fess I
never suspected the above comparison of being old, except from the
fact of its obviousness. It is proper, however, that I proceed by
a formal instrument to relinquish all claim to any property in an
idea given to the world at about the time when I had just joined
the class in which Master Thomas Moore was then a somewhat advanced
scholar.

I, therefore, in full possession of my native honesty, but knowing
the liability of all men to be elected to public office, and for
that reason feeling uncertain how soon I may be in danger of losing
it, do hereby renounce all claim to being considered the FIRST
person who gave utterance to a certain simile or comparison
referred to in the accompanying documents, and relating to the
pupil of the eye on the one part and the mind of the bigot on the
other. I hereby relinquish all glory and profit, and especially
all claims to letters from autograph collectors, founded upon my
supposed property in the above comparison,--knowing well, that,
according to the laws of literature, they who speak first hold the
fee of the thing said. I do also agree that all Editors of
Cyclopedias and Biographical Dictionaries, all Publishers of
Reviews and Papers, and all Critics writing therein, shall be at
liberty to retract or qualify any opinion predicated on the
supposition that I was the sole and undisputed author of the above
comparison. But, inasmuch as I do affirm that the comparison
aforesaid was uttered by me in the firm belief that it was new and
wholly my own, and as I have good reason to think that I had never
seen or heard it when first expressed by me, and as it is well
known that different persons may independently utter the same
idea,--as is evinced by that familiar line from Donatus,--

"Pereant illi qui ante nos nostra dixerunt,"--

now, therefore, I do request by this instrument that all
well-disposed persons will abstain from asserting or implying that I
am open to any accusation whatsoever touching the said comparison,
and, if they have so asserted or implied, that they will have the
manliness forthwith to retract the same assertion or insinuation.

I think few persons have a greater disgust for plagiarism than
myself. If I had even suspected that the idea in question was
borrowed, I should have disclaimed originality, or mentioned the
coincidence, as I once did in a case where I had happened to hit on
an idea of Swift's.--But what shall I do about these verses I was