars are in the quiet skies, 
 " Then most I pine for thee : 
 
 "Bend on me then thy tender eyes, 
 " As stars look on the sea " 
 
 remarked gravely, " I wish I had written that song ; " and 
 he continued, holding the book at arm's length, and look- 
 ing at the print with loving eyes, " I believe I should 
 have done it if Bulwer had let it alone." 
 
 Accepting this as a probability, I can but regret that 
 I wrote the unhappy poem, herein designated, believing 
 2 
 
10 
 
 as I must believe tiat every one of its claimants 
 would have written it in due time, and doubtless more 
 perfectly if " I had let it alone." 
 
 Very respectfully, 
 
 Elizabeth A. C. Akers. 
 Washington City, D. C, June, 1865. 
 
 In a volume of poems published for Mrs. Akers 
 by Messrs. Ticknor and Fields, in 1866, these six 
 verses are included. Consequent on the publica- 
 tion of this card, and this volume, remarks and 
 insinuations have been made, both in public prints 
 and in private circles, respecting the author of 
 the whole poem of such a character, as to demand 
 some response from him or his friends. The 
 writer of these pages is one of those friends, and 
 while he does not profess any special qualifi- 
 cation for his volunteered championship, he does 
 profess to be actuated by an honest intention that 
 the truth shall be made plain. The whole poem, 
 of fifteen verses, of eight lines each, was written 
 by Alexander M. W. Ball, of Elizabeth, New 
 Jersey, in the latter part of the year 1866, and the 
 early part of the year 1857. It is as follows, and 
 as a whole has never before been in print. 
 
11 
 
 KOCK ME TO SLEEP, MOTHEK. 
 
 I. 
 
 Backward, flow backward, oh full tide of years, 
 
 I am so weary of toils and of tears — 
 
 Toil without recompense — tears all in vain. 
 
 Take them, and give me my childhood again. 
 
 I have grown weary of dust and decay — 
 
 Weary of flinging my heart's wealth away : 
 
 Weary of sowing for others to reap, 
 
 Kock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep. 
 
 II. 
 
 Hushed be my sighing, I see through the mist 
 Loved ones that cheer me, and silently list : 
 Hark ! tis the hymning of angelic song, 
 Joyfully leading my sad heart along, 
 
12 
 
 Treading the grass that now weeps on your grave, 
 Let me in spirit your sweet presence crave : 
 This will now cheer me, no more will I weep, 
 Bock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep. 
 
 III. 
 
 Clouded and sabled, there come with my age 
 Eecords of sadness, to soil the fair page. 
 Footprints of sorrow to blot it all o'er, 
 Thinking of those on the echoless shore. 
 Only, I see you look down on me now, 
 While humbly kneeling, at his cross I bow : 
 Come then and dry up the tears I must weep, 
 Bock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep. 
 
 IV. 
 
 As stars in the day are concealed by the light. 
 And darkness unveils them alone to the sight. 
 So sleeping I see you, unseen when awake, 
 And welcome thrice welcome is sleep for your sake ; 
 
13 
 
 Soft are my slumbers, a glory of beams, 
 Announcing your coming, illumines my dreams : 
 Visit me nightly, and when I would weep. 
 Rock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep. 
 
 Backward, turn backward, then time in your flight, 
 Make me a child again just for to-night. 
 Mother, come back from the echoless shore. 
 Take me again to your heart as of yore. 
 Kiss from my forehead the furrows of care. 
 Smooth the few silver threads out of my hair j 
 Over my slumbers your loving watch keep. 
 Rock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Over my heart in bright days that are flown. 
 No love like mother love ever has shone. 
 No other worship abides and endures, 
 Faithful, unselfish, and patient like yours ; 
 
14 
 
 None like a mother can charm away pain 
 From the sick soul and the world weary brain, 
 Slumber's soft calms o'er my heavy lids creep, 
 Rock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Tired of the hollow, the base, the untrue. 
 Mother, dear mother, my heart calls for you, 
 Many a summer the grass has grown green. 
 Blossomed and faded our faces between. 
 Yet with strong yearning and passionate pain, 
 Long I to-night for your presence again; 
 Come from the silence, so long and so deep, 
 Rock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Mother, dear mother, the days have been long, 
 Since I last hushed to your lullaby song; 
 Sing it, and unto my soul it shall seem. 
 Manhood's long years have been only a dream. 
 
15 
 
 Clasped to your heart, in a loving embrace, 
 With your light lashes just sweeping my face : 
 Never hereafter to sigh or to weep, 
 Rock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Come, let your brown hair, just lighted with gold 
 Fall on your shoulders again as of old — 
 Let it fall over my forehead to-night. 
 Shading my faint eyes away from the light : 
 For with its sunny-edged shadows once more 
 Fondly will throng the sweet visions of yore. 
 Lovingly, softly, its charmed billows sweep — 
 Rock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep. 
 
 Angelic mother, now tenderly smile, 
 While the fond seraphs my soul shall beguile ; 
 Shed o'er my pathway the spirit world's light 
 To guide and to cheer me, all through the night. 
 
16 
 
 I have grown weary of life's changing tide, 
 Weary of striving my great sins to hide ; 
 Weary of climbing life's hill side so steep — 
 Rock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep. 
 
 XI. 
 
 Tired of earth's mockery, and the world's strife, 
 Tired of the penances paid for this life — 
 Growing more weary of heartless display — 
 Weary of world's night, I long for the day — 
 Let then your spirit encompass me now. 
 While on your bosom in silence I bow. 
 Tenderly watching my thoughts as they sweep, 
 Bock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep. 
 
 XII. 
 
 Thought cannot linger around the cold tomb. 
 Sweet spirit faces will break through its gloom, 
 And when I wipe the fresh tear drops away, 
 Clouds turn to brightness, and roseate day 
 
17 
 
 Breaks on my vision, then smiling again 
 Peace spreads her gentle wings softly to reign, 
 Voices celestial forbid me to weep, 
 Rock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Stilled are my tumults, I see in the sky 
 
 Loved ones whose splendors have drowned every sigh. 
 
 Faces familiar of friends here no more, 
 
 Fairer and fonder than ever before — 
 
 Glorified figures that stoop to caress, 
 
 Mighty to comfort, and mighty to bless — 
 
 Bright is the vision - — no more can I weep, 
 
 Bock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Bock me to sleep, mother, rock me to rest; 
 
 Calmed with your smiling the storm in my breast, 
 
 Stilled are the sorrows you come to allay ; 
 
 Teach me again as of old how to pray — 
 3 
 
18 
 
 Contentions witliout, contentions within, 
 Battlings with doubt, and temptation, and sin. 
 Ceased with your presence, I cannot now weep, 
 Rock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep. 
 
 XV. 
 
 Thus with my loved ones I'll watch by your side. 
 Nor weep once again, whatever betide. 
 Waiting all calmly the coming of those 
 Holding the signet of death's cold repose; — 
 Farewell to sorrow — farewell to all ill — 
 Whispers are stealing, sad heart be now still, — 
 With my dear mother, kind watch I will keep, 
 She charges the angels to rock me to sleep. 
 
19 
 
 The following verses are found in Mrs. Akers's 
 volume : 
 
 ROCK ME TO SLEEP. 
 
 Backward, turn backward, O time in your flight. 
 Make me a child again just for to-night ! 
 Mother, come back from the echoless shore. 
 Take me again to your heart as of yore ; 
 Kiss from my forehead the furrows of care, 
 Smooth the few silver threads out of my hair ; 
 Over my slumbers your loving watch keep ; 
 Rock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep ! 
 
 Backward, flow backward, O tide of the years ! 
 
 I am BO weary of toil and of tears, 
 
 Toil without recompense, tears all in vain. 
 
 Take them, and give me my childhood again ; 
 
 I have grown weary of dust and decay. 
 
 Weary of flinging my soul-wealth away ; 
 
 Weary of sowing for others to reap ; 
 
 Rock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep ! 
 
 Tired of the hollow, the base, the untrue, 
 Mother, O mother, my heart calls for you ! 
 Many a summer the grass has grown green, 
 Blossomed and faded, our faces between : 
 Tet, with strong yearning and passionate pain, 
 Long I to-night for your presence again. 
 Come from the silence so long and so deep ; 
 Rock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep ! 
 
20 
 
 Over my heart, in the days that are flown, 
 No love like mother-love ever has shone ; 
 No other worship ahides and endures. 
 Faithful, unselfish, and patient like yours : 
 None like a mother can charm away pain 
 From the sick soul and the world weary brain. 
 Slumber's soft calms o'er my heavy lids creep, 
 Rock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep ! 
 
 Come let your brown hair just lighted with gold, 
 Fall on your shoulders again as of old ; 
 Let it drop over my forehead to-night, 
 Shading my faint eyes away from the light ; 
 For with its sunny-edged shadows once more 
 Haply will throng the sweet visions of yore : 
 Lovingly, softly, its bright billows sweep ; 
 Rock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep ! 
 
 Mother, dear mother, the years have been long 
 Since I last listened your lullaby song ; 
 Sing, then, and unto my soul it shall seem 
 Womanhood's years have been only a dream. 
 Clasped to your heart in a loving embrace. 
 With your light lashes just sweeping my face, 
 Never hereafter to wake or to weep : 
 Rock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep ! 
 
 Mrs Akers is an authoress favorably known 
 to the public, whose writings have the imprimatur 
 of the press of Ticknor and Fields. Mr Ball is 
 a gentleman in private life, who has never pub- 
 lished a line, and is unknown as a poet, except 
 to his intimate friends. In the issue which is here 
 
21 
 
 made between them, the lady therefore has the 
 advantage in the fact, that before the public the 
 presumption would be in her favor. Her pub- 
 lishers intimate that they rest her case on that 
 ground ; but whether they shall continue to do so 
 will be a matter of more moment to her than to 
 Mr Ball. The controversy has been forced on 
 Mr Ball, or rather on his friends, for he has not 
 even yet been willing to take much part in it. 
 Several persons, who long have been familiar 
 with the whole poem, as written by him, when 
 they saw the authorship claimed by and accorded 
 to another, on their own responsibility and with- 
 out his knowledge, asserted in the newspapers 
 that he was the veritable author. Although he 
 was not known as a poet, his personal and social 
 standing gave circulation, and more or less credit 
 to this statement, and to his regret and chagrin 
 he has found himself the subject of remark in 
 the newspapers, sometimes of a most unpleasant 
 character.* He would have been willing that 
 
 *For instance in these two extracts, the first seems to give 
 the name at which the slur towards the close of the latter is 
 pointed. 
 
 Frmn the N. Y. Evening Gazette, Dec 31, 1866. 
 The contest over the authorship of that singularly popular poem entitled 
 " Eock me to sleep, mother" is still vigorously prosecuted by Mr. A. M. 
 
22 
 
 Mrs. Akers or any one else, should have enjoyed 
 all the credit that could be had from the poem ; 
 but his friends feel, as Mrs. Akers's note expresses 
 it, that when the matter assumes the attitude of 
 a slander, it is high time the facts should be made 
 known. 
 
 The question has been asked, who is Mr. Ball 
 whose friends declare to be the author of one of 
 the most beautiful poems of the day ? If he has 
 written this, it is said, he could write other things 
 like it, and what else has he written? These 
 
 W. Ball, of Elizabetli. Dr. Eipley, literary editor of the Tribune, and Dr. 
 Colea, of Newark, anthor of Microcosm, who have interested themeelves 
 in the matter, both admit the Justice of Mr. Ball's claims. 
 
 From the N. Y. Evening Gazette, Jan 3, 1867. 
 
 LiTEEAEY LAECENIES. 
 There must he something in a literary reputation, or so many would not 
 be striving to attain it by all sorts of means. There is a class of scribblers 
 who wriggie themselves into momentary notoriety by puffery, and there is 
 another class who impudently demand attention by claiming the author- 
 ship of productions which they could not under any circumstances have 
 written. They generally fasten upon some striking poem which was pub- 
 lished anonymously, or whose writer's name has been separated from it 
 in its wanderings over land and sea, and make a manuscript copy, which 
 they read to their friends, who, of course, are ready afterwards to testify 
 that they saw the piece in manuscript, fresh from the brain of the author, 
 before it found its way in print, with other little fanciful additions which 
 they very houeatly believe. Some of the most famous lyrics in the lan- 
 guage have had their paternity disputed in this way. Among others, 
 "Wolfe's Burial of Sir John Moore, which a number of imaginative fielts 
 endeavored to father upon themselves, and Campbell's Exile of Erin, 
 which it is now pretended that he stole bodily, we believe from the tradi- 
 tionary exile himself, McCann, if that was his name. They are very active 
 here, and at this time — these barefaced purloiners of reputation — snap- 
 ping up any little waif that may come under their observation. Every- 
 
23 
 
 would seem reasonable queries, and they shall be 
 fully answered. 
 
 The natural division of the inquiry would be, 
 first, could Mr. Ball have written the poem, that 
 is, has he the ability to write it ; and second, did 
 he write it, and if so, when did he write it. Both 
 of these points will be fully considered and illus- 
 trated, but in the inverse order in which they 
 are stated. 
 
 In her note to the Evening Post, Mrs. Akers 
 
 body rememberB tlie young person of the softer sex, a Miss Peck, if we 
 recall her name correctly, who said that Hwaj she, and not Mr. William 
 Allan Batter, 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 venti- 
 lated a few months since in the Bound Table, the thing in dispute then 
 being a copy of verses entitled The Zong 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 forjustice, which they richly deserved in the nearest literary pillory. 
 A third instance concerned the plaintive little lyric Bock me to sleep, 
 •mother, which was written by Florence Percy, otherwise Mrs Akers, 
 formerly the widow of a sculptor of that name and now we believe a Mrs. 
 Perry of somewhere in Virginia. 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 fact proves nothing to those 
 who dispute her claims in behalf of themselves or others, but it settles the 
 question as regards the general reader who has no interest in it beyond 
 what he derives from the poetry. If an author of reputation says that he 
 or she wrote such or such a poem, his or her word ought to end all contro- 
 versy, particularly such controversies as are waged by persons of whom no 
 on^ ever heard before or cares to hear again. It is time, it is more than 
 time, that these cases of literary larceny were punished, for if allowed to 
 flourish much longer unchecked no man can feel that his poem or his purse 
 is safe. For he who begins by putting his name to a poem that he did 
 not write may end by putting the name of another to one that he did, and 
 find himself some fine morning in prison for forgery. 
 
24 
 
 has made ttie exact issue between herself and all 
 other claimants. Writing in June, 1865, she says 
 she wrote and published the poem five years ago, 
 and that not one of its claimants ever saw it till 
 it appeared in print. So far then as she is con- 
 cerned, the question will be settled, if the exist- 
 ence of the poem prior to 1860, can be estabhshed. 
 
 Mr. Ball wrote, or made the draft of the whole 
 poem, except one verse, in the latter part of the 
 year 1856. In February, 1857, he sailed for Cali- 
 fornia, and on the steamers, "on both oceans, he 
 corrected and polished it, and added one verse. 
 The following letters and facts are given as evi- 
 dence of the truth of this statement. 
 
 The letters bear internal evidence of their au- 
 thenticity, and will commend themselves to any 
 intelligent reader as genuine and truthful. Some 
 of the writers are ladies, and their names are not 
 printed, as it is not anticipated that either the 
 genuineness of the letters, or the good faith or 
 intelligence of the vsTiters will be questioned. 
 But the names can be given, and the letters more 
 fully authenticated, should there be any question 
 about either. 
 
25 
 
 Postscript of a Letter to Mr. Ball, Dated 
 Brooklyn, April 7, 1858. 
 
 P. S. — Will you please send me by the doctor, the 
 lines on the fly leaf of the book which I presented to you, 
 and also the other poem, which you read to me when I 
 saw you last, entitled, " Rock me to sleep, mother.'' 
 
 New York, July 10, 1866. 
 My Dear Mr. Ball : 
 
 In reply to your inquiry whether I remembered a cer- 
 tain visit to your house in Newark and the reading by 
 you of " Rock me to sleep, mother," I have to say 
 that my recollection is most vivid of the whole afiair. A 
 
 projected visit by myself and Mrs. was carried into 
 
 execution. Upon our arriving, we found that Mrs. Ball 
 had gone to Leroy to place her daughter at school, but at 
 your urgent request we remained till her return. 
 
 It was before her return that one evening you read the 
 disputed poem, and so distinct is my recollection of the 
 circumstances, that the room and the positions occupied by 
 all of us, are before me. It was a manuscript written upon 
 note paper. That the authorship had been questioned I 
 did not know until a paragraph in the Evening Post in 
 this city announced that you were at last believed to be 
 the rightful claimant. 
 
 I involuntarily remarked that I could have settled that 
 long ago, for I had so many years since heard it from 
 your own manuscript. That you should have been ques- 
 4 
 
26 
 
 tioned in the matter is only additional proof of your too 
 great modesty, which has thus far prevented many beau- 
 tiful things you have written being published and thus 
 establishing at once the authorship of what your many 
 friends may justly be proud. 
 
 I am yours, truly, 
 
 I. E. S. 
 
 Ithaca, June 27, 1865. 
 My dear Mr. Ball : 
 
 What I particularly intended to say when I commenced 
 this sheet was, that I saw recently in the .N'. Y. Evening 
 Post, a card from Mrs. Akers, in which she claims to have 
 written and published in 1860, the poem " Rock me to 
 sleep, mother." Now in the winter of 1856 or 1857, you 
 read to me one evening in your study, your poem of 
 " Rock me to sleep, mother." One verse of which com- 
 mencing "Backward, flow backward," was at the time the 
 subject of my criticism. You can fix the exact time by 
 ascertaining which winter it was, that Mrs. Ball took 
 Maria to Dr. Cox's, and placed her in the school in Leroy. 
 
 Had you acceded to the reiterated wishes of those of 
 your friends whom you honored Wth the reading of some 
 of your poetical effusions, to publish them, or at least give 
 us copies of them, Mrs. Akers and some half score other 
 ladies, would have been less bold in claiming the mater- 
 nity of the poem in question. * * * 
 Very sincerely your friend, 
 L. P. 
 
27 
 
 A bill now before the writer rendered by the 
 Principal of the Leroy school, at the beginning 
 of Mr. Ball's daughter's first term, fixes the date 
 called for by the writers of the above letters in 
 February, 1857. 
 
 In fact, the draft of the poem was read to these 
 two ladies at that time, just prior tO Mr. Ball's 
 saihng for CaUfornia. 
 
 Albany, October 26, 1866. 
 My dear Mr. Ball : 
 
 In reference to that beautiful poem, " Rock me to sleep, 
 mother," I am sorry that I cannot remember the exact 
 date when I first heard it. I distinctly remember your 
 reading it to me, and I know it was either in the year 
 1857 or 1858. I have heard it sung, and highly praised, 
 and was happy to say, that I had the pleasure of knowing 
 the author. ***** 
 
 Your friend, 
 
 H. D. E. 
 
 8 Pine St., New York, Oat. 25, 1866. 
 Dear Sir : 
 
 Relative to the controversy in re the authorship of 
 " Rock nle to sleep, mother." 
 
28 
 
 Sometime during the autumn of 1859, I ttink in the 
 month of September, I called on business at your house 
 in Newark. Mrs. Ball was absent — in Cherry Valley, 
 I believe — at the time. 
 
 In course of our conversation, you said you had been 
 writing a satirical poem, which — as I knew some of the 
 parties — you read to me ; and during the interview you 
 also took from your desk other productions, among them 
 that which you have read to me to day, bearing the 
 above title. 
 
 I am able to fix the date by that of the paper which 
 
 was the subject of our interview, and which I now have 
 
 before me. 
 
 Yours respectfully, 
 
 J. Burrows Hyde. 
 
 To A. M. W. Ball, Esq., 
 Elizabeth, N. J. 
 
