"The British soldier trembles
When Marion's name is told,"
and assured Irving that he could not offer a work containing such a statement to a British public. It was impossible to consult the author, three thousand miles away, and Irving ventured to change the objectionable passage so that it should read:
"The foeman trembles in his camp
When Marion's name is told."
There is no reason to believe that Mr. Bryant ever resented the liberty or regarded it otherwise than as an act of friendly intervention; but some years later William Leggett, who had long been Mr. Bryant's editorial associate in the office of the Evening Post, but had severed his connection with that paper, made a virulent assault upon Irving in the Plaindealer on account of the change he had made, even going so far as to intimate that both that and his dealings with one of his own works were dictated by mean sycophancy and cowardice on Irving's part.—Editor.]
SONG OF MARION'S MEN.
Our band is few, but true and tried,
Our leader frank and bold;
The British soldier trembles
When Marion's name is told.
Our fortress is the good greenwood,
Our tent the cypress tree;
We know the forest round us;
As seamen know the sea;
We know its walls of thorny vines,
Its glades of reedy grass,
Its safe and silent islands
Within the dark morass.