"As the editor in question was a friend of mine, and as I knew that he had done General Morris great injustice, I wrote him a long letter, in which I attempted to set him right, and thus induce him if possible to render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's. In other words, I hoped he would correct his misstatements. Instead of complying with my expressed hope, he thanked me for my letter--very kindly published it; but, in the very same paper, repeated his original charge. In common justice to General Morris, I beg leave to remark, in closing this note, that I have known him intimately and well the last thirty years, and that I never knew a poet or author in any department of literature who was more strictly original. He is incapable of the petty conduct attributed to him, and would scorn to wear honors that belong to another. A more honorable, high-minded gentleman never lived." HOME JOURNAL OFFICE, NEW-YORK, _September 22, 1851_. TO JOHN SMITH, JR., OF ARKANSAS: _My Dear Sir_:--I thank you sincerely for your kind defence of me against the unfounded aspersions of an editor of a Boston paper. Your course was precisely what was to be expected from a just man, and a contemporary who has known me from my boyhood. The editor alluded to, charges me with a crime that I abhor. It is substantially as follows: "_That the ballad of 'Woodman, spare that tree,' was not written by me, but by the late Samuel Woodworth, who, while in a state intoxication, sold it to me, in a public bar-room, for a paltry sum_." A more infamous charge was never made, and the whole story, from beginning to end, without any qualification whatever, is an unmitigated _falsehood_. The history of the song in question is simply this: In the autumn of 1837, Russell, the vocalist, applied to me for an original ballad, and I wrote him "_Woodman, spare that tree_," and handed it to him with a letter which he afterwards read at his concerts, and published in the newspapers of the day. It also accompanied the first edition of the music. Mr. Woodworth never saw or heard of the song until after it appeared in print. I am not indebted to any human being, dead or alive, for a single word, thought, or suggestion, embodied in that song. It is entirely original and entirely my composition, and this is also true of _all_ the productions I have ever claimed to be the author of, with the exception of the play of "Brier Cliff," which is founded upon a novel by Mrs. Thayer, and the opera of the "Maid of Saxony," dramatized from a story by Miss Edgeworth. In both instances I duly acknowledged my indebtedness to the authors from whom I derived my materials for those pieces. The attack upon Mr.