 Newark, N. J., Jan. 11, 1867. 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 In reply to your inquiry as to my recollection of your 
 reading to me " Rock me to sleep, mother" (and which 
 you have just now reread to me), I would say, that 
 during the summer of 1857, I called on you at your 
 house to ascertain where you purchased a set of damask 
 window curtains, as I wanted to procure the same kind. 
 During my visit you read me that poem with others. I 
 was particularly struck with this one, as I had known 
 your mother, and remarked on the justness of the senti- 
 ment referring to her. I am confirmed in my recollection 
 
29 
 
 of tte time, by finding tliat the curtains I purchased on 
 your recommendation were charged to me in September 
 of that, year, and it took some time to procure them. 
 My wife, to whom I have spoken on the subject, recol- 
 lects the occasion as I do. I remember saying to you at 
 your house, when you read me the poetry referred to, 
 that if you had not published you ought to do so, and 
 that as we were old friends, if you did not publish, and 
 would make me your literary executor, I would see that 
 the gift God had given you should be known hereafter 
 if I outlived you. 
 
 I am. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 • Lewis C. Cteover. 
 
 A. M. W. Ball, Esq. 
 
 Some of these letters were procured by Mr. 
 Ball, and some voluntarily written to him, after 
 the recent discussion concerning the authorship 
 of the poem in the Post, Tribune, and other papers. 
 A large amount of other proof of a like nature, 
 could be given, and would be were there any 
 question that the point, the existence of the poem 
 prior to 1860, and as early as 1857, was not fully 
 established. Do not these letters settle that with 
 a certainty, to all intents, sujEcient to convict of 
 murder in any court in Christendom ? 
 
80 
 
 Evidence of Mr. Ball's authorship of an entirely 
 different character, hut equally conclusive, and 
 perhaps more interesting, is now offered. This 
 is found in the poem itself. It would seem 
 that no criticism or argument could be needed 
 to show that the same pen, the same inspiration 
 which wrote the nine verses, which are now 
 for the first time published, also vsTote the 
 other six. Mr. Ball's authorship as to the 
 nine is not questioned, and do not the whole 
 fifteen belong to the same one exquisite mosaic ? 
 "Where else does this sweet verse belong, the 
 first in the unpublished series, and does it no^ 
 speak for him more convincingly than any dates 
 and documents ? 
 
 Hushed be my sighing, I see thro' the miat, 
 Loved ones that cheer me, and silently list, 
 Hark ! 'tis the hymning of angelic song, 
 Joyfully leading my sad heart along. 
 Treading the grass that now weeps on your grave, 
 Let me in spirit your sweet presence crave ; 
 This will now cheer me, no more will I weep, 
 Kook me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep. 
 
31 
 
 Will it be said tliat this and its fellow unpub- 
 Habed verses, are merely interpolations in, and 
 imitations of Mrs. Akers and Messrs. Ticknor and 
 Field's original ? Let us tben scrutinize tbe next 
 in order of these parts, and see whether it be 
 indeed a counterfeit, or whether in everj word 
 and breath it is not full of truth and beauty, and 
 does not belong, by an obviousness higher than 
 any logic can prove, to this garland which a loving 
 son has placed on the grave of his mother. 
 
 Clouded and gabled there come with, my age, 
 Records of sadness to spil the fair page, 
 Footprints of sorrow to blot it all o'er, 
 Thinking of those on the echoless shore. 
 Only I see you look down on me now, 
 While humbly kneeling at his cross I bow ; 
 Come then, and dry up the tears I must weep, 
 Rock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep. 
 
 Who that can at all appreciate the beauty of 
 this poem, is not conscious and convinced as he 
 thus reads it, part by part, that it all came to one 
 Boul by one inspiration. The same sweet, tender 
 
32 
 
 minor strain of plaintiveness and pathos, is 
 breathed in every line and verse, from the half 
 passionate outburst of the " Backward, flow back- 
 ward," of the beginning, to the calm assured hope- 
 fulness of the end. To such a tribunal as from 
 the nature of this case it must alone be presented 
 before, it would seem that the most satisfactory 
 guide to the truth will thus be found in the poem 
 itself. Who that reads it all, as now first printed, 
 can fail to recognize it as one entire thing ? Mark 
 how necessarily and with what effect, the renewed 
 cry of "Backward, turn backward," on the open- 
 ing of the fifth verse, follows the pathetic rehearsal 
 of the experiences of life in the preceding verses, 
 and how the lament of a soul over its pains and 
 penances, in the eleventh, unpublished, verse, 
 harmonizes both in language and spirit with the 
 seventh, published, verse. Read again the last 
 verse, and see what a natural, simple, and har- 
 monious finale it is to the whole : 
 
 Thus with my loved ones, I'll watch by your side, 
 Nor weep once again whatever betide, 
 Waiting all calmly the coming of those, 
 Holding the signet of death's cold repose : 
 
33 
 
 Farewell to sorrow, farewell to all ill, 
 Whispers are stealing, sad heart be still ; 
 With my dear mother kind watch I will keep. 
 She charges the angels to rock me to sleep. 
 
 Whatever may be tlie relative merit of these 
 separate parts, are they not all in one strain, of 
 one style, with the same beauties and same defects, 
 running everywhere, though in a greater or less 
 measure. The repetitions may by some be con- 
 sidered a defect, but on the theory that the whole 
 had been lost by the author, the finder, if disposed 
 to appropriate it, would naturally publish only 
 those verses which did not so plainly repeat them- 
 selves, selecting what might seem the best. The 
 very fact then of this peculiarity, or defect, if it is 
 one, must be taken as proof that the whole is the 
 work of one mind. When the wise Hebrew king 
 was called on to judge in a case not wholly unlike 
 this, he distinguished the true parent from the 
 spurious, "by the readiness of the latter to see her 
 pretended offspring cut in twain ; and -vidll not the 
 public, guided by like wisdom, with the whole 
 poem, the full creation, the born child, before 
 them, pronounce that the verses published by 
 
34 
 
 Mrs. Akers, tliongli beautiful in themselves, are 
 disjecta membra, and that therefore she could not 
 have been the mother. 
 
 The following statement suggested by the 
 poem itself, will surely be deemed appropriate 
 and interesting. In the disputed verses it is said : 
 
 " Come let your brown hair just lighted with gold," 
 
 And again : 
 
 " Kiss from my forehead the furrows of care, 
 Smooth the few silver threads out of my hair." 
 
 Though there is a large license granted to poets, 
 particularly to professional poets, in such things, 
 yet certainly the case of either party here will be 
 helped, whose facts will accord with these ex- 
 pressions. This is a genuine poem, and came 
 from the soul of the writer, whoever that writer 
 was. It was not conceived, but felt. It did not 
 arise from the brain, or fancy, but from the 
 heart, or it would not find an answering chord in 
 so many hearts. Can an instance be found of a 
 poem of universal popularity, of this character, 
 which did not spring from living reality, from 
 the actual, not the ideal. Burns was a profes- 
 
35 
 
 eional poet, but HigMand Mary was a living 
 maid. The mass of enduring poetry, of the 
 plaintive cast, is a portraiture of the lives of the 
 writers. Knowing what the instinctive judgment 
 of most will be over the facts suggested by the 
 above striking hues, the writer of this article 
 states, that he has seen one of the ample tresses 
 of the hair of his friend's mother, and that it is 
 brown tinged vsith auburn, and that his friend's 
 forehead is furrowed, and the silver threads in 
 his hair not a few. As to the answering facts 
 in the case of the fair claimant to a part of the 
 lines, there is no evidence at hand, except so far 
 as regards herself personally, but that surely 
 must be considered satisfactory. Speaking as a 
 vridow, and it is understood that in the vicissi- 
 tudes of her life, she has not long since been in 
 that condition, she says (page 143 Mrs. Akers's 
 Poems) : 
 
 " Ah me ! the red is yet upon my cheek, 
 
 And in my veins life's vigorous currents play ; 
 Adown my hair there shines no warning streak, 
 And the sweet meeting which you paint to-day 
 Seems sadly far away. 
 
36 
 
 The next evidence properlybelongshere, though v 
 it would be more fairly appreciated, if read with 
 what hereafter appears on the general topic of 
 Mr. Ball's poetry. 
 
 Eor many years past, he has been in the habit 
 every year of writing for his family a Christmas 
 carol, and of reading it likewise to some of his 
 many friends and guests, who during the holidays 
 partake of the hospitality of his house. These 
 carols are hastily and carelessly written, for the 
 partial and uncritical few to whom they are read. 
 Like all his verses they are spontaneous and un- 
 studied, and express in the most unreserved man- 
 ner, the sentiments of tenderness and love for his 
 family, which seem to have peculiar power over 
 Mm at the Christmas festival. The bringing them 
 before the public gaze, is only permitted by the 
 consideration, that they may serve to protect for 
 his family, his honorable name, which is now so 
 strangely assailed. Sacred as they are, they must 
 yield to this still more sacred end. The writer 
 of these remarks, while a guest at Mr. Ball's house 
 this last Christmas, on hearing read the carol 
 written by him for that occasion, requested to see 
 some of the others, and was startled to find in 
 
37 
 
 them what he regarded as having a very import- 
 ant bearing on the question under consideration. 
 This evidence, thus accidentally discovered, must 
 impress any one in a way that mere dates and 
 certificates never can. In reading it, who will 
 not be led to exclaim, magna est Veritas ! It 
 consists of extracts, given below, from the carols 
 of 1852 to 1856 inclusive. But the reader is 
 especially desired to take notice, that these extracts 
 are not given as specimens of Mr. Ball's poetry. 
 They are offered, without any regard whatever 
 to their merit or demerit as poetry, simply to 
 show the invariable and inevitable quickening and 
 longing of his soul, at this season of the year, 
 after his beloved mother. It was about this time 
 in the year, December, that the draft of the poem 
 was made, and these extracts show, that at every 
 Christmas for years prior to the p6em, his love for 
 his mother found utterance through his poetical 
 facully, till at last, in the carol for 1856, it was 
 poured forth in the very language of the poem 
 itself. The readfer is again requested to bear in 
 mind the disclaimer, that these extracts are not 
 offered as specimens of his poetry. They are now 
 pubhshed, for the purpose just stated, unpolished 
 and unpruned, as they were first written for the 
 momentary pleasure of his own fireside. 
 
38 
 
 CHEISTMAS 1852. 
 
 Thro' the closed portals of the sky, 
 
 I see a ray descend, 
 That fills my heart with visions bright 
 
 Of Mother, brother, friend ! 
 And shall we in this sacred place. 
 
 Meet round the Christmas tree 
 Nor seek the absent loved ones gone. 
 
 Nor Mother thinfc of thee ! 
 
 No, no, sweet scented is the air. 
 
 We breathe this Christmas day. 
 But sweeter, purer from the past. 
 
 Comes this thy hallowed ray ; 
 And memory brightens while we weep, 
 
 And feel that thou art near, 
 Part of our sunshine comes from thee, 
 
 Tho' now no longer here. 
 
39 
 
 Thy memory rooted in our hearts, 
 
 Can never be effaced, 
 And with it now revive again, 
 
 Joys not to be erased. 
 Fond Mother ! while you now commune, 
 
 With him who followed you 
 So quickly to the spirit world, 
 
 Watch over us anew. 
 
 Time's reaper has not stopped to touch 
 
 Only the full blown rose. 
 But the sweet floweret felt his breath, 
 
 And sank in death's repose. 
 Dear Mother ! you have now with you, 
 
 Five of our little band, 
 How soon we all must follow on. 
 
 We dare not understand. 
 
 We feel thy happy spirit's breath. 
 Upon our cheek at night, 
 f And waking, strain our opening eyes. 
 To watch its morning flight. 
 
40 
 
 CHRISTMAS 1853. 
 
 Tien let us turn to days gone by, 
 
 Forgetting not another, 
 Whose face was brightest when we met, 
 
 It was our sainted mother. 
 
 She loved the day because it swelled 
 
 Her heart with pure emotion, 
 A household bound by silken ties, 
 
 And wrapped in love's devotion, 
 Made her more happy, and we caught 
 
 Our mother's gaze in gladness. 
 And from that fount of love there played, 
 
 A stream that drowned all sadness. 
 
 Fond Mother ! can you see us now ? 
 
 One only from the number, * 
 
 That made your pleasant household up. 
 
 In yonder grave doth slumber ; 
 
41 
 
 We mourn you both, and could we speak 
 Your spirits back to meet us, 
 
 'Twould be the happiest Christmas day 
 That ere on earth could greet us. 
 
 CHKISTMAS 1854. 
 
 First to the dead, we turn our humble lay. 
 
 To her that bore us would our spirits stray. 
 
 Dear Mother ! now remembering thee we meet, 
 
 At the old homestead, our good sire to greet. 
 
 Thy gentle face, still smUing on the wall. 
 
 Endears that homestead, shedding on us all, 
 
 A cheerful flush of many a blissful hour. 
 
 Ere death's alarum made us feel its power. 
 
 Sweet spirit land, where many loved ones wait. 
 
 To welcome those still here without thy gate ; 
 
 What joys exalt us when with raptured eye 
 
 Our thoughts exulting to thy regions fly, 
 6 
 
42 
 
 For hovering spirits from thy mansions teach, 
 
 A reuniting when yon sphere we reach ; 
 
 Our wandering thoughts will penetrate thy mist, 
 
 As to sweet tones of melody we list, — 
 
 But oh ! how dark, how drear, how lone Would seem 
 
 The brightest world of which we fondly dream, 
 
 If wandering lonely thro' its scenes we miss, 
 
 The father, mother, brother, wife of this ? 
 
 CHRISTMAS 1855. 
 
 I hear a gentle murmur come spreading from the spheres, 
 A hallowed mist surrounds me, a long loved form appears. 
 
 All wreathed in joys and blessings, she takes her vacant 
 
 place, 
 And smiles upon the household, with her seraphic grace ; 
 It is our sainted mother come, 
 
 
43 
 
 CHEISTMAS 1856. 
 
 And as time rolls us backward, we feel inclined to weep, 
 As the spirit of our mother comes, to rock our soula to 
 
 It raised my thoughts to heaven, and in converse with 
 
 them there, 
 I felt a joy unearthly, and lighter sat world's care ; 
 For it opened up the vista of an echoless dim shore, 
 
 Where my mother kindly greets me, as in good days of 
 yore. 
 
 No comment can add to the force of tMs testi- 
 mony. Mrs. Akers proclaims to the world that 
 she wrote and published the lines in 1860, and 
 that no one had read them till they appeared in 
 
44 
 
 print ; yet here we find some of the most striking 
 and characteristic of those lines, almost verbatim, 
 in a Christmas carol written by Mr. Ball in 1856. 
 In addition to this hard fact, which cannot be 
 gainsaid, these extracts answer a condition which 
 might be required of the author of this poem, 
 that, in his habitual thought, he should evince a 
 marked tenderness over the memory of his mother. 
 And who will not feel, as he sees written year 
 after year, in these unstudied verses, such constant 
 and unforgetting filial love, so remarkable in a 
 middle aged man, that they were the product of 
 a spirit which might be expected necessarily to 
 blossom in this beautiful poem ? 
 
 The next piece of evidence might be claimed 
 alone of itself to be conclusive on the whole 
 question. It is a part of the original draft of the 
 poem which fortunately has been found. It 
 bears the marks of an unpracticed and unprofes- 
 sional writer. It shows his groping and feeling 
 after words and phrases, his stumblings, failures 
 and successes, and instead of the draft, might 
 rather be called the material out of which the 
 draft was made. It needs no comment to show, 
 that it is in truth, the ultimate outline, rude and 
 
45 
 
 ragged of the beautifal poem. N'o one can look 
 at it in the original, and not be profoundly im- 
 pressed, that it is a genuine thing. l!fot a writer 
 on earth, and in sueh a matter many writers 
 would be infallible experts, on ■ inspecting this 
 document, would hesitate as to where the truth 
 lies. 
 
46 
 
 Here is presented a copy, so far as can be done in type, of 
 tliat part of the draft which has been preserved. 
 
 o 
 
 tide g g 
 
 Backward flow backward oh fligM of years g 9 
 
 III 
 
 s 3 
 
 toils 
 I am so weary of sighs and of tears 
 
 toils tears e i>> 
 
 Sighs without recompense, Hopes all in vain, a -S 
 
 o "g 
 
 give me my childhood -S s 
 
 Take them and make me a loved child again » m d 
 
 I have grown weary of dust and decay 8° j, ^ 1- m fc ^ 
 
 Weary of flinging my hearts wealth away § a ^ ss ^ m o 
 
 Weary of planting for others to reap g cj « o >^ m -^ 
 
 1° I ;^|| ^ 
 
 Rock me to sleep mother rock me to sleep °° a ■» 3 * -a -3 
 
 A^ri ' •9'e.3 S 03.2 2 El 
 
 sighing mist 
 
 "2 ? '^'^S g 
 
 Hushed be my soul for I see through the clouds g _m <» ^ S 
 
 rt ;9 rt O <!> 
 
 Jn^^i spirit world m <b 'S "^ ^ 
 
 A world of the In the silence I list "§ |3 ■§* § >> ^ 
 
 Joyful sound 
 A Paean of Joy comes floating along 
 
 Swelling to hymnings of angelic song 
 And swells to an anthem of heavenly song 
 
 grass that weeps o'er your grave 
 Forgetting the grave that holds your remains 
 
 far above in your presence Ifain would 1 lave 
 In the bright world above in your presence I lave 
 
 
 Henceforth this wiU calm me — I never will weep 
 
 I know now 
 For I know my dear mother wUl rock me to sleep 
 
47 
 
 fond halo 
 My minds eye is opened and visions of light 
 
 Steal silently found me till all is so tright 
 
 her her 
 
 I see you distinctly your eye beaming joy 
 
 And beckons me on'ward her peace to enjoy 
 
 the glad 
 Sweet is the vision, I hear her sweet song 
 
 In lullaby cheering my spirit along 
 
 To where the bright silver lined cloud always keep 
 
 The watch while my mother shall rock me to sleep 
 
 Backward turn backward old time in your flight 
 
 child 
 Make me a boy again — just for to night 
 
 Cease your 
 
 Mother come back to the echoless shore 
 
 Take me again to your heart as of yore 
 
 Help me to reach the echoless shore 
 
 foreliead the furrows of care 
 Kiss from my sad eyes the tears I have wept 
 
 the few silver threads out of my hair 
 Soothe me again as of yore when I slept 
 
 your 
 Over my slumber my loving watch keep 
 
 Rock me to sleep mother rock me to sleep 
 
 Over my Tiea/rt 
 Kind watch you have kept in days that are flown 
 
 No love like my mothers ever has shone 
 
48 
 
 No other loves worship abides and endures 
 
 Unselfish and patient and faithful like yours 
 
 pain 
 None like a mother can chase away grief 
 
 And cheer up the sorrowed |in 
 
 From the sick soul and world weary brain 
 
 Slumbers soft calm — on my heavy lids creep 
 
 Rock me to sleep mother, rock me to sleep 
 
 hollow 
 Tired of the vain world the base the untrue 
 
 Oh mother my h^art caUsfor yov, 
 Mother kind mother I now call to you 
 
 Many a summer the grass has grown green 
 
 Many a year your grave has grown green 
 
 Blossomed and faded our faces between 
 
 2 2^3 S- » a And blossomed with iiowers 
 
 fs' S''g § 3' g- Yet with a yearning and deep seated pain 
 
 ago 
 
 w 
 
 
 g 
 
 so p' 
 
 a' 
 
 
 o 
 
 1,013 
 
 8 
 
 
 CD 
 
 s ^ 
 
 1— I 
 
 
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 CO 
 
 
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 1 
 
 Go 
 
 o 
 
 
 
 g 
 
 o, 
 
 3- 
 
 
 w _ 
 
 c 
 
 
 b-g 
 
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 g" 
 
 ^1 
 
 p 
 
 s 
 
 P-1 
 
 SOUi 
 
 my heart 
 been but 
 
 1 
 
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 •^2 
 
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 p «■ 
 
 
 
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 II 
 
 p at 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 S g. !1 dS" o I Yet with strong yearning and passionate pain 
 
 ■^ M "^ a'^ Long I to night for your presence again 
 
 o ^ p g-5 
 
 ^ p ra » CO Come from the silence so long and so deep 
 
 S o <H- £ p Rock me to sleep mother, rock me to sleep 
 
 ^•§ i i p ro 
 
 cS '2.'* 2 B brown lighted 
 
 '^ & B S* Come let your hair just shadowed with gold 
 p p 
 
 B Ho 
 
 <5 1-1, ™ Fall on your shoulders again as of old 
 
 I " fall forehead 
 
 Let it drop over my vision to night 
 
 Shading my weak eyes away from the light 
 
49 
 
 For with its golden edged shadows once more 
 
 the 
 Fondly will throng sweet visions of yore 
 
 Lovingly softly its charmed billows sweep 
 
 Rock me to sleep mother, rock me to sleep. 
 
