[I have observed, reader, (bene- or male-volent, as it may happen,) that
it is customary to append to the second editions of books, and to the
second works of authors, short sentences commendatory of the first,
under the title of _Notices of the Press_. These, I have been given to
understand, are procurable at certain established rates, payment being
made either in money or advertising patronage by the publisher, or by an
adequate outlay of servility on the part of the author. Considering
these things with myself, and also that such notices are neither
intended, nor generally believed, to convey any real opinions, being a
purely ceremonial accompaniment of literature, and resembling
certificates to the virtues of various morbiferal panaceas, I conceived
that it would be not only more economical to prepare a sufficient number
of such myself, but also more immediately subservient to the end in
view, to prefix them to this our primary edition, rather than await the
contingency of a second, when they would seem to be of small utility. To
delay attaching the _bobs_ until the second attempt at flying the kite
would indicate but a slender experience in that useful art. Neither has
it escaped my notice, nor failed to afford me matter of reflection,
that, when a circus or a caravan is about to visit Jaalam, the initial
step is to send forward large and highly ornamented bills of performance
to be hung in the bar-room and the post-office. These having been
sufficiently gazed at, and beginning to lose their attractiveness
except for the flies, and, truly, the boys also, (in whom I find it
impossible to repress, even during school-hours, certain oral and
telegraphic correspondences concerning the expected show,) upon some
fine morning the band enters in a gaily-painted waggon, or triumphal
chariot, and with noisy advertisement, by means of brass, wood, and
sheepskin, makes the circuit of our startled village-streets. Then, as
the exciting sounds draw nearer and nearer, do I desiderate those eyes
of Aristarchus, "whose looks were as a breeching to a boy." Then do I
perceive, with vain regret of wasted opportunities, the advantage of a
pancratic or pantechnic education, since he is most reverenced by my
little subjects who can throw the cleanest summerset, or walk most
securely upon the revolving cask. The story of the Pied Piper becomes
for the first time credible to me, (albeit confirmed by the Hameliners
dating their legal instruments from the period of his exit,) as I behold
how those strains, without pretence of magical potency, bewitch the
pupillary legs, nor leave to the pedagogic an entire self-control. For
these reasons, lest my kingly prerogative should suffer diminution, I
prorogue my restless commons, whom I also follow into the street,
chiefly lest some mischief may chance befall them. After the manner of
such a band, I send forward the following notices of domestic
manufacture, to make brazen proclamation, not unconscious of the
advantage which will accrue, if our little craft, _cymbula sutilis_,
shall seem to leave port with a clipping breeze, and to carry, in
nautical phrase, a bone in her mouth. Nevertheless, I have chosen, as
being more equitable, to prepare some also sufficiently objurgatory,
that readers of every taste may find a dish to their palate. I have
modelled them upon actually existing specimens, preserved in my own
cabinet of natural curiosities. One, in particular, I had copied with
tolerable exactness from a notice of one of my own discourses, which,
from its superior tone and appearance of vast experience, I concluded to
have been written by a man at least three hundred years of age, though I
recollected no existing instance of such antediluvian longevity.
Nevertheless, I afterwards discovered the author to be a young gentleman
preparing for the ministry under the direction of one of my brethren in
a neighbouring town, and whom I had once instinctively corrected in a
Latin quantity. But this I have been forced to omit, from its too great
length.--H. W.]
* * * * *
_From the Universal Littery Universe._
Full of passages which rivet the attention of the reader.... Under a
rustic garb, sentiments are conveyed which should be committed to
the memory and engraven on the heart of every moral and social
being.... We consider this a _unique_ performance.... We hope to see
it soon introduced into our common schools.... Mr. Wilbur has
performed his duties as editor with excellent taste and judgment....
This is a vein which we hope to see successfully prosecuted.... We
hail the appearance of this work as a long stride toward the
formation of a purely aboriginal, indigenous, native, and American
literature. We rejoice to meet with an author national enough to
break away from the slavish deference, too common among us, to
English grammar and orthography.... Where all is so good, we are at
a loss how to make extracts.... On the whole, we may call it a
volume which no library, pretending to entire completeness, should
fail to place upon its shelves.
