Page:Famous Single Poems (1924).djvu/91

 and if its authorship had to be decided on internal evidence alone, "A Visit from St. Nicholas" might fairly be held to resemble the work of Henry Livingston much more closely than it resembles the work of Clement C. Moore—though, as another writer has pointed out, it must be remembered that Alice in Wonderland was written by a professor of mathematics, and that the Nonsense Novels and The Elements of Political Science are by one and the same hand.

But in the face of Dr. Moore's explicit claim, something more than indirect evidence of this sort is required. In 1844, when he included it among his published works, he was only sixty-three years of age, in full possession of all his faculties, and if the poem was not his, he was committing a theft of the basest and meanest sort, of whose nature he must have been fully conscious. To suppose that he would stoop so low for so paltry a purpose is to imply that he was really only a whited sepulcher. There is absolutely nothing else in his life to warrant such a supposition. He was a man of unblemished reputation, of high repute for integrity, of wide beneficence, of upright and kindly life, and rich in honors.

Conclusive indeed must be the proof to convince any one that he would soil himself by the theft of another man's poem in order to add one more leaf to his wreath of laurel. The