 When the authorship of the poem was ques- 
 tioned, Mr. Ball looked for and found the draft. 
 It was on two pieces of paper fastened hy a 
 wafer. In June last, the whole of the draft was 
 shown to the following gentlemen, who called at 
 Mr Ball's house, as a sort of committee to satisfy 
 themselves on the question. George W. Carleton, 
 the publisher in !N"ew York; Dr. A. E^. Dougherty, 
 of JSTewark ; the Eev. J. F. Pingry, of Elizabeth, 
 F. W. Foote, of Elizabeth; Dr. Lewis W. Oakley, 
 Surgeon General; Dr. Westcott, J. E. Weeks, 
 Silas Merchant, of Ifewark ; Mr. Gilder, editor 
 of the Newark Daily Advertiser; Mr. Potter, 
 editor of the Newark Commercial, and Mr. Ter- 
 hune, editor of the Washington Literary Union. 
 
 It was noticed by these gentlemen, that one 
 of these pieces of paper on which this draft was 
 written, and unfortunately the piece which has 
 been lost, was a tradesman's bill rendered to Mr. 
 
50 
 
 Ball in September, 1856. Of course this writ- 
 ing might have been made at any time on a bill 
 of an older date, but where so many bills are 
 presented and paid as in Mr. Ball's house, the 
 presumption is that this one was thus used by 
 him about the time of its presentation. At any 
 rate, this little item is not without force in con- 
 nection with the other evidence. 
 
 It is proper to remark here, that the gentlemen 
 just named, in June last investigated this whole 
 subject, from the original letters and papers 
 referred to in this statement, and that they are 
 ready to certify to the genuineness of these 
 documents, and, as would follow, to their con- 
 viction of the rightfulness of Mr. Ball's claim. 
 
 It may seem superfluous to discuss the question, 
 whether Mr. Ball could have written, that is, had 
 the ability to write the poem, after the demon- 
 stration which has been made that he did write 
 it. But in some of the newspapers, and doubt- 
 less in private circles where he is not known, 
 the question has been asked, what else has he 
 vsrritten worthy of this, that he should expect this 
 to be accorded to him ? It is said, he is unknown 
 as a poet, and he must authenticate his claim, by 
 
51 
 
 producing other poems of his up to the standard 
 of this one. His friends are willing the question 
 should be tried by this test, although, as must be 
 obvious to any one at all familiar with poetical 
 literature, it is a severe and not altogether a fair 
 one. How many poets have gained reputation, 
 and seeming immortality, from one or two pieces, 
 Gray, and Wolfe, and Heber, and Muhlenberg, and 
 Dr. Good, and Key, and "Woodworth, are familiar 
 instances in the number. Richard Henry Wilde, 
 of Georgia, has been ranked among the poets of 
 America, and the entire south have glorified over 
 him for near forty years, by reason of his one 
 little poem, of three stanzas, " My life is like 
 the Summer Rose." How many copies of 
 Motherwell's poems have been sold for the sake of 
 Jeanie Morrison. Is not John Sterling loved as 
 a poet by all who have ever read his few pages of 
 Hymns of a Hermit. Cases hke these will occur 
 to every reader. In spirit as in matter the law 
 is, that jewels shall ever be small and rare. 
 Indeed the same rule applies not only to the 
 minor, but to most of the greater poets. When 
 Wordsworth was ridiculed from one end of 
 England to the other, and in parliament, his 
 friends found their weapons of defense, in a few 
 
52 
 
 of Ms smaller pieces, like tlie Ode on Immortality, 
 and tlie River "Wye. How shorn would Tenny- 
 son laurels be without Locksley Hall and Ulysses ; 
 and is not old Homer himself almost exclusively 
 thumbed at the one page where we can weep over 
 the woes of Andromache. All the truly divine 
 inspired immortal lines that have yet been written, 
 could be recorded in a much smaller volume than 
 the multitude dream of. 
 
 The following farther illustration of this truth, 
 apt and close at hand, will certainly be pardoned. 
 The able critic of The Nation, in a recent friendly 
 notice of Mrs. Akers's volume says : 
 
 Better than by her pseudonym " Florence Percy," 
 or than by her own name, readers of late minor poetry 
 will recognize in Mrs. Akers a favorite verse writer when 
 we say that she is the author of the touching lines, 
 " Rock me to sleep." They deserve to be liked. It is 
 no wonder that they have been sung everywhere, for 
 they give sweet and unaffected expression to the senti- 
 ment of the purest tie between human hearts; they 
 present it as it exists, kinder and dearer than even the 
 reality, in the tender light of memory, and with all its 
 sweetness increased by contrast with the harsh experiences 
 of the world. We see no reason why the popularity of 
 such verses should not be very long continued. 
 
 But if Mr. Ball be tried even by this hard test, 
 who will say that his claim has not already been 
 
53 
 
 vindicated. Let any critic sliow wherein, as a 
 whole, the nine verses above for the first time 
 published, and to which there are no other claim- 
 ants, are inferior to the six other verses. But 
 not to let the c&se rest here, as it might, the fol- 
 lowing pieces are published. They were selected 
 by the writer of this article, after a not very 
 careful inspection of Mr. Ball's manuscripts. 
 They were written without any view to publica- 
 tion, and are published just as written, but are 
 they not based on the same pure metal that runs 
 through " Rock me to sleep," and have they not 
 its ring ? 
 
 MAKKIAGB ANNIVEKSARY — 1865. 
 
 My mind will wander back years three and twenty 
 In this soft gloom of an autumnal day ; 
 
 As memory gathering up her robes of plenty, 
 And mingling with my dreams, bears me away. 
 
-54 
 
 And like the dew fall, that so still is stealing, 
 Each thought will enter, till the picture's whole, 
 
 And in my heart a sweet unwonted feeling 
 
 Creeps up, and bathes each sense of my glad soul. 
 
 Into these silken folds of life intruding. 
 
 The past, and present, all are tinged with gold ; 
 
 The warm lights of remembrance still are brooding. 
 And from the future the black clouds are rolled. 
 
 And these sweet wand'ring thoughts like happy dreamings, 
 Show brightest wings whene'er I think of thee. 
 
 All thro' the secret chambers haply streaming. 
 They seek, but find no words to set them free. 
 
 This mystic charm, alone for me has keeping. 
 So near my heart is flitting night and day. 
 
 That in the fullness of its tranced creeping, 
 My soul is lightened while from you I stay. 
 
 But as life's sunbeams slant and shadows lengthen, 
 There are no shut wings of our youthful j oy ; 
 
 Life's flowers in their aroma seem to strengthen, 
 And in thy love is drowned all pain's alloy. 
 
55 
 
 And as matures life's richest robes of glory, 
 I look upon your brow, now streaked with grey, 
 
 To read again life's ever pleasant story, 
 As noiselessly each pleasing sense has play. 
 
 And as I wander thro' the groves of feeling. 
 From the faint lover to the grand-sire now. 
 
 Each record sweetly lends its gentle healing ; 
 No scentless flowers have ever decked thy brow. 
 
 These noiseless whispers, like a dream of beauty, 
 Have stilled the pulses when my heart would swell. 
 
 And cheered me on thro' life's unpleasant duty, 
 And taught the mind to echo — all is well. 
 
 Fond wife, this night, the same as our bright wedding. 
 Has that blest, tender, happy, heavenly hush. 
 
 That stole in on my soul with its bright shedding. 
 When our young hearts gave way to love's first flush. 
 
 The secret chambers of my life are freighted, 
 With the responses to my love you made ; 
 
 These three and twenty years I now have waited, 
 Nor find in you one reservation laid. 
 
56 
 
 WATCH OVER ME MOTHER. 
 
 While watcting the shadowy forms of the night. 
 The glass of remembrance reveals to my sight, 
 The loved ones of childhood that sank to their rest, 
 And now are enjoying the homes of the blest, 
 Each thought of them ever is fragrant with love, 
 A glorious host, in the heavens above. 
 As round me they circle, this prayer I begin, 
 Watch over me mother, and save me from sin. 
 
 When cares and tempations beset me each day, 
 The angelic crowd comes in lovely array ; 
 As these shadowy forms appear to my view. 
 The load of life lightens, I strive then anew, 
 Temptations forsake me, the sweet breath of prayer 
 In low distant murmur, is borne on the air, 
 My soul, in its transport, this prayer will begin, 
 Watch over me mother, and save me from sin. 
 
67 
 
 The doubting and fearing that torture the soul, 
 Are quenched by the tides of the blest as they roll, 
 And these gentle spirits, all pointing above, 
 Melodiously whisper, " Here Grod is our love." 
 And thought stealing upward is cheered while they smile. 
 Till all my soul's sorrow is healed for the while, 
 And from the heart's fountain, this prayer I begin, 
 Watch over me mother, and save me from sin. 
 
 Benignly they beckon me onward thro' life. 
 And lull all the fever, and anguish of strife. 
 My sad heart responding is cheered on again. 
 To battle temptation, and bear the world's pain. 
 These sanctified visions of loved ones will swell. 
 My bosom with rapture no mortal can tell — 
 The soul in its trusting, will try thus to win. 
 The watch of my mother to save me from sin.* 
 
 *Mr. Ball had not Been Emerson's lines : 
 
 " Close, above our heads, 
 " The potent plain of Daemon spreads, 
 " Stands to each human soul his own, 
 *' For watch, and ward, and furtherance ; 
 " Sometimes the airy synod bends, 
 " And the mighty choir descends, 
 " And the brains of men thence forth, 
 "In crowded and in still resorts, 
 " Teem with unwonted thoughts." 
 
68 
 
 LIFE IS BRIGHTEK. 
 
 Life is brighter, has grown brighter 
 
 Every year, 
 And the heart is ever lighter 
 
 Every year ; 
 And the pulses seem to strengthen, 
 While the pleasures ling'ring lengthen, 
 
 Every year. 
 
 Sweet the echo, as we listen, 
 
 Every year ; 
 While we read, the pages glisten 
 
 Every year. 
 Sound and sight make eaeh sense tingle 
 As the pleasures thickening mingle 
 
 Every year ; 
 
 And the new joys life is breeding 
 Every year. 
 
59 
 
 Come without our ever heeding, 
 
 Every year. 
 Life is now so full of glory 
 That I read its pleasant story 
 
 Every year, 
 
 Wondering when the frosts will gather 
 
 Every year, 
 Till the heart would seem to rather. 
 
 Every year, 
 Doubt, if Time had not forgotten 
 I had ever been begotten 
 
 Any year. 
 
 Charmed with life, and life's pure fountain 
 
 Every year, 
 That I dread less, grief's cold mountain. 
 
 Every year. 
 While the west is all a glowing 
 From love's fountain there is flowing 
 
 Every year, 
 
 Such a stream of pure devotion 
 Every year. 
 
60 
 
 That my heart bathes in this lotion. — 
 
 Every year, 
 Opens wide its secret locking 
 To these fond ones who are knocking 
 
 Every year, 
 
 That my soul, in one great wonder, 
 Hopes the tie may never sunder 
 
 Any year. 
 These kind friends will ever lighten 
 All my cares, the future brighten 
 Till the western sun is glowing. 
 And the roseate hue is flowing, 
 In such gorgeous mellow shading 
 That I know not — Life is fading 
 
 Every year. 
 
61 
 
 THE LOCK OP HAIR. 
 
 Laid away carefully, 
 From all other eyes, 
 
 Is a lock of brown hair 
 I lovingly prize. 
 
 Tis all that is left me, 
 
 I value it much. 
 It brings back the thrill 
 
 Of a passionate touch. 
 
 Long, long, in its silence 
 From other eyes hid. 
 
 Tied with a blue ribbon 
 It rests on the lid. 
 
 Of the box of sweet sandal 
 She brought home to me, 
 
 From over the ocean 
 And there it shall be. 
 
62 
 
 No eye must profane it ; 
 
 But this lock of hair, 
 Mutely responding, 
 
 Has pointed me where 
 
 Her soul has ascended 
 To sing with the just, 
 
 All gathered, but this, 
 Of the mortal to dust. 
 
 The lock I had severed 
 
 From her cold clammy brow, 
 Is all that is left me. 
 
 Of her to love now. 
 
 I loved her while living. 
 Now named with the dead, 
 
 I go treading gently 
 Her blossoming bed. 
 
 The jonquil and jasmine 
 G-row green on her grave. 
 
 The heart hush is heavy 
 Tho' broken, 'tis brave. 
 
63 
 
 And silently sweeping 
 The arc of the air, 
 
 Serenity settles 
 On all that is there. 
 
 GOOD NIGHT. 
 
 Sleep gently, darling one, so dear j 
 At your request, I sit me here, 
 Still ringing in my listening ear 
 Your sweet — good night. 
 
 Sleep on ; the gentle spirits wait 
 To open up the heavenly gate, 
 And welcome you to meet the fate 
 That bids — good night 
 
 To all of fear, and all of woe. 
 To all of pomp, and all of show — 
 Where tears are dried ere they can flow 
 To dim the sight. 
 
64 
 
 Sleep on ! I'll watch beside your bed, 
 And pillow soft your acting bread, 
 Removing from my heart, the dread 
 Of that good night, 
 
 Whispered so softly that it seemed 
 As if my brain had only dreamed 
 And on my vision there had gleamed 
 The words — good night. 
 
 Now wake again, beloved one ; 
 The night has passed, the morning sun* 
 Has put his sparkling jewels on, 
 And all is bright — 
 
 But cold upon that pillow lies 
 The mortal of the angel's prize. 
 And I hear, whispering from the skies, 
 Her soft — good night. 
 
65 
 
 These po6ms certainly show Mr. Ball's ability 
 to write the one in question, and that he did 
 write it, has been demonstrated by four distinct 
 lines of proof, each of which of itself establishes 
 the fact; first, the letters, proving that he read 
 the verses to his friends years before Mrs. Akers's 
 date ; second, the poem itself as a whole, illus- 
 trating by its internal evidence that it was all 
 the work of one mind, and ,of course Mr. 
 Ball's; third, the Christmas Carols, using the 
 very language of the poem nearly four years 
 before Mrs. Akers's claim; and fourth, the 
 original draft, settling the question with fatal 
 certainty. 
 
 This is the case, and it is seldom that in such a 
 matter one so strong and conclusive can be made. 
 It is a strange afiair, and Mrs. Akers's friends, 
 to whom she so feelingly alludes in her note, 
 will ask for a solution of the mystery. On the 
 one hand stands a woman of genius, the authoress 
 of many sweet and polished verses, which would 
 have given her a reputation without the aid of 
 the disputed poem (though critics pronounce 
 that the best in her book), and on the other side, 
 
66 
 
 stands a gentleman of high, social and personal 
 position, of fine native poetical gifts, but without 
 aspiration for literary fame, and careless to a 
 proverb both in vs^riting his verses, and what 
 becomes of them after written; both claiming 
 what, of course, one only can own. But is the 
 good name of the parties necessarily on trial, as 
 Mrs. Akers seems to imply in her note ? Ordi- 
 nary readers, the prosaic and hard judging, 
 would say yes, but is that necessarily so ? Are 
 not other laws to be applied here than in ordinary 
 cases of disputed meum and tuum? Mr. Ball 
 himself, with the most naive benevolence and 
 kindness of heart, asked the writer, whether, as 
 suggested to him by a distinguished literary 
 friend, there might not be some occult psycholo- 
 gical process by which Mrs. Akers could have 
 possessed herself, unconsciously, of these verses 
 from his mind or manuscript? In that unknown 
 region, where lie great future sciences, of which 
 clairvoyance, mesmerism and the like pheno- 
 mena give empyrical token, may there not be 
 such methods? In the common manifestations 
 of spiritualism, so called, there are things not less 
 strange than this, and indeed quite like it. A 
 mind which dwells so habitually in the ideal, 
 
67 
 
 as Mrs. Akers, around wMcli there is an atmo- 
 sphere where grows so profusely her sweet, sad 
 sick-room poetry, may surely, if any mind ever 
 can, be expected to acquire by some such abnor- 
 mal process. One of her most friendly critics, 
 above referred to, says of her, " she obviously 
 borrows thoughts and forms from other poets," 
 and may she not, with the same innocence, by a 
 farther reach of the same faculty or tendency, like- 
 wise borrow words, phrases and lines. 
 
 The experience of Christopher North, in the 
 light of certain facts about Mr. Ball's manuscripts, 
 offers another and kindred solution of the mys- 
 tery. Mr. Ball is very careless of his manuscript 
 poems. "When he travels he often carries them 
 in loose sheets of note paper in his pockets. They 
 lie scattered on his table. Formerly he had a 
 clerk, now deceased, who used to copy for himself 
 many of the verses. Mrs. Akers sojourned for a 
 while in ISTew Hampshire, and Mr. Ball's business 
 often carried him there, though they never met. 
 In a way here hinted at, or in some other, " Rock 
 me to sleep " or part of it perhaps was lost, got into 
 some country newspaper, and floated before the 
 eye, and into the memory, and poetical soul of 
 Mrs. Akers, before she went to Italy, and there, 
 
in Italy, by the alembic of ber genius, all ber nature 
 excited and transfigured by tbe glorious monu- 
 ments and associations around, tbe verses be- 
 came transmuted, and, having to ber lost their 
 identity, were reproduced from her memory. The 
 following apt and choice passage from the Nodes 
 Ambrosiance, shows how such things may bap- 
 pen with poets : 
 
 Registrar. You have a miraculous memory Sir. Is 
 it true that you have by heart all /Spenser's Faery Queen 1 
 
 North. As great a lie as ever was uttered. But thou- 
 sands and tens of thousands of small poems lie buried 
 alive in my mind : and when I am in a perfectly peace- 
 ful mood, there is a resurrection of the beautiful, like 
 flocks of flowers issuing out of the ground, at touch of 
 spring. I am in a perfectly peaceful mood now. And 
 since you like to hear me recite poetry, my dear Registrar, 
 I will murmur you a few stanzas, that must have com- 
 mitted themselves to my memory, for I feel assured that 
 I did not write them, yet I have no recollection of them — 
 mind that word — and perhaps they will take their flight 
 now, like a troop of doves that on a sudden are seen 
 wheeling in the sunshine, and then melt away from the 
 eye to be seen nevermore. 
 
 Tbe only difference between Christopher ITortb 
 and Mrs. Akers is, the one felt assured he did 
 not write the forgotten, yet memorized verses, 
 and the other that she did. 
 
69 
 
 It is suggested, in good faith and with perfect 
 kindness of feeling towards her, that the explana- 
 tion of the matter lies in some such direction as 
 above indicated. 
 
 " High omens ask diviner guess 
 Not to be conned to tediousness." * 
 
 But Mr. Ball is a man, a business man, with 
 but one side open to the infinite, and that only 
 occasionally ; and withal a member of the N"ew 
 Jersey legislature, and must be judged by com- 
 mon rules. Therefore this presentation of his 
 case has been made from a strictly mundane 
 point of view, sustained by facts, dates and docu- 
 ments. 
 