* * * * *
_From the Higginbottomopolis Snapping-turtle._
A collection of the merest balderdash and doggerel that it was ever
our bad fortune to lay eyes on. The author is a vulgar buffoon, and
the editor a talkative, tedious old fool. We use strong language,
but should any of our readers peruse the book, (from which calamity
Heaven preserve them,) they will find reasons for it thick as the
leaves of Vallumbrozer, or, to use a still more expressive
comparison, as the combined heads of author and editor. The work is
wretchedly got up.... We should like to know how much _British gold_
was pocketed by this libeller of our country and her purest
patriots.
* * * * *
_From the Oldfogrumville Mentor._
We have not had time to do more than glance through this handsomely
printed volume, but the name of its respectable editor, the Rev. Mr.
Wilbur, of Jaalam, will afford a sufficient guaranty for the worth
of its contents.... The paper is white, the type clear, and the
volume of a convenient and attractive size.... In reading this
elegantly executed work, it has seemed to us that a passage or two
might have been retrenched with advantage, and that the general
style of diction was susceptible of a higher polish.... On the
whole, we may safely leave the ungrateful task of criticism to the
reader. We will barely suggest, that in volumes intended, as this
is, for the illustration of a provincial dialect and turns of
expression, a dash of humour or satire might be thrown in with
advantage.... The work is admirably got up.... This work will form
an appropriate ornament to the centre-table. It is beautifully
printed, on paper of an excellent quality.
* * * * *
_From the Dekay Bulwark._
We should be wanting in our duty as the conductor of that tremendous
engine, a public press, as an American, and as a man, did we allow
such an opportunity as is presented to us by "The Biglow Papers" to
pass by without entering our earnest protest against such attempts
(now, alas! too common) at demoralizing the public sentiment. Under
a wretched mask of stupid drollery, slavery, war, the social glass,
and, in short, all the valuable and time-honoured institutions
justly dear to our common humanity and especially to republicans,
are made the butt of coarse and senseless ribaldry by this
low-minded scribbler. It is time that the respectable and religious
portion of our community should be aroused to the alarming inroads
of foreign Jacobinism, sansculottism, and infidelity. It is a
fearful proof of the wide-spread nature of this contagion, that
these secret stabs at religion and virtue are given from under the
cloak (_credite, posteri!_) of a clergyman. It is a mournful
spectacle indeed to the patriot and Christian to see liberality and
new ideas (falsely so called,--they are as old as Eden) invading
the sacred precincts of the pulpit.... On the whole, we consider
this volume as one of the first shocking results which we predicted
would spring out of the late French "Revolution"(!).
* * * * *
_From the Bungtown Copper and Comprehensive Tocsin (a tryweakly
family journal)._
Altogether an admirable work.... Full of humour, boisterous, but
delicate,--of wit withering and scorching, yet combined with a
pathos cool as morning dew,--of satire ponderous as the mace of
Richard, yet keen as the scymitar of Saladin.... A work full of
"mountain-mirth," mischievous as Puck and lightsome as Ariel.... We
know not whether to admire most the genial, fresh, and discursive
concinnity of the author, or his playful fancy, weird imagination,
and compass of style, at once both objective and subjective.... We
might indulge in some criticisms, but, were the author other than he
is, he would be a different being. As it is, he has a wonderful
_pose_, which flits from flower to flower, and bears the reader
irresistibly along on its eagle pinions (like Ganymede) to the
"highest heaven of invention." ... We love a book so purely
objective.... Many of his pictures of natural scenery have an
extraordinary subjective clearness and fidelity.... In fine, we
consider this as one of the most extraordinary volumes of this or
any age. We know of no English author who could have written it. It
is a work to which the proud genius of our country, standing with
one foot on the Aroostook and the other on the Rio Grande, and
holding up the star-spangled banner amid the wreck of matter and the
crush of worlds, may point with bewildering scorn of the punier
efforts of enslaved Europe.... We hope soon to encounter our author
among those higher walks of literature in which he is evidently
capable of achieving enduring fame. Already we should be inclined to
assign him a high position in the bright galaxy of our American
bards.
