Chapter I: Dedicate

THIS HUMBLE ATTEMPT

AT

EMULATING HIM.

A work on the literary impositions which have been perpetrated upon the public, besides being replete with interest, would be productive of considerable other advantage. It would furnish an important subject of study in the great science of human nature, exhibiting peculiar, cultivated specimens of criminality.

The secret history of the authorship of literary productions would strip many a name of the reputation it enjoys, and place laurels on the brow of many a man who

In life’s low vale remote has pined alone,
Then dropped into the grave, unpitied and unknown!

Rank and wealth have obtained unmerited eminence in the literary world, at the expense of the time and abilities of gifted dependents.

DAVID FOSDICK, _Biblical Repository_, New York, 1838.

Literary swindling is a crime that is very prevalent, because we have no Government police to bring offenders to justice.

S. N. ELRINGTON, Literary Piracies, &c. Dublin [1863] p. 18.