 It is understood that there have been other 
 claimants to the poem, Mrs. Akers says eight 
 
 * I made a comparison at table some time since, which has oiten been 
 quoted, and received many compliments. It was that of the mind of a bigot 
 to the pupil of the eye : the more light you pour on it, the more it con- 
 tracts. The simile is a very obvious, and, I suppose I may now say, a 
 happy one; for it hasjust been shown me that it occurs in a preface to cer- 
 tain Political Poems ol Thomas Moore's published Ion*; before my remark 
 was repeated. When a person of fair character for literary honesty uses 
 an image, such as another has employed before him, the presumption is. 
 that he has struck upon it independently, or unconsciously recalled it, 
 supposing it his own.— Autocrat of the Breakfast Table. 
 
70 
 
 or ten, but as they have not put their claims 
 before the public in print, they are not farther 
 noticed. Mr. Ball's case is here independently 
 stated, and in its harness he awaits all comers. 
 
lS-«>JUL *? 
 
 ^10 WROTE "ROCK ME TO SIEEP,. MOTHER," ? 
 
 Being a Disquisition upon Sundry Wiseakers, Book Merchants, 
 and Others, with a Dissection of the Same for the Public 
 Benefit. 
 
 *'"The lawless butterfly's piracy- 
 Shall dvaiii no longer- theic hcHiej»store»" 
 
 Aebrs. 
 
 Veet mucli the larger portion of the subjoined discussion has 
 already come before the public ; but as it relates to an interesting 
 as well as singular literary controyersy, it has appeared proper tO' 
 give it the greater permanence of these pages. 
 
 Iif the year 1804, the Rev. Jedidiah Morse,. D.D., of Boston, was 
 charged with having plagiarized from a celebrated New-England' 
 authoress. Her partisans made great noise in their savage assault, 
 and succeeded iiT nearly destroying the good man's name and proper- 
 ty. The lady persisted, with singular pertinacity,, in playing upon 
 the public sympathies, which were easily won for a woman, even as 
 against a clergyman, until time could be had for a careful inquisition, 
 when, not only was the charge completely disproved, but there was 
 uncovered, also, the astonishing fact that she had' herself taten from 
 others, verbatim, to the amount of one third of the yolume she claimed 
 for her^own ; whether legitimately, under the rules and practice of 
 historical composition, or not, we do not assume to say. Thereupon, 
 however, she became silent as to the issue with Dr. Morse. 
 
 A case, similar in many of its features, is now before the public 
 mind, in which Mrs. E. C. Akers AUep, of Virginia, disputes with Mr. 
 A. M.W. Ball, of New-Jersey, the authorship of a popular poem. And 
 while it would be absurd to insinuate that the rhan in this issue must 
 be right because the lady was silenced in the other, it would be 
 equally uncandid to lean toward the lady's claim because she con- 
 fronts a man. 
 
 If the matter could be dwarfed to a mere strife for the world's 
 honors, or even to a question of veracity between individuals, we 
 should sav. let them and their friends settle it in private, as best they 
 
2 WHO WEOTB " EOCK ME TO SLEEP, MOTHEK" ? 
 
 may. But the poem has been adopted as one of the common house- 
 hold treasures. It has won its way to a multitude of hearts, and thus 
 commands a general interest in the history of its making. The lite- 
 rary public are, for their own sake, beholden to a just settlement of 
 the claim. 
 
 A fraud which, unrebuked, may lead to endless imitations, demor- 
 alizing the sense of justice, the confidence of authors, and the com- 
 fort of readers, and throwing all the fine old art of criticism into con- 
 fusion, must be candidly scrutinized, and, in the name of common 
 sense, a verdict given in the only way in -which such things can be 
 adjudicated and stamped out. A New-Jersey legislator is a good 
 target for a fling, and the frailty of woman suggests an apt Shake- 
 spearean quotation; but jokes and justice rarely strike hands. Wit 
 may enjiven debate, but sense must cast the issue. Any adroit thief 
 may turn the joke On you before the gaping crowd; but you are 
 master of the situation when it comes to the evidence, before twelve 
 men, sworn and trusty. 
 
 Aside from graver motives, the curiosity of the general reader will 
 be amply repaid by a consideration of this caseas a phenomenon of 
 literature. The history of it is extraordinary, 
 
 Mrs. Akers's claim to the poem of six stanzas was asserted in June, 
 1865, when she said in a published letter, " I certainly wrote the song 
 in question, and sent it from Italy in May, 1860, to The Philadelphia 
 Saturday Evening Post/" and again, " which I wrote and published 
 five years ago." Subsequently she included this poem in her volume 
 of writings, published in 1866, by Ticknor & Fields. 
 
 On the part of Mr. Ball, it was asserted that he had, as early as 
 1856-7, written a poem of fifteen stanzas — these same six, with 
 slight discrepancies, included — with which his friends had been long 
 familiar through private recitations : a draft of it being made in 1856, 
 and the whole perfected in 1857, while he was on his way to Califor- 
 nia. His claim took public shape in a vindication written by Mr. O. 
 A. Morse, of Cherry Valley, and indorsed by Mr. Luther R. Marsh, 
 of New- York. So large a circle of friends had become conversant 
 with the issue, that, in the language of the latter : " In spite of his 
 chivalric forbearance toward his chief contestant, Mr. Ball was driven 
 to the alternative of defending his right, or hereafter remaining cloud- 
 ed with the suspicion of having put forth unfounded pretensions." 
 This vindication contained testimonies and evidences of the most posi- 
 tive kind. No sane man will imagine that these gentlemen who 
 produced it would recklessly peril their social standing as men of 
 honor, ability, and literary attainments, in the gratuitous defense of a 
 cause in which they had no confidence, or in cheating the public with 
 sham evidence. 
 
"WHO WEOTB "eOCK. ME TO SLEEP, MOTHER"? 3 
 
 The simplicity and dignity of this defense were worthy of all praise. 
 It was largely commended by the press as a pattern of the propriety 
 which should characterize all debates ; and, with the strong array of 
 evidence, must have had weight, if we may judge from the vindictive 
 character of the personal attacks which followed from chivalric cham- 
 pions, who had not an excuse in the provocation of a single harsh or 
 ungentlemanly -word. Concerning these champions and their vaga- 
 ries, we have something further, anon. 
 
 Not altogether satisfied with the blunderings of these, Mrs. Akers, 
 (now !Mrs. Allen,) with more energy than wisdom, enters the arena 
 in person, through the following letter : 
 
 MRS. AKERS TO MB. BALL. 
 
 Richmond, Va., Aug. — , 1867. 
 
 Mr. Alexander M. W. Bail, Elizabeth, N. J. : Sir : I have waited a long time 
 before addressing you, hoping that your conscience might forestall me in the sug 
 gestions which I am about to make ; but as you do not appear to appreciate my 
 forbearance, nothing remains but for me to speak a few plain words to you. Of the 
 utter falsity of the claim which you have made to the poem, " Rock Me to Sleep," 
 substantially as it appears in my recent volume, no two persons in the world can 
 be so well aware as you and myself. You know that it is not yours ; that you 
 never saw it until you saw it in print. I know that it is mine, and mine only. 
 Furthermore, you and I both know that your sin in this thing was not " involun- 
 tary " or " clairvoyant." I will not insult you by employing the sham, chivalric 
 sugar-coating which you offer me in your pamphlet. I have no " occult psycho- 
 logical " excuse for you. You have clearly proved, by parading before the world 
 your so-called " original draft " of the poem, that this claim of yours was a delib- 
 erately planned and coolly executed piece of villainy ; too serious^a crime, surely, 
 for the gain which you hoped thereby to achieve. But I will do you the possible 
 justice to say that, perhaps, you have not been fully aware of the gravity of your 
 offense against me, and the harm which it has done, and is capable of doing. 
 
 The theft of a literary production is the most mischievous of all thefts. Any 
 other loss of property or^'belonging may be suffered without a corresponding loss 
 of credit and good name. One may steal a man's money, or his clothing, or an in- 
 genious invention of his, without casting any sbadow on his reputation— the loser 
 has only the loss of his property to bear. But if one steal his published novel or 
 poem, the victim not only loses his own, but is thereby actually accused of theft 
 and falsehood himself, although he remains quite passive in the affair ; for, with 
 the great public, the silent party is always in the wrong. Here, then, is one phase 
 of the wrong yon have done me. So far as your influence reaches and convinces 
 so far as your published pamphlet is read and believed, I stand before the world 
 guilty of falsehood and theft, combined in the most humiliating and inexcusable 
 form ; since the crime is not a crime of necessity, nor of provocation, but of the 
 weakest and most pitiable vanity. And there is another phase of the wrong. It has 
 been said by or for you that you have not habitually published your poems, partly 
 because of your modesty, and partly because you have been so favored by fortune 
 as never to have been obliged to write for money, like a professional poet. The 
 question of modesty we will waive, for the present — modesty being an abstract 
 idea, of which, it latterly seems, different people have different conceptions. But 
 the question of money is readily appreciated by the majority of minds. 
 
4 WHO WEOTE " EOCK ME TO SLEEP, MOTHEE" ? 
 
 Happy is he whose worldly circumstances allow him to keep his talent " laid 
 up in a napkin" to te gloated over in secret. I admit, however, that I have been 
 less fortunate than yourself; that it has been necessary for me to place a money 
 value on my literary labor, and to receive payment therefor. Do you not see, then, 
 that in addition to this gross slander on my private character, this accusation of 
 dishonesty and falsehood, you have done me the serious injury of damaging, if not 
 ruining, my means of subsistence ? For what editor or publisher, convinced by 
 your pamphlet, would thereafter purchase my work ? Would not every one, of 
 course, utterly refuse to accept or pay for articles, which he believed might turn 
 out to be not only old, but stolen ? 
 
 I have this suggestion to make to you ; it is, that you promptly make to me 
 such apology and reparation as still lie in your power. It is, of course, too late to 
 expect you to do this from any motive of justice toward me ; for, had any feeling 
 of this kind been possible to you, this pamphlet would never have been written. 
 But, as matters stand, it will be your best course, in a merely selfish view ; for your 
 present ambiguous silence is not going to be the end of the matter. Hera is youi 
 pamphlet, scattered broadcast over the land, boldly claiming my literary property 
 as your own, and denouncing me as an impostor and assailer of character. Here 
 are newspaper articles, written or procured by your friends or yourself, accusing 
 me roundly of falsehood and theft in intent, utterly destroying my good name, both 
 literary and personal. Do you not see that this is what the books, call slander, 
 ^nd, as such, clearly actionable " in any court in Christendom " ? 
 
 Here, too, is not only evidence, but positive proof, that you have, before this 
 instance, appropriated literary property which was not yours, and that you have 
 lately been convicted of having so done. These facts are stubborn, and, taken with 
 others which I will not now enumerate, make a plain and strong case against you. 
 You have already seen the popular newspaper verdict against you. You could 
 hope for nothing different at the hands of the law. 
 
 I am not vindictive, and would not throw back upon you the mortification and 
 bitterness which you have inflicted upon me ; so I offer you this chance of avwding 
 further publicity in the matter. 
 
 I shall wait a reasonable time for yon to reply to this communication — a copy 
 of which I retain with the right of publishing it in full, with such explanation as 
 may seem proper, in case I do not receive a response from you. In that event, I 
 shall proceed to take such steps as may be deemed advisable toward a final clear- 
 ing up and settlement of this mischievous affair. Meanwhile I wait your pleasure, 
 assuring you that, even could you convince the whole world that you are wronged 
 and innocent, and I guilty in this matter, I would rather face the multitude brand- 
 ed as a liar and swindler, yet conscience free, than receive the gratulations of my 
 friends and the public, at the expense of the inner condemnation and self-contenj.pt 
 in which, sooner or later, you must surely suffer. 
 
 Elizabeth Akers Allen. 
 
 MR. BALL'S REPLY. 
 
 Elizabeth, Sept. 6, 1867. 
 Madam : I shall not be able, by reason of more pressing engagements, to reply 
 to your letter of last month quite so soon as I expected when I acknowledged its 
 receipt. I hope to find the recLuisite leisure at an early day. Meantime, lest you 
 should be impatient at the delay, I suggest an immediate commencement of the 
 suit which you therein announced your purpose to institute against me, for what, 
 you say, " the books call slander," in that I 'had denied your authorship of the 
 
WHO WROTE "bock MB TO SLEEP, JIOTHEe" ? 5 
 
 poem in question, and claimed it for my own. I am very glad you have determin- 
 ed to bring a suit, as it lias often occurred to me, since this controversy has become 
 a public one, th!a,t the most conclusive way to decide the ownership would be by a 
 j ury trial, where the testimony of the parties themselves, and of all persons havinsf 
 any knowledge bearing on the question, could be adduced. I cheerfully submit to 
 this tribunal to which you invite me. I had been in hopes that your publishers 
 would claim a violation of their copy-right, and commence an action accordingly, 
 which would enable edch of us to bring forward proofs. Not having done so, the 
 same end can be accomplished; and perhaps more directly, by your suit. Let me 
 hold you, therefore, to this menace and promise. By no means reconsider it. That 
 you may not be subjected to any inconvenience in commencing your shit, and pre- 
 suming you would prefer New- York, as a more convenient and conspicuous place 
 of trial than the county where I reside, (though you can select either place you 
 choose,) I have requested Messrs. Marsh, Coe & WalliS, attorneys, at No. 170 Broad- 
 way, New-York, to accept, for me, service of process ; to ptit in an appearance on 
 my behaif ; to throw no impediments in the way of a speedy trial ; but, on the 
 contrary, to afford every facility to such expedition. And in farther earnest of my 
 acceptance of this proposition, Sind my desire that. it shall be carried out, I propose 
 to save you any trouble in proving the utterahce and pubhcatiou of the words you 
 claim to be a " slander ;" repeating, as I do, here and now, with an unqualified ab- 
 soluteness, that you are not, and that you v6ry weU know that you are not the au- 
 thor of the poem published by you as your own, entitled, " Rock Me tO: Sleep, 
 Mother ;" but, on the contrary, that I am the author, and the sole author, of it, 
 and of each and every part of it, (except where you have made verbal changes to 
 make it tally with your condition, as by substituting " womanhood" for " manhood," 
 as it stood before ;) that I wrote the whole poem of fifteen verses as it stands in the 
 pamphlet of Mr. Morse, to which you refer, including the six verses you have 
 claimed and published as your own ; that I composed and wrote it in the latter part 
 of 1856 and the early part of 1857, and repeatedly read it to my friends at diferent 
 times in the years 1857-58-59, and long before th© period (1860) when, by your 
 letter to The Shemng Post, you claim to have written the six verses contained in 
 your book. This statement, Madam, is true, unqualifiedly true ; and I am ready 
 to and do avouch it before God and man, here and everywhere, now and always, 
 and in aU forms that can give solemnity to averment, and bind the soul for its 
 truth. I think it is capable of being sustained by infEtUible proof, if you will give 
 me the opportuiuity you threaten and I solicit. This letter is my stipulation that, 
 in the action you mention, when brought, I shall not controvert that this is my 
 claim and the truth, and that I so publish it to the world. Meanwhile, refraining 
 from the war of epithets to which you invite me, and with which your amiable let- 
 ter abounds, as not likely to illustrate the simple issue of fact between us ; with- 
 holding my pen from a counterblast (the easiest of all things) of charges of "falsi- 
 ty," " sin," " insult," " deliberately planned and coolly executed piece of villainy," 
 " crime," " offense," " theft," " stealing," " falsehood," " want of modesty," " gloat- 
 ing over in secret," " gross slander," " liar and swindler," " self-contempt," and 
 other such like choice and argumentative expressions, with which your commimi- 
 cation overflows, as from a fountain perpetually bubbling with similar material, 
 as not being the best mode of determining whether you or I wrote the disputed 
 lines ; not choosing to treat you with the coarseness which you, in common with 
 your champiohs, by using, provoke — I have written this (much longer than I 
 thought it would be when I began) to the end that you might lose no time ineoin- 
 meaciilg your Sliit, while waiting for the reply, which, as already mentiola'idi I ex- 
 pect to make to your letter as soon as my engagements will permit. 
 
 A. M. W. Bail. 
 
"WHO M'EOTB "EOCK ME TO SLEEP, MOTHER"? 
 
 MB. BALL'S FURTHER REPLY. 
 
 Elizabeth, N. J., Dec. 1867. 
 
 Madam : Since my partial reply of Septemlier 6tli to your letter of August, I 
 have waited, now over tliree months, in the hope you would commence the suit 
 you threatened. But I have waited in vain. I fear that you have practically 
 altogether withdrawn your threat, and that that mode of settling our rights, 
 though announced with such a flourish, is not likely to he resorted to. I pray 
 you to adhere to your resolution as expressed in your letter. If, however, you 
 retire from the position you assumed therein, it would he agreeahle to me, as 
 suggested in my former reply, that your publishers (Messrs. Ticknor & Fields) 
 should institute an action against me for an alleged violation of their copy-right. 
 If you are the true author of the poem, then Mr. Dodd had no right to publish it 
 in his pamphlet, and the liability would be clear. That publication I hereby 
 agree to assume for the purposes of the proposed suit, if your publishers choose 
 to sue me instead of Mr. Dodd. I will voluntarily appear in the action. Let it 
 be brought in New-York, where the publication was made. 
 
 I hereby give you and them the advantage of knowing beforehand what are 
 some of the proofs on which I shall and do rely, by appending them to this note, 
 to the end that you and they may inquire into the character of the witnesses, and 
 investigate the facts they narrate. Those of the letters which appeared in the 
 pamphlet are refurnished you, to obviate the objection taken by your chief de- 
 fender, that they were authenticated merely by initials, aad not by full signa- 
 tures. 
 
 All these writers are persons in good, repute — some of them widely known — 
 and they give positive declaration, as the fact was, that, long before you claim to 
 have written the poem, and as early as 1857-8-9, 1 read it to them as my own. 
 The statements are genuine, and will be exhibited to any one who may feel inter- 
 ested in testing their authenticity. 
 
 My delay in replying to your letter, in expectation of the promised suit, has 
 brought me the attestation of the Hon. George W. Wright, one of my fellow- 
 travelers on the journey to California, in February and March, 1857, and my 
 room-mate on the steamers both on the Atlantic and Pacific, and to whom, both 
 on the steamers and after our arrival at San Francisco, I read the poem, as he 
 states. Mr. Wright is perhaps known to you by reputation, having represented 
 CaUfomia in Congress, and been largely engaged in business as a partner in one 
 of the largest banking-houses of San Francisco. 
 
 I think you wiU find peculiar weight in the testimony of this gentleman, iu- 
 iasmuch as he corroborates the assertion in Mr. Morse's pamphlet, (p. 26 :) " Mr. 
 Ball wrote or made the draft of the whole poem, except one verse, in the latter 
 part of the year 1856. In February, 1857, he sailed for California, and on the 
 steamers, on both oceans, he corrected and polished it, and added one verse." 
 
 A. M. W. Ball. 
 
 LETTER OF THE HON. GEORGE W. WRIGHT. 
 