* * * * *
_From the Saltriver Pilot and Flag of Freedom._
A volume in bad grammar and worse taste.... While the pieces here
collected were confined to their appropriate sphere in the corners
of obscure newspapers, we considered them wholly beneath contempt,
but, as the author has chosen to come forward in this public manner,
he must expect the lash he so richly merits.... Contemptible
slanders.... Vilest Billingsgate.... Has raked all the gutters of
our language.... The most pure, upright, and consistent politicians
not safe from his malignant venom.... General Cushing comes in for a
share of his vile calumnies.... The _Reverend_ Homer Wilbur is a
disgrace to his cloth....
* * * * *
_From the World-Harmonic-AEolian-Attachment._
Speech is silver: silence is golden. No utterance more Orphic than
this. While, therefore, as highest author, we reverence him whose
works continue heroically unwritten, we have also our hopeful word
for those who with pen (from wing of goose loud-cackling, or seraph
God-commissioned) record the thing that is revealed.... Under mask
of quaintest irony, we detect here the deep, storm-tost (nigh
shipwracked) soul, thunder-scarred, semiarticulate, but ever
climbing hopefully toward the peaceful summits of an Infinite
Sorrow.... Yes, thou poor, forlorn Hosea, with Hebrew fire-flaming
soul in thee, for thee also this life of ours has not been without
its aspect of heavenliest pity and laughingest mirth. Conceivable
enough! Through coarse Thersites-cloak, we have revelation of the
heart, wild-glowing, world-clasping, that is in him. Bravely he
grapples with the life-problem as it presents itself to him,
uncombed, shaggy, careless of the "nicer proprieties," inexpert of
"elegant diction," yet with voice audible enough to whoso hath ears,
up there on the gravelly side-hills, or down on the splashy,
Indiarubber-like salt-marshes of native Jaalam. To this soul also
the _Necessity of Creating_ somewhat has unveiled its awful front.
If not [OE]dipuses and Electras and Alcestises, then in God's name
Birdofredum Sawins! These also shall get born into the world, and
filch (if so need) a Zingali subsistence therein, these lank,
omnivorous Yankees of his. He shall paint the Seen, since the Unseen
will not sit to him. Yet in him also are Nibelungen-lays, and
Iliads, and Ulysses-wanderings, and Divine Comedies,--if only once
he could come at them! Therein lies much, nay all; for what truly is
this which we name _All_, but that which we do _not_ possess?...
Glimpses also are given us of an old father Ezekiel, not without
paternal pride, as is the wont of such. A brown, parchment-hided old
man of the geoponic or bucolic species, gray-eyed, we fancy,
_queued_ perhaps, with much weather-cunning and plentiful
September-gale memories, bidding fair in good time to become the
Oldest Inhabitant. After such hasty apparition, he vanishes and is
seen no more.... Of "Rev. Homer Wilbur, A. M., Pastor of the First
Church in Jaalam," we have small care to speak here. Spare touch in
him of his Melesigenes namesake, save, haply, the--blindness! A
tolerably caliginose, nephelegeretous elderly gentleman, with
infinite faculty of sermonizing, muscularized by long practice, and
excellent digestive apparatus, and, for the rest, well-meaning
enough, and with small private illuminations (somewhat tallowy, it
is to be feared) of his own. To him, there, "Pastor of the First
Church in Jaalam," our Hosea presents himself as a quiet
inexplicable Sphinx-riddle. A rich, poverty of Latin and Greek,--so
far is clear enough, even to eyes peering myopic through horn-lensed
editorial spectacles,--but naught farther? O purblind, well-meaning,
altogether fuscous Melesigenes-Wilbur, there are things in him
incommunicable by stroke of birch! Did it ever enter that old
bewildered head of thine that there was the _Possibility of the
Infinite_ in him? To thee, quite wingless (and even featherless)
biped, has not so much even as a dream of wings ever come? "Talented
young parishioner"? Among the Arts whereof thou art _Magister_, does
that of _seeing_ happen to be one? Unhappy _Artium Magister_!
