Note 1 — A FATHER TO HIS CHILD.[1]
Reading edition
A friend of mine thinks he has seen a poem somewhere not altogether unlike this. Whether such a poem there is I know not, nor have I, after hunting over pamphlets and periodicals, been able to find one. If the reader shall be more successful, he will please give the writer of any similar production as much praise as he chooses, and subduct the same from me. An author ought to know if he is guilty of plagiarism; and though I may err, it is my opinion, that among the many who have written upon this subject, though I may not boast of as much beauty, I may at least have been as far from stealing as the best of the rhyming tribe. These are indeed days of barter—still I would live on my own capital.