 No. 532 New-Jersey Ave., 
 Washikgton, D. C, Nov. 20, 1867, 
 
 } 
 
 O. A. Moesb, Esq., Cherry Valley, N. Y. : Dear Sir : I have read your pam- 
 phlet vindicating the claim of Alexander M. W. Ball to the authorship of the 
 poem, " Rock Me to Sleep, Mother." To me, so well acquainted with the facts, it 
 seems strange that any one else should claim the authorship. Especially strange 
 
•WHO WEOTE " BOOK MB TO SLEEP, MOTHEb" ? 7 
 
 does it seem that any one should assert that a poem was first written in 1860, 
 nearly every line of which I could have repeated,' from memory, years before that 
 date. I was personally present, in the year 1857, when a portion of that poem 
 was written, and saw the author revising and correcting the whole. I left New- 
 Tork for California on the 30th day of February, 1857 — the February next after 
 the Fremont campaign — and on that passage Mr. Ball was my room-mate on 
 both oceans. Our acquaintance commenced with the commencement of the voy- 
 age. Those who have made a similar voyage can readily appreciate the nature 
 of those kindly relations which spring up, generally, between ship-mates— rela- 
 tions which naturally ripen into terms of mutual confidence between congenial 
 tenants of the same state-room. It was on this voyage, and during the very close 
 intimacy which existed between Mr. Ball and myself, that he wrote a portion — I 
 think one stanza — of this poem, and revised some expressions of the other parts, 
 which several changes were afterward discussed between us. I thus became well 
 acquainted with the whole poem, often taking it up and reading it, and, on one 
 occasion, at least, I borrowed the manuscript, and read it to some friends on the 
 steamer. At the close of that voyage I think I could have repeated nearly every 
 line of the poem. On parting with Mr. Ball at San Francisco, we appointed a 
 day when he was to come out and dine with me at my house at the Old Mission 
 of Dolores, and I requested him to bring the poem with him and read it to Mrs. 
 Wright, which he promised to do. On the day appointed, he came, and read the 
 poem to us — Mrs. Wright and my sisters being present — and they well remember 
 the circumstance and the poem, which was often the topic of conversation in our 
 family. I, at that time, asked Mr. Ball for a copy, which he promised to give me 
 when he should have perfected it, the copy he had having been considerably in- 
 terlined by changes in the form of expression. I had so often read and reflected • 
 upon these changes, and seen their relative position on the several sheets, that I 
 could, I believe, even now, identify those sheets, should I ever see them again. 
 So far as the poem itself is concerned, both in spirit and letter, it is not possible 
 that I can be mistaken. I recollect, on that occasion, asking Mr. Ball whether 
 the line, " Come, let your brown hair, just lighted with gold," was a true descrip- 
 tion, or a mere fancy sketch ; and his reply was, that it truly described the color 
 of his mother's hair. I also remember that I, at that time, exhibited to Mr. Ball 
 a copy of the poem, " Home, Sweet Home," which Mr. Payne, the author thereof, 
 had written in the album of my daughter, in acknowledgment of some service 
 which I had rendered him just before he left for his mission abroad, where he 
 soon after died. Mr. Ball asked if there were any terms upon which we 
 could part with that manuscript. I replied that we could never part with 
 that treasure, but that he must publish " Rock Me to Sleep, Mother," and be- 
 fore it was as old as " Home, Sweet Home," it would be as famous. I was 
 called suddenly away from California, and did not get the promised copy, nor did 
 I again hear of the poem until I heard it sung by the Hutchinson Family, in 
 Washington, in 1863. I was greatly delighted at hearing the song, and still more 
 so at the immense applause which followed the several repetitions of it ; for I could 
 not but regard it as an indorsement of the opinion I had formed of it five years 
 before ; and I remember, too, how vividly, as the song proceeded, it brought again 
 before me the incidents of the voyage I have mentioned. Having been well ac- 
 quainted with the Hutohinsons for many years, I went up to them at the close of 
 the concert, and expressed my pleasure at hearing the song, and told them that I 
 knew all about it, that it was written by an intimate friend of mine. I was dis- 
 appointed that they did not recognize my friend as the author, though I do not 
 remember that they named any other party as being the author. I might men- 
 
■8 "WHO WBOTE "EOCK ME TO SI-EEP, MOTHEe" ? 
 
 tion many other little points and forms of expresraon contained in the poem, which 
 were topics of conversation and discussion between Mr. BaU and myself, both on 
 the steamer and at my house ; but I have already enumerated enough to show thai 
 my knowledge of 'this poem, in the year 1857, was not, and my recollection of it 
 now is not, vague and general, but clear rand specifix;, and that any possible mis- 
 'take as to the identity of the poem then read with the one published in your 
 pamphlet, is utterly out of the question. Nor can I be mistaken as to dates. I 
 never made but one rpassage with Mr. Ball, and that was certainly in the Aouth of 
 February, and in the year .1857 ; ;and I may here add that I sold my 'house at the 
 Mission in 1858, and removed to Mariposa, where I resided during the remainder 
 of my stay in CaUfoKiia. 
 
 I have various writteit memoranda, made at the time, but not at this moment 
 conveniently at^hand, which, if necessary, will furnish farther confirmation of the 
 ' dates 'I have mentioned. Eespectfolly yours, 
 
 Geobge W. Wright. 
 
 LETTER OF J. BFEEOWS HYDE. 
 
 No. 8 Pine Stebbt, Nbw-Tork, October 25, 1866. 
 JJEAK SiE : Helative to the controversy in re the authorship of " Rock Me to 
 Sleep, Mother." Some time during the autumn of 1859, 1 think in the month of 
 September, I called on business at your house in Newark. Mrs. Ball was absent 
 — ^in Cherry Valley, I believe — at the time. In course of our conversation, you 
 said you had been writing a satirical poem, which, as I knew some of the parties, 
 you read to me ; and during the interview you also took from your desk other 
 productions, among them that which you have read to me to-day, bearing the 
 above title. I am able to fix the date by that of the paper which was the subject 
 of our interview, and which I now have before me. 
 
 Yours respectfully, J. 3uerows Hyde. 
 
 To A. M. W. Bau., Esq., Elizabeth, N. J. 
 
 LETTER ©P LEWIS C. GROVEE. 
 
 Newark, N. J., Januajy 11, 1867. 
 
 Dbae.Sib : In reply to your inquiry as to my recollection of your reading to 
 me " Rook Me to Sleep, Mother," (and which you have just now re-read to me,) I 
 would say that, during the summer of 1857, 1 called on you at your house to as- 
 certain where you purchased a set of damask window-curtains, las I wanted to 
 procure the same kind. During my visit you read me that poem, with others. I 
 was particularly struck with this one, as I , had known your mother, and remarked 
 ,on the justness of the sentiment referring to her. I a,m confirmed in my recollec- 
 tion of the <M»6, by finding that the curtains I purchased on your recommendation 
 were ^charged to me in September of that year, and it took some time to procure 
 them. My wife, to whom I have spoken on the subject, recollects the occasion as 
 I do. I remember saying 'to you at your house, wheai you read me the poetry 
 referred to, that if you had not published, you ought to ido so, and that, as we 
 were old friends, if you did not ,publish, and would make me your literary execu- 
 tor, I should see that the gift Qod had given you should be known hereafter, if I 
 outlived you. I am yours truly, 
 
 Lewis C. Grovee. 
 
 A. M. W. Baij,, Esq. 
 
WHO WEOTB " BOCK ME TO SLEEP, MOTHER" ? 9 
 
 POSTSCRIPT OP A LETTER PROM MRS. T. 'W. POWERS TO MR. BALL, 
 DATED BROOKLYN, APRIL 7, 1«58. 
 
 P. S. — Will you please send me, by the doctor, the lines on the fly-leaf of the 
 hook T?hioh I presented to yon, and also the other poem, which you read to me 
 when I saw youdaist, entitled, " Rook Me to Slee;p, Mother"? 
 
 MR. BALL'S REPLY TO MRS. POWERS. 
 
 April 8, 1858. 
 I send you, my dear friend, by the doctor, "the lines on the fly-leaf of the book 
 you presented. The lines, " Rock Me to Sleep, Mother," I will bring down. For 
 your very beautiful reminder of my birthday, and for the doctor's elaborate pre- 
 sent, please accept my sincere thanks. Yotirs very truly, 
 
 A. M. W. B. 
 
 LETTER PROM MRS. HELEI5' D. EASTMAN. 
 
 Albany, October 26, 1866. 
 My Deab Mk. Ball : . .... In reference to that 
 
 beautiful poem, " Rock Me to Sleep, Mother," I am sorry that I can not remember 
 -the exact date when I first heard it. I distinctly remember your reading it to 
 me, and I know it was either in the year 1857 or 1858. I have heard it sung, and 
 highly praised, and was happy to say that I had the pleasure of knowing the 
 author. Your friend, HiEiLEN D. Eastman. 
 
 LETTER OP MRS. POWERS. 
 
 Ithaca, June 37, 1865. 
 My Deah Mk. Ball : . . . What I particularly intended to say 
 when I commenced this sheet was, that I saw recently in Tlie New-TorTc JEvening 
 Post, a card from Mrs. Akers, in which she claims to have written and published, 
 in 1860, the poem, " Rock Me to Sleep, Mother." Now, in the winter of 1856 or 
 1857, you read to me, one evening in your study, your poem of " Rock Me to 
 Sleep, Mother," one verse of which, comjnencing, " Backward, flow backward," was 
 at the time the subject of my criticism. You can fix the exact time by ascertaining 
 which vrinter it was that Mrs. Ball took Maria to Dr. Cox's, and placed her in 
 the school at Leroy. Had you acceded to the reiterated wishes of those of your 
 friends whom you honored with the reading of some of jrour poetical effusions, 
 to publish them, or at least give us copies of them, Mrs. Akers and some half 
 a score other ladies, would have been less bold in claiming the maternity of the 
 poem in question. Very sincerely your friend, 
 
 Latjka Lottise Powers. 
 
 LETTER OP MRS. SEAVER. 
 
 New-York, July 10, 1866. 
 My Deab Mb. Ball: In reply to your inquiry whether I remembered a cer- 
 tain visit to your house in Newark, and tiie reading by you of " Rock Me to 
 Sleep, Mather," I have to say that my reooUeotion is most vivid of the. whole 
 
 affair. A projected visit by myself and Mrs. was carried into execution. 
 
 Upon our arriving, we found that Mrs. BaJl had gone to Leroy, to place her 
 daughter at school ^ but at your urgent request, w« remained till her return. 
 It was before her return that one evenioig you read the disputed poem, and so 
 
10 WHO WEOTB "eOCK ME TO SLEEP, MOTHEe" 
 
 distinct is my recollection of the circumstances, that the room and the positions 
 occupied by all of us, are before me. It was a, manuscript written upon note 
 paper. That the authorship had been questioned I did not know until a para^ 
 graph in The EveniTig Post, in this city, announced that you were at last believed 
 to be the rightful claimant. I involuntarily remarked that I could have settled 
 that long ago, for I had so many years since heard it from your own manu- 
 script. That you should have been questioned In the matter is only additional 
 proof of your too great modesty, which has thus far prevented many beautiful 
 things you have written being published, and thus establishing at once the au- 
 thorship of what your many friends may justly be proud. 
 
 I am yours truly, Julia E. Sbaveb. 
 
 The date referred to in the two last letters is fixed by a bill ren- 
 dered from the school at Leroy, at the beginning of my daughter's 
 first term, in February, 1857. 
 
 SECOND LETTER FROM MRS. SEAVER. 
 
 New-York, July 23, 1867. 
 
 My Dbae Mb. Ball : The wicked abuse which has been heaped on you for 
 claiming your own poem, " Rock Me to Sleep, Mother," prompts me to add this 
 to my former letter, published in your pamphlet. I distinctly remember that, at 
 Long Branch, in the summer of 1857, at my request, you read the poem to me. 
 Dr. and Mrs. Powers, Miss Baldwin, and others. The poem read by you at 
 your house, mentioned in my former letter, and the one read at Long Branch, 
 included the lines claimed by Mrs. Akers. I am familiar with every word of it, 
 and make these statements identifying the poem and fixing the time when I heard 
 it read, unequivocally and positively, and am ready to repeat these statements 
 under oath, whenever and wherever called on, if by so doing I can help the truth, 
 and help repel these foul attacks on your honored name. 
 
 Truly your friend, Jtjlia E. Sbavbr. 
 
 The Hon. A. M. W. Ball. 
 
 LETTER FROM MISS BALDWIN, OF ELIZABETH. 
 
 Elizabeth, N. J., August 19, 1867. 
 Deae Mk. Ball : I remember perfectly my visit to Long Branch, to which 
 you call my attention, and am able to fix the time to be in August, 1857. My 
 grandfather died in March, 1857, and my visit to Long Branch was in the follow- 
 ing August. We were sitting on the piazza in front of your room when, in com- 
 pliance with a request from Mrs. Seaver, you read to us " Rock Me to Sleep." I 
 have heard you read it several times since, and can not be mistaken in its identity. 
 Very truly yours, W. A. Baldwin. 
 
 LETTER FROM THOMAS J. MILLER, ESQ., OF NEW-TORK. 
 
 Wood Lake, Oeanse Cotottt, August 22, 1866. 
 
 Mt Dear Alex. : You wish me to fix, as nearly as possible, the time when 
 
 you read me your poem, " Eock Me to Sleep." I thinkit was not previous to your 
 
 California visit in 1857 ; but I am positive it was previous to your visit in April, 
 
 1860. On one of my visits to your house, you stated that you wanted my opinion 
 
■WHO WEOTB "rock. ME TO SLEEP, MOTHBe" ? 11 
 
 about a poem of yours, and read me the one in question. TMs was in the Mul- 
 berry street house, Newark. Yours faithfully, 'Thomas J. Miller. 
 A. M. W. Ball, Esq. 
 
 LETTER PROM MISS MUIR, DAUGHTER OF JOHN MUIR, ESQ., OF 
 
 LOUISVILLE, KT. 
 
 LoiTESvlLLE, Ky., October 13, 1866. 
 Tou must not think me, my dear cousin, indifferent to your request on the 
 subject of your exquisite poem, " Rock Me to Sleep," that I have not sooner an- 
 swered your letter. I will now state what I remember, as you desire. Papa, 
 mamma, and I made you a visit of a few days some years ago, when you resided 
 in Newark. I have ascertained the exact time to be in October, 1859. One even- 
 ing you asked mamma and me to go up-stairs with you, as you wanted to read us 
 some of your poetry. Among other pieces, you read to us, " Rock Me to Sleep, 
 Mother ;" and this one made quite an impression on me. The last line of each 
 verse has lived in my memory ever since. 
 
 Affectionately yours, Claba Muir. 
 
 LETTER FROM MRS. POLLOCK, WIFE OP THE REV. MR. POLLOCK, 
 OP WAVERLY, NEAR NEWARK. 
 
 Wavekly, N. J., August 20, 1867. 
 
 Mt Dear Uncle : When you read to me your poem, " Rock Me to Sleep, 
 Mother," in the winter of 1859, I little thought your claim to it would be dis- 
 puted. I remember the occasion of your reading it, as if it were yesterday. It 
 was one Sabbath afternoon in the winter of 1859, in your drawing-room, in your 
 house in Newark. I think Miss Eddy, from Chicago, was present ; at any rate, 
 she was a guest in your house. The poem deeply impressed itself on my memory, 
 especially the stanza beginning " Backward, turn backward, Time ! in your 
 flight," and "Gome, let your brown hair, just lighted with gold," and I can not 
 possibly be mistaken in its identity. 
 
 Yours affectionately, Martha G. Pollock. 
 
 A. M. W. Ball, Esq. 
 
 LETTER FROM A. N. LEWI'S, ESQ., OF NEW-YORK. 
 
 New-Yoek, August 32, 1867. 
 My Dear Mr. Ball : It is with great pleasure that I comply with your 
 request in regard to my recollections of your reading me ' your poem, " Rock Me 
 to Sleep, Mother." 
 
 It was in the fall of 1857 that Mrs. Levris and I spent a few days at your house 
 in Newark, and I well remember your reading to me those beautiful lines. I am 
 sure as to the date, and that it was not at a later period, because that was the last 
 visit I made you. You can make such use of this as you deem proper. 
 
 Very truly yours, Alex. N. Lewis. 
 
 LETTER FROM MRS. JULIA C. BENEDICT. 
 
 No. 12 Park Place, Newark, N. J., August 29, 1867. 
 My Dear Brother : The time when you read me your poem, " Rock Me to 
 Sleep, Mother," I can fix, by domestic events, to be not later than 1858. It was 
 long before the death of our father in April, 1859. 
 
 Yours affectionately, Jxjlia C. Benedict. 
 
 A. M. W. Ball, Esq. 
 
1^ WHO WEOTB "eOGK MB TO SLEEP, MOTHEU" ? 
 
 STATEMENT OF MRS. BALL. 
 
 The denial of my husband's authorship of the little poem, "Rock Me to 
 Sleep, Mother,'' has assumed such a character and importance, that it seems 
 proper for me to state some facts within my knowledge. I knew of Mr. Ball's 
 having written portions of this poeih before he went to California in February, 
 1857. On his return thence, in the latter part of April of that year, he read me 
 the "wiiole pbeSm, including the six stanzas now claimed by Mrs. Akers. I remem- 
 ber distinctly that, oh the opening of my husband's trunk, as it came from the 
 steamer, the manuscript of the poem was lying in view therein ; and on the same 
 day he read it to me. From that day I have frequently heard him read the poem 
 to friends-*these six stanzas with the others ; and they were familiar to me and 
 to my family for about three years before the time Mrs. Akers claims to have 
 written them. Hakkibt T. Baul. 
 
 Elizabeth, N. J., October, 1867. 
 
 STATEMENT OF MRS. EDWARD WOLFF, DAUGHTER OF MR. BALL. 
 
 I was for several years before 1860 familiar with the poem, " Rock Me to Sleep, 
 Mother," (now published in Mr. Morse's pamphlet,) including the six stanzas 
 claimed by Mrs. Akers. I know it as having been composed by my father. I fre- 
 quently read it, and heard it read by him, prior to the year 1860, and was well ac- 
 quainted with every line of it. 
 
 1 was present on the occasion of the reacling of this poem at Long Branch, in 
 August, 1857, referred to in the letters of Mrs. Seaver and Miss Baldwin, at which 
 time my father read the poem, as stated by item, including the Six stanzas which 
 Mrs. Akers claims to have composed nearly three years afterward. 
 
 Elizabeth, October, 1867. MAiaiA B. Wolff. 
 
 Thus the testimony now stands, and the Conclusion can not admit 
 of a doubt. The statements of Mr. "Wright — a man of public re- 
 sponsibility, well conversant with the ways of the world, and fully 
 conscious of all the bearings of what he may say — these carry us as 
 nearly as may be by possibility to the actual conception of the poem. 
 And they are full, clear, decisive. Following this are positive decla- 
 rations of others in more private walks, yet not less reliable, which 
 carry a chain of evidence through the years 1857, 1858, and 1859. 
 Mark also that " postscript " of Mrs. Powers, and answer. On the 
 typothesis of being a forgery, it is a remarkably stupid attempt, 
 putting at the inercy of an opponent such irrelevant details, so bappj' 
 for detection.' Dishonesty, on the slightest hesitation, would sup- 
 press it from a body of material in which it is superfluous. Its very 
 presentation is a proof of good faith, and it bears, in black and white, 
 outside of the possibility of a treacherous memory, the title and re- 
 frain of the poem in the hands of Mr. Ball, and Credited to him in 
 1858. It is rarely that a vexed literary question can have such cate- 
 gorical proofs to decide it. If at any time before May, 1860, Mr. 
 Ball had the poem and uttered it as his own, then his rival must for- 
 
WHO WROTE "eOCK ME TO SLEEP, MOTHER"? 13 
 
 ever yield her claim. It is simply preposterous to imagine that so 
 many respectable witnesses could be corruptly brought to waive the 
 dread ordeal of public notoriety, and the little matter of truth-tell- 
 ing, for devotion to a friend. It is hardly less than that to suppose 
 that so many shoulid, be so utterly astray in memory of da,te and. 
 identity as that their testimony ought to be thrown out-— and on wha,t ? 
 
 The hare, unauthmticatee^ assertion, of one person I This is pre- 
 cisely as the case stands. 
 
