Page:Famous Single Poems (1924).djvu/267

 to his decision. His friends, knowing that there was the most abundant and conclusive evidence to establish his claim to the authorship, determined that it should be vindicated.”

Here, in a nutshell, is the whole plot of what, starting as a comedy, speedily turned into a tragedy!

It is given further elucidation in the introductory note. “Through the zeal of his friends,” writes Mr. Marsh, “his claim to the poem has acquired such publicity that he is now driven to the alternative of defending his right, or hereafter 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 considerations, in a great measure, have been overcome in him by a chivalric forbearance toward his chief contestant, and she would have walked, mistress over the field,” had not the Honorable Oliver O. Morse taken the matter in hand and prepared the “Vindication.”

One can imagine the shudders which shook the unhappy harness-maker as this work progressed, his sleepless nights, his terrific labors to prepare his evidence and prove himself a poet.

But of all this, Iago was happily unconscious, or, if he suspected it, he regarded such weakness with deserved contempt. Undaunted