RICHMOND COUNTY. 509 



not having the works of Alcaeus at hand, he could not feel sure 

 that the poem was really his. It was thus sent, without the 

 knowledge of Mr. Wilde and his friends, to a periodical at 

 New- York, and published as a fragment from Alcajus, and the 

 Senator for Georgia was vehemently attacked by his political 

 opponents for having passed off a translation from the Greek 

 as an original composition of his own." 



Now, this also is incorrect. Mr. Wilde was not present 

 at the party alluded to, or he would not have written the fol- 

 lowing letter : 



Washington, 7th January, 1835. 

 Dear Sir — Relying on our past acquaintance, and your 

 known urbanity, to pardon the liberty I take, permit me to say, 

 without farther preface, that circumstances which it is unne- 

 cessary to detail, concur in pointing you out as the author of 

 a translation into Greek, of some fugitive verses, long attri- 

 buted to, but only recently avowed by me. If you are, I am 

 sure the task was executed only to amuse the leisure hours of 

 a gentleman and scholai", or at most, for the sport it might 

 afford you to mystify the learned. In the latter you have 

 been so eminently successful, if the work is yours, that a re- 

 sult has been produced, the reverse, no doubt, of your inten- 

 tion, so far as it respects myself. I have been stigmatized with 

 plagiarism, and compelled (such was the importance some of 

 my friends attached to the'charge), to deny it in person. Since 

 then, an article in the Georgian of the twenty-seventh of De- 

 cember, goes far to exculpate me from the pillage of Alcaeus ; 

 and excellent reasons have been given by Greek scholars to 

 show the piece is modern. Nevertheless, as 1 have been com- 

 pelled to do penance publicly, in sheets once white, for this 

 sin of my youth, it would relieve me somewhat, since I must 

 acknowledge the foundling, to have no dispute about the pater- 

 nity. The demonstrative reason is the word of a man of ho- 

 nour, who composed the Greek fragment, so well executed, as 

 to deceive many of some pretenders to scholarship. I am 

 therefore desirous of obtaining for publication, in such form as 

 you choose, your avowal of the authorship ; or, if you prefer it, 

 your simple authority for the fact. If I am wrong in ascribing 

 33 