 We recoil from the painful necessity of bringing; the matter to so 
 sharp an issue when a, lady stands on one side, though her letter may 
 fairly relieve ns from any extraordinary prudery on the subject. But 
 common justice demands that a man's, honorable, upright qharacter 
 shall not be sacrificed for a courtesy or a " now don't." Chivalry 
 may command much, but nothing that touches honor. Nor, on the 
 other , hand, do we feel any concern to waste ingenuity in framing 
 any theory which shall break the fall of her pretension. Whether it, 
 be hallucination, or clairvoyance, or a fantasy, or whether, 
 
 " Like one 
 Who, having nnto truth, by telling it, 
 Made such a sinner of her memory. 
 To credit her own lie, she does believe it," 
 
 we will joyfully accept any theory her friends may propound, and, 
 despite any evidence, we will believe her sincere, though grieyously 
 mistaken. 
 
 We come now to the Akers partisans — wise-acres, shall we call 
 them — and propose thereupon to take off our gloves, as we have no 
 formalities to waste on such as they. Considering the peremptoiy 
 evidence that settles this question, there would seem to be the less: 
 necessity for troubling ourselves with the astonishing literature which 
 they have produced. But when you have blown a Chinese fort to 
 atoms, there may still be some amusement in picking over the odd 
 fragments — gongs, kettles, and all the frightful array. There are 
 good reasons, also, for not passing them by : 
 
 1. By assertion and insinuation, they have uttered malignant 
 falsehoods against Mr. Ball and his friends, which must be met. 
 
 2. The investigation will show still further the hopelessness oi 
 Mrs. Akers'a claim. 
 
 3. It is a public duty to rebuke this railing, slashing, insinuating, 
 and disingenuous style of attack, which is a flagrant abuse of the 
 high duties, the privileges, and the honor of proper criticism. Criti- 
 cism without dignity and candor is a nuisance to be abated. Sar- 
 casm, in the interest of truth, may be legitimate ; sarcasm without 
 truth is not tolerable ; sarcasm against truth is atrocious. 
 
14 WHO WEOTB "bock MB TO SLEEP, MOTHEE"' ? 
 
 The most elaborate offender is a nameless knight, with vizor down 
 and " W." on his crest, who, ambushed behind the columns of the 
 Times, shoots thence his venomed lance. He starts off with a cheer- 
 ful confidence, having caught three legislators "gone to sea in a 
 bowl, a brittle delf wobbling amidst billows of iron, which a few 
 taps will settle." How readily this figure pictures itself to the 
 imagination ! It has a metallic ring to it. Nevertheless, as faithful 
 exegetes, we are bound to suspect, from, what follows in the context, 
 that the accomplished writer- was indebted to an accident for this 
 brilliant stroke. But for a slip of the pen it would have read, bil- 
 lows of irony. "We flatter ourselves that this happy emendation will 
 relieve great difficulties of fact. 
 
 A confrere, calls this article " piquant and exhaustive." We think 
 so, decidedly. It is piquant — all piquant — -prceterea nihil ! plenty of 
 irony, but no iron. Exhaustive ! Undoubtedly, for that poor brain, 
 chasing through the whole dialect of the penny-a-liners, for the pet, 
 pert phrases, usual on great occasions of lampoon, a little musty in- 
 deed, but useful withal. " Serene and lofty impudence," " hopeless 
 poetasting," " driveling incoherencies," " knows no more about poetry 
 than a Hottentot," " incredible simplicity," " wondering stare," "fool- 
 ish figments," " neither the substance nor semblance of verity,"(chi- 
 valric for lie,) " Walpurgis night," etc., until he reaches the conven- 
 tional, dramatic climax of the " brain whirling !" We should gather 
 it was just the kind of brain to whirl. 
 
 " And mucli would liis heart enjoy tlie whirl, 
 If his head didn't whirl round too." 
 
 That the author was exhausted, we discover further from the edi- 
 torial columns of The Times, of the same date, in which he calls atten- 
 tion to himself in a delicate puff, wherein were gathered some of the 
 precious chips from his main hewing. He writes : 
 
 " It may be thought that the criticism of the general literary claims 
 set up for that gentleman (Mr. B.) as a poet, by his zealous friends and 
 champions, is unduly severe ; but we do not see that the fair limits of 
 criticism, so boldly invoked, have been transcended." Just so. It 
 wasn't acting, it was reality — that brain whirling. We can imagine 
 the cheerful crowd of Times readers that morning : " Some looked 
 perplexed, some profound." They had not had such an exquisite 
 morceau since " the elbows of the Mincio !" 
 
 " Smiling, hut in secret, cunning rogue, 
 He ne'er presumed to make the error clearer." 
 
 We take it for granted that this notice was by " W." rather than by 
 an editor, because it contradicts an opinion of that paper, given forth 
 
WHO WROTE "eOCK ME TO SLEEP, MOTHBe" ? 15 
 
 only twenty days before, regarding Mr, Morse's vindication, as 
 follows: 
 
 " On the proofs here submitted, a jury would certainly give Mr, 
 Ball the verdict ; and the public would do so, also, if he were a wo- 
 raan." Now, as every body knows, a sudden change of opinion is 
 entirely inconsistent with that decision of character which presides 
 over The Times. 
 
 You always find it an interesting by-play of the imagination to 
 figure the mien and visage of an unknown author. The intensity of 
 the language, in this case, betrays a juvenile enthusiasm. It reminds 
 us of the lad who told his father that there were a hundred dogs in 
 the yard, which proved, on investigation, to be " our dog and anotbei- 
 dog." We have pictured to ourselves a poetic youth, of golden hair, 
 with down upon his cheek and frenzy in his eye. One sentence forces 
 this image powerfully upon us, when he so solemnly, and as though 
 it meant something, declares that Mr. Morse's vindication " in any 
 capital of Europe would be received with an explosion of laughter, 
 if, in its utter ridiculousness, it were deemed worthy any notice at all." 
 
 There is the yelping of a hundred dogs for you ! This agony of 
 the ridiculous to vent itself, why is it at the beginning ? This climax 
 — why was it not at the end? Or why was it not the end as well as 
 the beginning ! We catch the hint. " They order this matter better 
 in France." This is intended to sound like the' stately stepping of a 
 giant — a great soul that has taken the air of two continents, that has 
 " smiled " with Dickens, button-holed Dumas, and fought duels at 
 Heidelberg and Berlin, or sui-veyed the world from the pinnacle of 
 St. Peter's — such an one as may pass cosmopolitan judgments upon 
 poor American sinners. 
 
 Yet, truly, this seemeth to us but the, mincing tread of a little 
 juvenile vanity, airing itself with consequence, before proceeding to 
 work. It brings to our memory a bumpkin we once heard of, who 
 blew the trombone in a rustic band. Having visited the metropolis, 
 he was a Nestor among them, and one day when a mysterious hiero- 
 glyph of demi-semi-quavers was picked up in the road, it was natu- 
 rally referred to his sapience for resolution. With all possible digni- 
 ty, from behind a pair of eye-glasses bought in Chatham street, he 
 gave the final decision, "Boys, this is real Dodworth music." 
 
 He is also very sure that it would " merely provoke a wondering 
 stare and hearty laugh, were it not an amazing circumstance that 
 several respectable journals — The Nation, The Tribune, and T/ie 
 Bound Table, among them, (why not The Times, unless he doei? not 
 consider it respectable enough ?) have actually given it their serious 
 countenance and approval." Poor journals ! we hasten to relieve 
 their distress. 
 
16 WHO WKOTE " BOCK ME TO SLEEP, MOTHEe" ? 
 
 What for a valor that hesitates at nothing, an ardor most genuine, 
 a blundering that sees helmets in basins, and a devotion to an unknown 
 Dulcinea, we commend this knight as a type of the order of De la 
 Mancha. Only let him have a little care lest his ears take on such a 
 bleeding as no balsam of Fierabras will cure. 
 
 Intrenched, behind the ramparts of The Times, whose portbullis,. 
 with great wisdom of precaution, was let down against all comers, 
 he displays equal valiance iji sporting his plumes and firing his gun. 
 We have surgically extracted some of the bullets from Mr. Ball's 
 wounds, and carefully measured,. to detemiine the calibre. On refer- 
 ence to the Regulation Ordnance tables, we find the calibre to be that 
 of a — -popgun ! 
 
 The reader will imagine our terror in approaching his points. 
 
 1. The testimony so clearly given by Messrs. Morse and Marsh is 
 only accredited, he says, by the initials of the attestants. Partly this 
 is true. 
 
 We can not say how they do. things in the capitals of Europe ; but 
 it is not the custom here, of men in fair social standing, to put their 
 indorsement upon forged testimonies. Nor is it safe, any more than 
 customary ; and the chap must be a boy or a fool who can insinuate 
 such a stupid thought. 
 
 The blanks are now filled with the names, and a result reached 
 which sufficiently melts these waxen wings. 
 
 2. He thinks this testimony might " collapse and shrivel," under 
 cross-examination. Precisely so. No one seems more anxious to test 
 this point than Mr. Ball. He has offered every facility for hastening 
 the issue. And the test must come, as Mrs. Akers has promised, or 
 she must forever hereafter keep silence. There will then appear, also, 
 some other Uttle matters. The original draft of Mr. Ball's, which 
 puts our Don Quixote into such a paroxysm of laughter — and yet, to 
 have constructed this draft from the perfected poem of another, in 
 the efibrt to forge testimony, would require more genius than to. have 
 written the poem itself 
 
 The curious mystery, also, of a poem written in Italy, in May, 
 1860, floating round the globe, through Philadelphia to California 
 and thence cast back, as a waif, upon the friendly shores of The 
 Knickerbocker Magazine, in May, 1861, having lost its nom de 
 plume and all trace of its authorship on the long journey, all in a 
 twelve-month. This is indeed a fast age; but we have not yet 
 learned that things flotsam have caught the spirit. 
 
 3. Even ^'•reliable" testimony would not prove any thing but the 
 hardihood and stupidity of Messrs. Morse, Marsh & Co. ! Our young 
 friend is an amateur at law, as well as a "connoisseur in poetry," as 
 he calls himself. Hear! " Grant that reliable witnesses have testified 
 
WHO WEOTE "rock ME TO SLEEP, MOTHEE" ? 17 
 
 that they heard the poem read hy Mr. Ball in 1856 ; does that necesr 
 sarily and of itself establish the fact ? Here, in the books, is the case 
 of Sir Thomas Davenant, an eminent and entirely unimpeachable bar- 
 rister, who swore positively to the persons of two men charged with 
 robbing him in the open day, in the full glow of the sunlight. The 
 men were subsequently shown to be wholly innocent, and the true 
 robbers were afterward discovered. (Rex agt. Wood and Brown, 
 28 State Trials, 819.)" . . . " None of Mr. Morse's testimonies com- 
 pare, for round and solid swearing, with Sir Thomas Davenant' s, and yet 
 Sir Thomas was wrong. So much for Mr. Morse's proof, which it is 
 enough to make one blush for shame to know that any reputable 
 journal should call ' irrefutable.' " We feel deeply for these " repu- 
 table journals" — The Trihune, The Nation^ The Round Table, and 
 even The Turtles itself, which must, unfortunately, come in for its 
 share of disgrace ; and we propose, by a sort of decalcomanie pro- 
 cess, to transfer the " blushes " to other cheeks. 
 
 Felicitous citations are presumptive evidence of scholarship ; the 
 graces of learning, of honesty, and of dignity are thus clothed upoii 
 dialectic skill. One's happiness in this regard may be considered 
 complete, when an adjudicated law-case, carrying with it a sanction 
 revered by the courts as next in force to law itself, can be appealed 
 to, with all the formalities of title, volume, page, and paragraph. Yet 
 the misfortune is great when a prudent search shall unmask a sham 
 and convict a sophist. There are some writers whose tone instinct- 
 ively begets distrust. Following out this skepticism, we have dis- 
 covered a " hardihood" quite equal to that of "Messrs. Morse, Marsh 
 & Co." It happens that there is no such case as Rex agt. Wood & 
 Brown at the place indicated, nor in the whole volume, nor even in the 
 thirty-three volumes constituting the series. Shall we say it was a 
 printer's mistake, or the "brain whirling," or some other little acci- 
 dent such as once in a while befalls young men, which wrought con- 
 fusion in his notes ? The traces of his folly are too complete for that. 
 At the place indicated there is the trial of James Byrne for high trea- 
 son in Dublin, a.d. 1803. The analogy between Byrne's treason to 
 the king and Mrs. Akers's disloyalty to truth in claiming this poem for 
 hers is the supposed reason for this citation. On that trial one of the 
 pi'isoner's counsel, in the course of his opening to the jury, aj^ologized 
 for " obtruding this anecdote" of Sir Thomas Davenport (not Daven- 
 ant, as "W." writes it) upon them, as well he might, seeing it had no 
 connection with the case then in hand ; said Davenport, according to 
 the " anecdote," having been mistaken in the identity of a brace of 
 robbers. So far as this " anecdote" — so refreshing for its freshness — 
 wars on all testimony, it may have i^some pertinence, though it wns 
 far to go for an illustration in a plea so common in the courts, and so 
 2 
 
18 WHO WEOTE "eoCK ME TO SLEEP, MOTHBE" ? 
 
 useless. So far as it is a device of sophisti*y to cover up the real 
 state of this case, it has much impertinence. That is to say, 
 Mr. Ball's declaration may feirly balance the declaration of Mrs. 
 Akers ; while, above that, he has a number of witnesses, of both 
 sexes, to confirm his statement, and she has none/ and yet, because 
 Sir Thomas, (as the " anecdote" rans,) in the flurry and fright of a high- 
 way robbery, mistook the disguised foot-pads who committed it, it 
 results that Mr. Ball, and all his friends, are mistaken, and Mrs. 
 Akers, in her solitary assertion, is alonie entitled to credence. Unless, 
 however, this " anecdote" shall serve Mrs. Akers, in whose behalf it 
 is Summoned from its dusty sleep, a better turn than it did the poor 
 traitor Byrne, she is in a sorry case ; for the jury, nathless the " anec- 
 dote," found him guilty, as the report goes, " in five minutes," and he 
 swung for it the day after the sentence. 
 
 A more conclusive argument, derived from the same authority, our 
 poet-lawyer might have ptit — and from the character of his logic we 
 wonder he did not — ^thus : As Mr. C. Ball was counsel for Byrne on 
 this trial in 1803 ; ergo his namesake, Mr. A. M.W. jBall, could not, 
 half a century later, have written the poem in question; consequently 
 Mrs. Akers wrote it ! 
 
 We respectfully call the attention of the bar to this dawn of a new 
 era in law, which will add greatly to the liveliness of courts, when 
 " obtrusive anecdotes" of counsel may be cited as taking rank with 
 decisions and precedents ; whereat the capitals of Europe may be con- 
 vulsed with new laughter. 
 
 4. He lays great stress on the "plain, gross, brutal truth" that 
 compromises Mrs. A.'s character. He puts this gravely as an nrgu- 
 meM against Mr. Ball's claim. It is unfortunate, indeed, that a man 
 can not tell Ms side of a story widiout leaving some unpleasant in- 
 ferences of the other. 
 
 But Mr. Ball's friends have been as careftil as possible to make 
 no such issue. If the Don does, they are not to blame. If Mr. B. 
 wrote it, Mrs. A. didn't. That is all. 
 
 5. But how could Mrs. A. have gOt it, if Mr. B. wrote it ? Here 
 " wisdom mounts her zenith." If you find your watch in some other 
 person's possession, you must not only prove property, but show by 
 what necromancy it came there ! 
 
 6. Mr. Ball is a New-Jersey legislator! We know something 
 about this popular prejudice so useful for the argumentum ad homi- 
 nem. We have taken the trouble to trace it to its origin. It is said, 
 wisely, that popular ideas, do always begin low down and work up. 
 Thieves, pickpockets, and all that ilk, hold New-Jersey legislators in 
 great disgust ; because, under their rule, laws and penalties mean 
 
"WHO WBOTB "eOCK MB TO SLEEP, MOTHEIl" ? 19 
 
 something, juries do convict, jails and prisons are easier got into than 
 they are gotten out o^ and pardons are scarce as robins in winter. 
 
 1. Mr. Ball is a harness-maker ! Burns was a plow-hoy, and — hut 
 we will kindly omit the long catalogue, familiar to every school-boy. 
 Bohemians write on either side for pay. Mrs. Akers confesses that her 
 Pegasus trots or gallops through the rhymes, only as roweled by a 
 silver spur. The momentous question of Mr. Ball's occupation is 
 easily determined — whatever light that may shed on the question of 
 authorship. As to this, "W." is altogether mistaken— a mistake Which 
 probably arose from Mr. Ball's having had an interest in a manufac- 
 turing company ; a circumstance that made him as much a harness- 
 maker, as you, good reader, owning stock in a railroad company, are 
 thereby made a brakeman or engine-driver. 
 
 8. There is a good deal in what this parlous knight don't say. 
 Where ignorance is safe, 'tis folly to be wise. He does not vouclusafe 
 one single shred of testimony beyond this same assertion of one. 
 Herein he exercises a wondrous discretion that might have served 
 him in good stead elsewhere. 
 
 jSTow, upoQ this crazy foundation of rolling stones he rears the su- 
 perstructure of his wit in comparative criticism. As we scan him, 
 he is a precisian of the pedagogue type. He is undoubtedly a dealer 
 in rhymes, and probably talks in rhythm. " His very foot has music 
 in it." He marches with a measured tread, triumphant. He knows 
 dactyls, spondees, and such like — the harness into which things must 
 go when they come welling from the heart, or all the Capitals of Eu- 
 rope will be convulsed. He knows verses, and catches Mr, Morse 
 using verse for stanza ; which is powerful proof that Mrs. A. did 
 and Mr. B. didn't, etc., albeit, he is not so wise on that subject as if 
 he were more versed in dictionaries. Probably it offends his exqui- 
 sitely refined taste that Scripture is not divided into stanzas ! With 
 square and rule and plummet he falls to work, this metrical Carpenter. 
 " Measures, not men," is his cry. " A mountain of testimony" — 
 think of that, an Alp of witnesses ! — will not, for him, balance the 
 inversion of an accent, or the truncation of a dactyl. 
 
 This is not the first mole-hill that has been stood on for a crow, 
 and we propose to leave our hero standing and crowing as long as he 
 pleases. E"o doubt it is to his disappointment, not seeing how such 
 a masterpiece could be met ; but we suffer, likewise, pangs in the re- 
 pression of ardor. It is not worth our ink, nor the patience of the 
 reader, to chase up these vagaries, which, after the testimony produced, 
 sound as stale as leaders of the London Times became after the fall 
 of Lee. Sighs heave our breast as, in pensive moments, we con- 
 template the caducity of such herculean, brain-whirling criticism, 
 smothered in its own rhetoric, to show that Mr. B. couldn't have 
 
20 WHO WEOIE " EOCK ME TO SLEEP, MOTHEe" ? 
 
 written such a poem, and Mrs. A. must have. At any rate, Mrs. A. 
 didn't, and if Mr. B. couldn't, let some one tell us who did. Yet 
 there is this melancholy consolation, that, as truth will sift itself out, 
 there must needs be vast tomes of rubbish gathered in the world's 
 archives — eloquence, wit, beliefs, philosophies, and dactylic critics, 
 all laid away in garrets and in glory. 
 
 Yet there are some points we may not so easily dismiss to the 
 shades without the ceremony of a parting shake. Mr. Ball com- 
 posed fifteen stanzas, in which the six were included. If it has 
 happened that six were culled out as better than the nine, this is 
 nothing new in the history of poetical or any other composition. 
 We have no doubt, from appearances, that our anecdotic opponent 
 puts down in writing whatever comes uppermost, and thus, has no 
 such suggestion from his own experience. Given a trite subject, 
 and fifteen stanzas written thereon by any master, and you will find 
 the half picked out by the maturer judgment of himself or his friends. 
 The argument pressed in Mr. Ball's behalf is that, in what remains, 
 there are stanzas and verses equal in beauty and coincident in style, 
 proving the same mind at work in all. The argument is a valid one, 
 and is. abundantly sustained by the facts. In spite of the overwhelm- 
 ing positivism of this critico-chevalier, backed by whatever " Siesta 
 of the American critical faculty" — a mystical something to which he 
 appeals, whose utterances, we can imagine, might be profound iu 
 Ijroportion to the previous dining — in spite of critic, siesta, and all, 
 we absolutely deny the assertion, however often it may be repeated. 
 