Somehow a Nemean lion, fulvous, torrid-eyed, dry-nursed in
broad-howling sand-wildernesses of a sufficiently rare spirit-Libya
(it may be supposed) has got whelped among the sheep. Already he
stands wild-glaring, with feet clutching the ground as with
oak-roots, gathering for a Remus-spring over the walls of thy little
fold. In Heaven's name, go not near him with that flybite crook of
thine! In good time, thou painful preacher, thou wilt go to the
appointed place of departed Artillery-Election Sermons, Right-Hands
of Fellowship, and Results of Councils, gathered to thy spiritual
fathers with much Latin of the Epitaphial sort; thou, too, shalt
have thy reward; but on him the Eumenides have looked, not Xantippes
of the pit, snake-tressed, finger-threatening, but radiantly calm as
on antique gems; for him paws impatient the winged courser of the
gods, champing unwelcome bit: him the starry deeps, the empyrean
glooms, and far-flashing splendors await.
* * * * *
_From the Onion Grove Ph[oe]nix._
A talented young townsman of ours, recently returned from a
Continental tour, and who is already favourably known to our readers
by his sprightly letters from abroad which have graced our columns,
called at our office yesterday. We learn from him, that, having
enjoyed the distinguished privilege, while in Germany, of an
introduction to the celebrated Von Humbug, he took the opportunity
to present that eminent man with a copy of the "Biglow Papers." The
next morning he received the following note, which he has kindly
furnished us for publication. We prefer to print _verbatim_, knowing
that our readers will readily forgive the few errors into which the
illustrious writer has fallen, through ignorance of our language.
"HIGH-WORTHY MISTER!
"I shall also now especially happy starve, because I have more or
less a work of one those aboriginal Red-Men seen in which have I so
deaf an interest ever taken fullworthy on the self shelf with our
Gottsched to be upset.
"Pardon my in the English-speech unpractice!
"VON HUMBUG."
He also sent with the above note a copy of his famous work on
"Cosmetics," to be presented to Mr. Biglow; but this was taken from
our friend by the English custom-house officers, probably through a
petty national spite. No doubt, it has by this time found its way
into the British Museum. We trust this outrage will be exposed in
all our American papers. We shall do our best to bring it to the
notice of the State Department. Our numerous readers will share in
the pleasure we experience at seeing our young and vigorous national
literature thus encouragingly patted on the head by this venerable
and world-renowned German. We love to see these reciprocations of
good-feeling between the different branches of the great Anglo-Saxon
race.
* * * * *
_From the Jaalam Independent Blunderbuss._
... But, while we lament to see our young townsman thus mingling in
the heated contests of party politics, we think we detect in him the
presence of talents which, if properly directed, might give an
innocent pleasure to many. As a proof that he is competent to the
production of other kinds of poetry, we copy for our readers a short
fragment of a pastoral by him, the manuscript of which was loaned us
by a friend. The title of it is "The Courtin'."
Zekle crep' up, quite unbeknown,
An' peeked in thru the winder,
An' there sot Huldy all alone,
'ith no one nigh to hender.
Agin' the chimbly crooknecks hung,
An' in amongst 'em rusted
The ole queen's arm thet gran'ther Young
Fetched back frum Concord busted.
The wannut logs shot sparkles out
Towards the pootiest, bless her!
An' leetle fires danced all about
The chiny on the dresser.
The very room, coz she wuz in,
Looked warm frum floor to ceilin',
An' she looked full ez rosy agin
Ez th' apples she wuz peelin'.
She heerd a foot an' knowed it, tu,
Araspin' on the scraper,--
All ways to once her feelins flew
Like sparks in burnt-up paper.
He kin' o' l'itered on the mat,
Some doubtfle o' the seekle;
His heart kep' goin' pitypat,
But hern went pity Zekle.
... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...
* * * * *
Satis multis sese emptores futuros libri professis, Georgius Nichols,
Cantabrigiensis, opus emittet de parte gravi sed adhuc neglecta historiae
naturalis, cum titulo sequenti, videlicet:--
_Conatus ad Delineationem naturalem nonnihil perfectiorem Scarabaei
Bombilatoris, vulgo dicti_ HUMBUG, ab HOMERO WILBUR, Artium Magistro,
Societatis historico-naturalis Jaallamensis Praeside, (Secretario,
Socioque (eheu!) singulo,) multarumque aliarum Societatum eruditarum
(sive ineruditarum) tam domesticarum quam transmarinarum Socio--forsitan
futuro.