 Our kind critic, comparing the six with the nine, says, " They 
 shine like lucid pearls in a heap of oyster-shells." Be it so ! 
 
 " I thank thee, Jew, for teaching me that word." 
 
 They are Mr. Ball's oyster-shells, and, on examination, prove to be 
 true mother of pearl ! 
 
 Let the reader make his own comparison, as we quote one of the 
 six and one of the nine : 
 
 " Backward, turn backward, then, time, in your flight ; 
 Make me a child again just for to-night. 
 Mother, come hack from the echoless shore. 
 Take me again to your heart as of yore. 
 Kiss from my forehead the furrows of care. 
 Smooth the few silver threads out of my hair ; 
 Over my slumbers yotir loving watch keep, 
 Eock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep." 
 
 " As stars in the day are concealed by the light. 
 
 And darkness unvails them alone to the sight. 
 
 So sleeping I see you., unseen when awake, 
 ^j^And welcome, thrice welcome, is sleep for your sake. 
 
WHO WEOTE "EOCK MB TO SLEEP, MOTHEe" ? 21 
 
 Soft are my slumbers, a glory of beams. 
 Announcing your coming, illumines my dreams : 
 Visit me nightly, and wlien I would' weep, 
 Eock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep." 
 
 Which is- which ? The first, according to Wiseacre, is a pearl, a 
 gem of the first water. The second is a " dithyramb of devils," in 
 the expressive language of which he is a master. 
 
 In spite of which, the reader will discover that this last stanza, 
 figuring a dream of. the mother and the rocking to sleep, shows a 
 poetic handling more ^ xquisite than any thing in the six ; so far, 
 however, ahove the intellect of our critic, as that to him it is only 
 & jangle and a dithyramb. See, also, what a monstrous freak of 
 absurdity is postulated on the other side. A man writes nine 
 stanzas which evidence the full capability of writing certain other 
 six, which he wishes, by this extraordinary juggling, to steal! 
 
 The criticism that, in the six, the refrain always exactly comple- 
 ments the sense of the stanza, and does not in the nine, has nothing 
 to back it but audacious assertion. Take it in the last stanza of the 
 six, for example : 
 
 " Clasped to your heart in a loving embrace. 
 With your light lashes just sweeping my face, 
 Never hereafter to wake or to weep, 
 Eock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep.'' 
 
 There is just as much latent fun in this culmination of the refrain as 
 in any thing the writer cites for ridicule. So, as to infelicities of ex- 
 pression, the same hypercriticism, if it were sufficiently paid, could 
 detect them in the six. For example : 
 
 " Smooth the few silver threads out of my hair !" 
 
 We have heard of smoothing wrinkles on a brow, but can't imagine 
 hairs smoothed out of a head. Again, 
 
 Or again, 
 
 ' No other worship abides and endures. 
 Faithful, unselfish, and patient like yours." 
 
 " Since I last listened your lullaby song," 
 
 as Mrs, Akers has it, contrasted with, 
 
 " Since I last hushed to youx lullaby song," 
 
 as Mr. Ball wrote it. 
 
 The same style of criticism has torn Gray's Elegy to pieces a 
 hundred times, but the world still loves it for all that; yes, and 
 believes in his authorship, though he never wrote any thing else to 
 
22 WHO WROTE " EOCK ME TO SLEEP, MOTHBe" ? 
 
 compare with it. In this connection we may as well remark that 
 the poem, "Rock Me to Sleep," stands iitterly without aflS.nity in 
 Mrs. Akers's volume of poems. And as for that exquisite genius ot 
 hers, so enthusiastically lauded by the knight-errant, let it come to 
 the test. Heaa" her sing : 
 
 " And still is the banner of storm unfurled. 
 Till all the drowned and desolate world 
 Lies dumb and white in a trance of snow !" 
 
 A banner unfurled drowns and desolates the world, which thereafter 
 is dumb and wihte, and in a trance of snow 1 
 
 Rather hard on the banner ! Look you, Dame Partington, to 
 your laurels ! 
 
 Again, it is elegantly said that " any one not utterly besotted 
 with stupidity must recognize it as purely a woman's poem." It 
 costs a struggle to consign ourselves to such ignominy as that ;' but 
 we have another thought. There is a grossness sometimes reached, 
 when a pitiful experience of life — or sensuality, it may be — has 
 burned out every nobler instinct— to which it seems a mystery of 
 eccentricity that a man can glow with warm and tender feeling, or 
 have the holy love of a mother enshrined in his heart. To such a 
 mind, a sacred memory may readily take on the " comic picture of 
 whiskers and toots rocked in a cradle." 
 
 But this hallowed flame has burned bright and pure in many a 
 manly breast, as biographies of our best and greatest attest — men 
 who did not fear the charge of weakness when they gave expression 
 to their love. " Bishop Jewell," says Willmott, " had his mother's 
 name engraved on a signet-ring ; and Lord Bacon poured his heart 
 into one short sentence in his will : ' For my burial, I desire it may 
 be in St. Michael's Church, near St. Alban's — there was my mother 
 buried.' . At Dulwich, in a dark gown, trimmed with fur, holding a 
 book, we see the mother of Rubens, who, losing his father in child- 
 hood, was reared by her watchful tenderness. Pope wrote no lines 
 more affecting than the four inscribed on a column to his mother in 
 the garden of Twickenham. By Cowper's verses on his mother's 
 picture, we might place the letter of Gray, who writes to his friend, 
 ' I had discovered a thing very little known, which is, that in one's 
 whole life one can never have any more than a single mother.' Two 
 celebrated persons, not unknown to Gray, (Warburton and Hurd,) 
 have touched the same chord of feeling ; and in modern times its 
 music has been heard in the homes of genius." 
 
 But these men are on a lower plane than " W." They — Bacon and 
 the rest — are too womanly men for such a manly boy. " The Lord 
 High Chancellor of England whining for his mother ! Long beard. 
 
WHO WBOTE " EOCK ME TO SLEEP, MOTHEB" ? 23 
 
 ermine, and Wgb top-boota fondled in his raothei-'a arms !" We hear 
 " W." sarcastically cry : " Had I been j udge of the Boolesiastioal Court, 
 this will should have been disallowed of probate. Under the ruling 
 of the ' anecdote,' no amount of reliable testimony could have over- 
 come the internal evidence that it wj^s a woman's will, and not a 
 man's." No skepticism is more hopeless, and we spare our words. 
 
 To our mind, this is a man's poem in every fibre of it — a man 
 who, looking " backward," can fairly speak of a ^^full tide of years" 
 — a man who has long felt a mother's loss — a man inspu'ed from fact 
 and not from fancy. It is an overflow of true incident, containing 
 life-springs within it welling up and indicating that it was a real loss 
 that woke the affectionate plaint of song. It is, therefore, a sacred 
 poem ; and we believe it is watched over by a Providence that will 
 not allow it to become the source of stigma to its author. It niust 
 presuppose some very rapid mode of living to bring such an " utter 
 world-weariness," as " W." claims the poem evinces, upon the fresh 
 bloom of womanhood, arid lace the hair with silver threads, at 
 twenty-five. We can suppose that a young woman of that age, or 
 under, might have the genius, out of pure fancy, to give forth a 
 piece with certain great dramatic efiects. But such as this, never ! 
 Like an amalgam, it sinks through every fibre of being, searching 
 out and wrapping into itself every atom of true golden feeling. It 
 has that subtle power which flows from experience to experience. 
 Imagination may produce the dramatic, experience only the real, and 
 this at an immense remove above the other. 
 
 Since writing this, we find that Mr. Morse has already put the ar- 
 gument with great force. Quoting these several lines from the 
 poem : 
 
 " Come let your brown hair just liglited with, gold," 
 
 and again : 
 
 " Kiss from my forehead the farrows of care ; 
 Smooth the few silver threads out of my hair," 
 
 he urges " certainly the case of either party here will be helped, 
 whose facts will accord with these expressions. This is a genuine 
 })oem, and came from the soul of the writer, whoever that writer was. 
 It was not conceived, but felt. It did not arise from the brain, or 
 fancy, but from the heart, or it would not find an answering chord 
 in so many hearts." And he says that " he has seen oneof the ample 
 tresses of the hair of his friend's mother, and that it is brown, tinged 
 with auburn ; and that his friend's forehead is furrowed, and the sil- 
 ver threads are in his hair. As to the answering facts in the case of 
 the fair claimant to a part of the lines, there is evidence at hand which 
 must be considered satisfactory. Speaking as a widow, and it is un- 
 
24 WHO WEOTE " EOOKnffinxnSLJfiJil*, JHUTHEU : 
 
 derstood that in the vicissitudes of her life she has not long since 
 been in that condition, she says, (page No. 143, Mrs. Akers's poems :) 
 
 ' Ah me ! the red is yet upon my cheek. 
 And in my veins life's vigorous currents flow ; 
 Adovm my hmr iliere shines no warning streak, 
 And the sweet meeting which you paint to-day 
 Seems sadly far away ! ' " 
 
 There is one more point which must be met ; otherwise it will be 
 said' we dare not meet it, which, on the contrary, we do with great 
 cheerfulness. The critic, in order to give to his work a dignity of 
 which it were otherwise destitute, seeks to fasten on Mr. Ball a sup- 
 posed plagiarism from Mrs. "Whitman, of Providence, in another 
 poem, (which was, in fact, written entirely for private use, without 
 any thought of publication,) at which dextrous feat he can no more 
 repress his childish glee than could Gi'ay's favorite cat, at sight of the 
 
 golden fish, , 
 
 " Her conscious tail her joy declared." 
 
 Certainly it was adroitly done, and so well that Mr. B., seeing it, 
 immediately, without snfBcient scrutiny, in the honesty of his heart, 
 wrote an apology to that lady, with the following statement : " I 
 have not the first recollection of ever having seen your poem, but to 
 deny it would be absurd while the evidence is so conclusive. Per- 
 haps it was published, when it was first written, in a newspaper, and 
 I read it in that way, (for I am very confident I never saw your bound 
 volume,) and the extreme beauty of the thought impressed upon me, 
 and became interwoven into my heart and mind, and, years after, most 
 unconsciously found utterance as my own." 
 
 This has all the sound of an honest man's statement ; and if there 
 were need of it, the explanation is good and sufficient. And Mrs. 
 Whitman, like a sensible woman, seems to have so received it, as we 
 shall presently see. But we propose to show that he is an honest 
 man, who has sufiered at the hands of a shyster. He would not have 
 been so hasty in his letter but for a forgery of the record ; in fact, we 
 can not see why he need have troubled himself at all. 
 
 The unprincipled critic, to make his case, puts in the first stanza 
 of Mrs. Whitman's poem : 
 
 " In the soft gloom of an autumnal day." 
 
 while the original reads : 
 
 " In the- soft liffJit of an autumnal day." 
 
 an expression entirely distinct from the other, and as trite as " th e 
 soft silvery light of the moon." To have used the former from anoth- 
 er, might possibly have been a plagiariSta. To use the latter, could 
 
WHO WEOTE " EOCK MB TO SLEEP, MOTHER" ? 25 
 
 only he to avail one's self of one of the stock expressions of the poets. 
 As it is, he is entitled to an idea entirely distinct from hers. Hav- 
 ing this line staring him in the face, and the other minor resemblances, 
 he was deceived into writing what he did in explanation above. 
 
 Of course, this discovery was mercilessly used by our savage 
 critic, but his fierceness carried him headlong down the steeps of 
 folly. He exclaims, " Where Mr. Ball can not sop up the lines, he 
 takes isolated phrases, words {sio I) and even tones and echoes !" 
 We will give his first example. Mr. Ball says : 
 
 "My mind will wcmder back years tliree and twenty." 
 
 Mrs. Whitman says : 
 
 " I love to vxmder throughlthe woodlands hoary." 
 
 But let both poet and poetess vail their faces ; for, after exhaust- 
 ing research, we are able confidently to announce to the world the 
 discovery that this may be traced to a distinguished authoress more 
 ancient than eithei', who may be supposed to be addressing our critic 
 from her graver': 
 
 " Goosey, goosey gander, wHtlier dost ttou wander ?" 
 
 In the name of wander, or wonder, what is plagiarism ? Mr. Ball, 
 in his . poem, has not a single sentiment, thought, or fraction of 
 a thought, or semblance of a thought in common with Mrs. Whit- 
 man ! If he has poetical expressions, " tones and echoes," how many 
 poets are there who have not expressions in common with their read- 
 ing — expressions that become interwoven with their minds. till they 
 have no idea where they came from ? The simple fact that Mr. B. is 
 not indebted to Mrs. Whitman for a single sentiment, is a proof that 
 he is honest when he says he had not her poem consciously before 
 him when he wrote. 
 
 Hippocrates said : " Life is short," and " Art is long." Henry 
 King called his pulse a " soft drum," with " marches toward death." 
 Is Longfellow therefore a plagiarist ? 
 
 Shakespeare can be traced back to earlier writers, in thought, sen- 
 timent, figures, tones, echoes, and all. 
 
 " Chaucer," says Emerson, " is a huge borrower." And again = 
 " The influence of Chaucer is conspicuous in all our earlier literature ; 
 and, more recently, not only Pope and Dryden have been beholden 
 to him, but, in the whole society of English writers, a large unac- 
 knowledged debt is easily traced." 
 
 Wesley sang : 
 
 " Lo, on a narrow neck of land, 
 'Twixt two unbounded seas, I stand ; 
 
 Yet how insensible I 
 A point of time, a moment's space," etc. 
 
26 WHO WROTE " EOCK MB TO SLEEP, ItOTHEK" r 
 
 Long after, Moore writes, in LaUa Mookh : 
 
 " Who that surveys this span of earth we tread, 
 This speck of life in time's great wilderness. 
 This narrow isthmus 'twixt two boundless seas," etc. 
 
 In the peroration of the great speech against Hayne, Webster ex- 
 pressed the hope that in his last glance he might behold the " ensign" 
 of the republic, " sliWfuU high advanced:'' Was he a plagiarist be- 
 cause Milton's Azazel 
 
 " TJnfiirled 
 The imperial ensign which, fuZl high aclmpmced, 
 Shone like a meteor " ? 
 
 Many other instances of accidental, or at least unconscious, resem- 
 blanceg, occur to us, as of Chalmers with Pope, and of Hemans with 
 Chalmers, and Rogers with Milton : but we have cited enough for 
 our purpose. 
 
 In fact, you can hardly take up a literary journal without finding 
 some clever Bohemian after some poet with sharp scissors, cutting 
 out the flesh of the old, and leaving a grim skeleton of the new. 
 And as we write, a sense of the droll comes over us, more exquisite 
 than we can allow ourselves fully to express. A man is not always 
 so safe as he may think, behind his mask. James Byrne (witness 
 " W.'s" case in State Trials) was hanged for treason, though only re- 
 cognized by the flash of his own firelock as he pulled the trigger, in 
 the dark. Unless we are as much mistaken in the identity of " W." as 
 Sir Thomas was in his robbers, his leisure will be fully occupied in 
 proving an "^ unconscious utterance," in " sopping up," not only a 
 leaf, but a whole pasture of leaves, and that, also, from one Whit- 
 man! O poetical justice ! So wonderfully pat as well as sure ! 
 
 Our point is, not that Mr. Ball would have been justified in inten- 
 tionally copying (if he had done so) any thought from Mrs. Whitman 
 \v'ithout acknowledgment, but that an occasional resemblance of ex- 
 pression is not evidence of such act or intent, since authors are ac- 
 customed, and, indeed, compelled, to draw from a common stock of 
 |)oetic words, images, comparisons, and even phrases — a fact that 
 will receive illustration further on from Mrs. Whitman herself. This 
 idea is well put in a letter from a distinguished literary lady of New- 
 England on the subject of this very controversy: "I believe that 
 none of us can so divide our mental wealth as to say how much 
 originated in our own minds and how much is ours by long memory. 
 Beside this, I am well aware that there is a large body of poetical 
 thought and expression which has become as much common property 
 as words themselves, and, like proverbs and superstitious fancies, can 
 
WHO WROTE " EOCiK ME TO SLEEP, MOTHHK" ? 27 
 
 be traced back almoet to tlie limit of man's record, so that I am often 
 out of patience with charges of plagiarism." 
 
 We summon to the stand another witness, Mrs. Whitman herself, 
 whose neutrality, however, must be respected. "No issue is made 
 with her ; we only record her testimony. The Providence Journal, 
 which seems to speak for her, " ventures to say that she has no desire 
 to hold Mr. Ball responsible for his ' shut wings,' ' mystic charms,' 
 etc. ; or, indeed, for any little accidental resemblances." Of course 
 not ; she is a sensible woman, and knows that the assertion of such 
 a right would recoil. And when the public recover from the detona- 
 tion of the tremendous blast from behind the columns of The Times, 
 ' and the smoke clears away, they will perceive that these " resem- 
 blances " cover the whole charge against Mr. Ball ; for, as we have 
 said, his poem .is wholly diverse, with not a single borrowed thought. 
 In what we have now to say, we have no mind to underrate Mrs. 
 Whitman's poem, but only to uncover the sapience of that other who 
 has the effrontery to cry that Mr. Ball has based his lines on " her 
 pure metal gold, the vintage of a rich, exalted mind." What a " vint- 
 age of gold " may be, we have no dictionary at hand sufficiently com- 
 prehensive to tell us ; yet suppose it may be illustrated by the fol- 
 lowing example, wherein the critic strives to show at once his point 
 and his astuteness : 
 
 Mrs. W.'s " vintage of gold." — " And like a dream of beauty glides a/way." 
 Mr. B.'g " stealings." — "And mingling with my dreams bears me away." 
 
 But to continue our inquiry as to what is or what is not plagiar- 
 ism according to the usages of the poets, we examine this poem of 
 Mrs. Whitman. " Mystic charms," " dream of beauty," "robes of 
 glory," " spicy airs," these are phrases long ago " set " in the lan- 
 guage of poesy, and she does well to disclaim exclusive right. 
 " Shut wings " (of a bee) is property sufficiently insipid to escape 
 any vehement desire to covet or to claim; and may only serve, by a 
 severe contrast, to recall the grim " shut soul's hypocrisy " of Byron. 
 
 But where the poetess sings, 
 
 " I love to wander tkrough tlie woodkmds hoary," 
 
 is there not an echo of Carlos Wilcox : 
 
 " It were sweetly sad 
 To wamder through the open fields, * * * * 
 To hear within the woodlands," etc. t 
 
 Or of Longfellow's In the Woods: 
 
 " Oh ! I could not but go 
 Into the woodlands hoa/r " ? 
 
28 WHO WROTE "EOCK ME TO SLEEP, MOTHER"':' 
 
 When to her eye " the sunbeams hathe the hills in melancholy gold," 
 are we to hold her responsible for a floating memory of Street : 
 
 " Tlie briglit sunshine's golden hue 
 Bathed the still frozen earth " ? 
 And again : 
 
 " The sylvan floor is iathed in gold " f 
 
 Or are both plagiarists because Rufus Dawes wrote before either : 
 
 " The hills iathed in &fiood ofglm-y " f 
 
 Or is it not a very common fancy of the poets to see things "bathed" 
 in the light of the sun ? And then, poor, unfortunate New-Jersey 
 legislator, Mr. Ball, only a plagiarist of Mrs. Whitman when he speaks 
 of " each sense of his glad soul bathed in feeling ! " Don " W." had 
 better try some other calling than that of " connoisseur in poetry " 
 which he so coolly arrogates ! So, when Mrs. Whitman writes : 
 
 " Like a fond lover loath to say farewell," 
 
 had not Drake already said : 
 
 " Like parting friends, who linger while they sever " ? 
 
 Her " bee's drowsy tale " echoes Emerson's " bee's drowsy tune." 
 Her "little birds "—what scores of poets apostrophize the "little 
 birds" from the " little birds " of Bonnie Doon to those of Duchess 
 May — "flit noiselessly from spray to spray" and as they do it bear 
 a reminiscence of the bird passing '■'■ noiselessly from perch to perch" 
 in the grand old Forest Hymn. 
 
 Indeed, it is plain enough that she catches "tones and echoes" 
 abundantly from Bryant, as an artist may borrow from a master fea- 
 tures and colorings in a landscape. A curious detective 'mistake 
 justifies our opinion. 
 
 She says the fringed gentian "nods." "The gentian nods, in 
 dewy slumbers bound." The fringed gentian does not nod. In fact, 
 it is the most strikingly erect of all flowers. We can think of none 
 in the whole catalogue, with stem so straight, and corolla, like a cup, 
 so absolutely looking up to heaven. It is an old idea of the poets to 
 speak of flowers like the daisies, buttercups, and columbine, as nod- 
 ding — from the time of Oberon's bank, " where ox-lips and the nod- 
 ding violet grows " — ^but in no sense can the term be applied to the 
 blue gentian. We trace the mistake, in which two independent ob- 
 servers could not have agreed, to Bryant's November : 
 
 " And the hlne gentian flower that in the breeze nods lonely." 
 
 Here is, without doubt, a slip of expression, since that master of 
 
WHO WEOTE " EOCK ME TO SLEEP, MOTHER" ? 29 
 
 American pastorals abundantly justifies his own correct observation 
 of nature, in tbe poem To the Fringed Gentian, as follows : 
 
 " Then dotti thy sweet and quiet eye 
 Look through its fringes to the sky." 
 
 Confirmation, if needed, might come from the same press of Tick- 
 nor & Fields, in a volume of Whittier's, who sings: 
 
 " Yet shall the blue-eyed gentian look 
 Through fringed lids to heaven." 
 
 We have one more illustration still nearer home. The critic him- 
 self, in " sopping up whole lines, isolated phrases, words, tones, and 
 echoes," plagiarizes the whole literature of Billingsgate ! With this 
 ■we dismiss him to his " siesta of the critical faculty," toping that his 
 future post-prandial dreaming will prove less vagrant than the past I 
 
 We have said that the Akers claim gives not a shred of testimony 
 beyond the bare assertion of one. We beg pardon, and hasten to in- 
 troduce to your kind attention a witness, who signs himself, " Major 
 William Huntley, of Lumber street, Albany." We think we have had 
 sufficient experience in the army to discern fancy straps from here to 
 Albany. It is the singular fancy of army officers to be shy of para- 
 ding the buttons, save on official occasions. But if we must have our 
 witness in uniform, so be it. There he stands, in the full panoply of 
 war ; two shining rows of nine down the front, straps with the golden 
 leaves, and between the leaves embroidered Q. (E.) D. ! Probably 
 he may estimate this an official occasion. Undoubtedly it is the last 
 of its kind, since the world, for the fairer distribution of its honors, 
 does not so often repeat the oj)portunities of greatness to one man. 
 
 It is a pity men will not stick to their buttons. This Major may 
 be a master of belligerence, but he is a marplot in belles-lettres. 
 
 Truly, Mrs. Akers may exclaim, in the language of the Dutch 
 private when questioned concerning his rations, " Too much isli a 
 plenty." The zeal of her witness is too much. He testifies that he 
 was in Bradford, Vt., in 1850 ; that he there became acquainted with 
 Miss Elizabeth Chase, afterward Mrs. Akers ; that in February of that 
 year she produced the poem " Rock Me to Sleep," in six stanzas ; 
 and that then it was published over her nom deplume. That there 
 may be no mistake in the date, he repeats it four times, 1850. 
 
 This is fearful. And that he should have "been and gone and 
 done it," after she explicitly says that she produced it in Italy in 
 May, 1860 ! 
 
 Ten years also thus rashly taken oiF her age and experience in 
 the writing of a poem which is instinct with maturity of experience, 
 or, as " W." says, of " utter world- weariness"— say at fifteen ! 
 
30 tVHO WROTE " BOOK ME TO SLBBP, MOTEIBk" ? 
 
 We are not so unfair as to embarrass her case with such blnndei'- 
 ing as this. Our object is quite another. There has been much ac- 
 complished to the prejudice of Mr. Ball in the slander that he once 
 sent to a newspaper a poem of Mrs. Hemans's as his own. The 
 charge is a gross attempt to prejudice Mr. Ball's case in the public 
 mind, and make sentiment in favor of Mrs. Akers. It has not the 
 slightest foundation in fact. He never did any such thing — never 
 has even courted a public reputation by having any thing published, 
 and it is only a stranger to his character who could imagine it to be 
 true. 
 
 This slander we now trace to this Lumber street Major as its 
 source ; this Albanian hero, this ill-ustrious, warrio-witness ; this 
 would-be Knight of the Garter ; whom his fair friends will hardly 
 dub but that they buckle the badge around his tongue. We send it 
 home to him to roost !* 
 
 " The triumphs of a warrior are bounded by the narrow theatre 
 of his age, but those of a scholar will be renewed in ages yet unborn, 
 when the chieftain shall be forgotten." There remains now the more 
 serious duty of meeting those whose standing in the profession of 
 literature admits of no excuse for vulgar mistake, or flat injustice. 
 The dignity of a reviewer, sitting in a conspicuous chair, clothed in 
 a robe of Athenian grace, breathing an air of classical fragrance, ma- 
 ture in the nice estimate of language and its nice use, and pronounc- 
 , ing judgments as it were the judgments of an oracle, trusted of the 
 people, no one may rashly assail. 
 
 It might be a "tickle point of nicenesse " to adjudge whether it 
 were a safer inspiration which should flow from the clang of a brazen 
 cauldron in the oak-groves of Dodona, or from the click of nickel 
 pence in a book-market of Boston. But antiquity may sanctify the 
 one with hoary seemliness, while truth confronts the other to its 
 disgrace. We arraign The Atlantio Monthly, the organ of the same 
 publishers who issued Mrs. Akers's volume of poems — a book that 
 needs " Rock Me to Sleep " to float it — and who, in the guise of im- 
 partial reviewers, are only defending a copy-right of their own. 
 
 The reviewer raves in the same style of argtiment with which we 
 are already familiar, raillery in the " 'Ercles vein," " with quips, and 
 
 * Since the publication of the above, we note in the papers the death of a Major 
 Huntly of Albany, under distressing circumstances, perhaps of aberration. It be- 
 comes proper to state that we have not the slightest knowledge of the man whose 
 name was appended to the extraordinary letter here criticised, and our only obj ect 
 has been the perfectly valid one, to show from the face of the document itself that 
 the writer was either insane, or under an extraordinary delusion ; and conse- 
 quently no responsible authority, though the only one, for the slander against Mr. 
 Ball, of which such diligent use has been made, and will be made as long as there 
 are those who have selfish or mercenary purposes to carry in spite of truth. 
 
WHO ■WEOTB " EOCK ME TO SLEEP, MOTHEE" ? 31 
 
 sentences, and paper bullets of the brain to awe a man." He has the 
 same stale phraseology, "hopeless poetasting," and "driveling," 
 again ; " curious pyschological study " — modern version of Junius's 
 "matter of curious speculation " — "seven sleepers," etc. There is a 
 slight difference. What in the other makes the " brain whirl," in 
 this "strikes cold on the stomach," which is probably due to different 
 modes of fast living. In the pitiful weakness of his anger, this oracle 
 flies from his editorial chair of state to fling his whole basketful of 
 waste paper into the face of Mr. Ball. The staple of his cry is : " Oh ! 
 ridiculous, ridiculous, and most ridiculous ridiculous, and yet again 
 ridiculous, and after that all out of whooping !" All of the same spi- 
 rit with that other of TJie Times — weades amba, id est, etc. — he strives 
 to cover up the hopelessness of the claim he stands for, by corrupting 
 the testimonies for the imposition of his readers, trusting that, not 
 having Mr. Morse's pamphlet in their hands, or taking the trouble to 
 compare, they will not detect the wrong to truth. For example, he 
 says of the testimony of Mr. Hyde, that he fixes the time when he 
 heard Mr. Ball read " Rock Me to Sleep" by the date of a paper 
 which he thinks he called to draw up at Mr. Ball's residence some 
 time in the autumn of 1859. The reviewers points this as a great 
 joke on a legal gentleman. It would be if it were true. Not being 
 so, it looms up grimly on the other side. What does Mr. J. Burrows 
 Hyde say ? " Some time in the autumn of 1859, 1 think in the month 
 of September, I called on you," etc.. '' I am able to fix the date by 
 that of the paper which was the subject of our interview !" The 
 " think" applies to the month, and not to the act or year. 
 
 Again, two witnesses fix a date by referring to a season, 1856 or 
 '57, when Mrs. Ball was absent, placing her daughter at school in 
 Leroy. A school bill determined the time as February, 1857. "A 
 time," the reviewer cries, in triumph, " when Mr. Ball was oii his way 
 to California." Mr. Morse makes it perfectly clear to any apprehen- 
 sion not determined to make things crooked. His words are : " In 
 fact, the draft of the poem was read to these two ladi«s at that time, 
 just prior to Mr. Ball's sailing for California." And, until it can be 
 shown that a man can not both receive a visit from some friends, and 
 start on his way to California, in any February of any year, we have 
 the right to challenge the wits or the honesty of a shameless petti-, 
 fogger like this. 
 
 Of the witness H. D. E. he says : " She is sorry that she can not 
 remember, and then distinctly remembers." What she does say is : 
 " I can not remember the exact date when 1 first heard it. I distinctly 
 remember your reading it to me, and I know it was either in the year 
 1857 or '58." In repeating these statements, as he does each of them. 
 
32 WHO WEOTE "EOCK ME TO SLEEP, MOTHEE" ? 
 
 for emphasis of his argument, he only emphasizes his own blind pas- 
 sion and disregard of truth. Is the world, then, to take this as the 
 chaste, scholarly criticism of Boston dilettanti, or is it the graceless 
 trickery of hirelings ? In the onfe case, it were better were it more 
 exact ; in the other, it were safer were it less gross ! We must speak 
 plainly. This severity has a warrant in its justice. This is not mere 
 sharp practice that may have a cover for its deformity in its shrewd- 
 ness — it is deliberate misstatement. After a rehash of the Hemans 
 poem slander, the reviewer reaches his grand climax in the oracular 
 decision that " Mr. Morse is the most impudent and absurd man in 
 America." 
 
 And why, forsooth? Because he gave testimonies which could 
 not be escaped save through the disgrace of prevarication. Truth is 
 always impudence to two classes, fools and mercenaries. Galileo was 
 once " the most impudent and absurd man" in all Rome. 
 
 So, another Morse (son of the aforenamed Rev. Dr. Jedidiah 
 Morse) some score of years ago, as we remember, while experimenting 
 with his coil, at the University, was esteemed by many the most im- 
 pudent and absurd man in America — so much so as to be actually oif 
 the centre — till, ere long, his "absurd" theory took on the features 
 of truth, and now its loss would make a mendless gap in the history, 
 the business, and the comfort of the world. 
 
 Personal abuse, which an editor, safe behind the columns of which 
 he is an autocrat, may dash off. and scatter through the land, is a 
 doubtful privilege, which may be tolerated when supposed to flow from 
 a pure mind, warm in the maintenance of public literary interests. 
 Yet if the hint of malice or of private interest shall pass upon it, it 
 becomes mean by as much as the power is great and the offender 
 hedged. Autocratic injustice for greed with cowardice — what a pic- 
 ture ! 
 
 Was it a harsh man who said, " Our virtues disappear when put 
 in competition with our interests" ? A few more such shameful re- 
 views in The Atlantic Monthly, sinA the public will catch the hint that 
 its virtue ip disinterested criticism is gone. The publishers have wares 
 to sell ! Sine illm lachrymce. Its assthetical standards, its fealty 
 to the very honesty of literary criticism, must be gauged by the neces- 
 ,sity or the greed of the publishing house below. If books grow dusty 
 on the shelves, if a little plain truth told by some " most impudent 
 and absurd man" makes them dustier still, the reviewer must descend 
 from his high oracular seat and turn petty salesman for the nonce. 
 If The Monthly is thus to be degraded to an advertising sheet, while 
 the public may applaud the shrewdness of the business device, it will 
 also adjust the value to be set on mercantile, not literary, opinions. 
 
•WHO WKOTE "eOCK MB TO SLEEP, MOTHBe"? 33 
 
 la the balances, they are to be weighed off against dollars and cents, 
 instead of learning and culture. 
 
 "What can the matter be with the Boston literary atmosphere ? If 
 that city is the Hub of the Universe, are Ticknor & Fields the axle f 
 Can it afford to have its reputation for fair play shamed by such 
 critiques as this ? Can it tolerate a censorship of the press that ex- 
 cludes outside literature, which the magnates of Tremont street, eitfier 
 for public profit or private purse, ordain the people must not see ?' 
 Can it tolerate the meanness of a press which could spread over its- 
 sheet the letter of Mrs. Akers, tahenfrom this article, on its first ap^ 
 pearance, and give no hint of Mr. BaWs reply ? Does your sense of 
 justice, O Boston ! jump with this ? Or are you such a set of nurs- 
 lings that guardians must first prepare your literary pap, lest you eat 
 indigestible food ? Give us some freer air than that, where a man 
 may plead his cause with men, and be heabd. 
 
 We have done. In spite of the tremendous outbursts of laughter 
 which may shake all the capitals of Europe to their foundations — in 
 spite of the fury of Boston mercantile oracles, we claim to have shown 
 that Mrs. Akers never wrote the poem, " Rock Me to Sleep," and that 
 Mr. Ball is the only one before the world who is entitled to its ho- 
 nors. We believe likewise, that Messrs. Ticknor & Fields, after- 
 this exposure, however unfortunately they may have been deceived,, 
 can not continue to publish the poem as they do, except at the sacris- 
 fice of honor. 
 
 Neither can they save themselves from complicity in what has- 
 been proved to be a scurrilous article of their agent in The Atlantic 
 Monthly, except by retraction and apology. 
 
 It is deemed proper to subjoin the poem upon which the preaeoit 
 controversy hinges : 
 
 KOCK ME TO SLEEP, MOTHER. 
 
 Backward, flow backward, full tide of years 1 
 I am so weary of toils and of tears — 
 Toil without recompense — tears all in vain, 
 Take them, and give me my childhood again. 
 I have grown weary of dust and decay — 
 Weary of flinging my heart's wealth away — 
 Weary of sowing for others to reap : 
 Bock me to sleep, mother, rook me to sleep. 
 
 II. 
 
 Hushed be my sighing — I see through the mist 
 Loved ones that cheer me, and silently list : 
 Hark ! 'tis the hymning of angelic song, 
 sad heart along ; 
 
34 WHO WEOTB " EOCK ME TO SLEEP, MOTHEe" ? 
 
 Treading the grass that now weeps on your grave. 
 Let me in spirit your sweet presence crave : 
 This will now cheer me, no more will I weep, 
 Eock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep. 
 
 Clouded and sahled, there come with my age 
 Eecords of sadness, to soU the fair page — 
 Footprints of sorrow to blot it all o'er. 
 Thinking of those on the echoless shore. 
 Only, I see you look down on me now, 
 While humbly kneeling, at His cross I bow : 
 Come then and dry up the tears I must weep. 
 Bock me to sleep, mother, rock me to deep. 
 
 rv. 
 
 As stars in the day axe concealed by the light. 
 And darkness unvails them alone to the sight. 
 So sleeping I see you, unseen when awake, 
 And welcome, thrice welcome, is sleep for your sake. 
 Soft are my slumbers, a glory of beams. 
 Announcing your coming, illumines my dreams : 
 Visit me nightly, and when I would weep, 
 Eock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep. 
 
 Backward, turn backward, then, time, iu your flight • 
 Make me a child again just for to-night. 
 Mother, come back from the echoless shore. 
 Take me again to your heart as of yore, 
 Bass from my forehead the furrows of care, 
 Smooth the few silver threads out of my hair ; 
 Over my slumbers your loving watch keep, 
 Eock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep. 
 
 Over my heart in bright days that are flown, 
 No love like mother love ever has shone — 
 No other worship abides and endures, 
 Faithful, unselfish, and patient like yours ; 
 None like a mother can charm away pain 
 From the sick soul and the world-weary brain ; 
 Slumber's soft calms o'er my heavy lids creep, 
 Eock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep. 
 
 TH. 
 
 Tired of the hollow, the base, the untrue. 
 Mother, dear mother, my heart calls for you ; 
 Many a summer the grass has grown green. 
 Blossomed and faded our faces between. 
 
■WHO "WEOTE " EOCK MK TO SLEEP, MOTHEE" ? 35 
 
 Yet with strong yearning and passionate pain, 
 Long I to-nigiit for your presence again ; 
 Come from the silence, so long and so deep, 
 Rock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Mother, dear mother, the days have been long, 
 Since I last hushed to your lullaby song ; 
 Sing it, and unto my soul it shall seem. 
 Manhood's long years have been only a dream. 
 Clasped to your heart, in a loving embrace. 
 With your light lashes just sweeping my face, 
 Never hereafter to sigh or to weep, 
 Rock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep. 
 
 Come, let your brown hair, just lighted with gold. 
 Fall on your shoulders again as of old — 
 Let it fall over my forehead to-night, 
 Shading my faint eyes away from the light : 
 For with its sunny-edged shadows once more 
 Fondly will throng the sweet visions of yore. 
 Lovingly, softly, its charmed billows sweep — 
 Rock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep. 
 
 Angelic mother, now tenderly smile. 
 While the fond seraphs my soul shall beguile ; 
 Shed o'er my pathway the spirit world's light. 
 To guide and to cheer me, all through the night. 
 I have grown Weary of life's changing tide. 
 Weary of weeping for hopej that have died ; 
 Weary of climbing life's hill-side so steep — 
 Rock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep. 
 
 Tired of earth's mockery, and the world's strife. 
 Tired of the penances paid for this life — 
 Growing more weary of heartless display — 
 Weary of world's night, I long for the day ; 
 Let then your spirit encompass me now. 
 While on your bosom in silence I bow. 
 Tenderly watching my thoughts as they sweep. 
 Rock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep. 
 
 Thought can not linger around the cold tomb, 
 Sweet spirit faces will break through its gloom. 
 And when I wipe the fresh tear-drops away, 
 Clouds turn to brightness, and roseate day 
 
3ti 
 
 WHO WEOTE "eOCK ME TO SLEEP, MOTHEE" ? 
 
 Breaks on my vision — then smiling again 
 Peace spreads her gentle wings softly to reign, 
 Voices celestial forbid me to weep : 
 Bock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep. 
 
 Stilled are my tumults, I see in the sky 
 
 Loved ones whose splendors have drowned every sigh, 
 
 Faces familiar of friends here no more, 
 
 Fairer and fonder than ever before — 
 
 Glorified figures that stoop to caress. 
 
 Mighty to comfort, and mighty to bless ; 
 
 Bright is the vision — no more can I weep; 
 
 Rock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep. 
 
 xrv. 
 
 Bock me to sleep, mother, rock me to rest ; 
 Calmed with your smiling the storm in my breast 
 Stilled are the sorrows you come to allay ; 
 Teach me again as of old how to pray ; 
 Contentions without, contentions within, 
 Batthngs with doubt, and temptation, and sin. 
 Ceased with your presence, I can not now weep : 
 Bock me to sleep, mother, rock me to sleep. 
 
 Thus with my loved ones I'll watch by your side. 
 Nor weep once again, whatever betide. 
 Waiting all calmly the coming of those 
 Holding the signet of death's cold repose ; 
 Farewell to sorrow — farewell to all ill — 
 Whispers are stealing, sad heart be now still — 
 With my dear mother, kind watch I will keep. 
 She charges the angels to rock me to sleep. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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