WHAT MR. ROBINSON THINKS

[A few remarks on the following verses will not be out of place. The

satire in them was not meant to have any personal, but only a general,

application. Of the gentleman upon whose letter they were intended as a

commentary Mr. Biglow had never heard, till he saw the letter itself.

The position of the satirist is oftentimes one which he would not have

chosen, had the election been left to himself. In attacking bad

principles, he is obliged to select some individual who has made himself

their exponent, and in whom they are impersonate, to the end that what

he says may not, through ambiguity, be dissipated _tenues in auras._ For

what says Seneca? _Longum iter per præcepta, breve et efficace per

exempla_. A bad principle is comparatively harmless while it continues

to be an abstraction, nor can the general mind comprehend it fully till

it is printed in that large type which all men can read at sight,

namely, the life and character, the sayings and doings, of particular

persons. It is one of the cunningest fetches of Satan, that he never

exposes himself directly to our arrows, but, still dodging behind this

neighbor or that acquaintance, compels us to wound him through them, if

at all. He holds our affections as hostages, the while he patches up a

truce with our conscience.

Meanwhile, let us not forget that the aim of the true satirist is not to

be severe upon persons, but only upon falsehood, and, as Truth and

Falsehood start from the same point, and sometimes even go along

together for a little way, his business is to follow the path of the

latter after it diverges, and to show her floundering in the bog at the

end of it. Truth is quite beyond the reach of satire. There is so brave

a simplicity in her, that she can no more be made ridiculous than an oak

or a pine. The danger of the satirist is, that continual use may deaden

his sensibility to the force of language. He becomes more and more

liable to strike harder than he knows or intends. He may be careful to

put on his boxing-gloves, and yet forget that, the older they grow, the

more plainly may the knuckles inside be felt. Moreover, in the heat of

contest, the eye is insensibly drawn to the crown of victory, whose

tawdry tinsel glitters through that dust of the ring which obscures

Truth's wreath of simple leaves. I have sometimes thought that my young

friend, Mr. Biglow, needed a monitory hand laid on his arm,--_aliquid

sufflaminandus erat_. I have never thought it good husbandry to water

the tender plants of reform with _aqua fortis_, yet, where so much is to

do in the beds, he were a sorry gardener who should wage a whole day's

war with an iron scuffle on those ill weeds that make the garden-walks

of life unsightly, when a sprinkle of Attic salt will wither them up.

_Est ars etiam maledicendi_, says Scaliger, and truly it is a hard thing

to say where the graceful gentleness of the lamb merges in downright

sheepishness. We may conclude with worthy and wise Dr. Fuller, that 'one

may be a lamb in private wrongs, but in hearing general affronts to

goodness they are asses which are not lions.'--H.W.]

Guvener B. is a sensible man;

He stays to his home an' looks arter his folks;

He draws his furrer ez straight ez he can,

An' into nobody's tater-patch pokes;

But John P.

Robinson he

Sez be wunt vote fer Guvener B.

My! aint it terrible? Wut shall we du?

We can't never choose him o' course,--thet's flat;

Guess we shall hev to come round, (don't you?)

An' go in fer thunder an' guns, an' all that;

Fer John P.

Robinson he

Sez he wunt vote fer Guvener B.

Gineral C. is a dreffle smart man:

He's ben on all sides thet gives places or pelf;

But consistency still wuz a part of his plan,--

He's ben true to _one_ party,--an' thet is himself;--

So John P.

Robinson he

Sez he shall vote fer Gineral C.

Gineral C. he goes in fer the war;

He don't vally princerple more'n an old cud;

Wut did God make us raytional creeturs fer,

But glory an' gunpowder, plunder an' blood?

So John P.

Robinson he

Sez he shall vote fer Gineral C.

We were gittin' on nicely up here to our village,

With good old idees o' wut's right an' wut aint,

We kind o' thought Christ went agin war an' pillage,

An' thet eppyletts worn't the best mark of a saint;

But John P.

Robinson he

Sez this kind o' thing's an exploded idee.

The side of our country must ollers be took,

An' Presidunt Polk, you know, _he_ is our country.

An' the angel thet writes all our sins in a book

Puts the _debit_ to him, an' to us the _per contry;_

An' John P.

Robinson he

Sez this is his view o' the thing to a T.

Parson Wilbur he calls all these argimunts lies;

Sez they're nothin' on airth but jest _fee, faw, fum;_

An' thet all this big talk of our destinies

Is half on it ign'ance, an' t'other half rum;

But John P.

Robinson he

Sez it aint no sech thing: an' of course, so must we.

Parson Wilbur sez _he_ never heerd in his life

Thet th' Apostles rigged out in their swaller-tail coats,

An' marched round in front of a drum an' a fife,

To git some on 'em office, an' some on 'em votes;

But John P.

Robinson he

Sez they didn't know everythin' down in Judee.

Wal, it's a marcy we've gut folks to tell us

The rights an' the wrongs o' these matters, I vow,--

God sends country lawyers, an' other wise fellers,

To start the world's team wen it gits in a slough;

Fer John P.

Robinson he

Sez the world'll go right, ef he hollers out Gee!

[The attentive reader will doubtless have perceived in the foregoing

poem an allusion to that pernicious sentiment,--'Our country, right or

wrong.' It is an abuse of language to call a certain portion of land,

much more, certain personages, elevated for the time being to high

station, our country. I would not sever nor loosen a single one of those

ties by which we are united to the spot of our birth, nor minish by a

tittle the respect due to the Magistrate. I love our own Bay State too

well to do the one, and as for the other, I have myself for nigh forty

years exercised, however unworthily, the function of Justice of the

Peace, having been called thereto by the unsolicited kindness of that

most excellent man and upright patriot, Caleb Strong. _Patriæ fumus

igne alieno luculentior_ is best qualified with this,--_Ubi libertas, ibi

patria_. We are inhabitants of two worlds, and owe a double, but not a

divided, allegiance. In virtue of our clay, this little ball of earth

exacts a certain loyalty of us, while, in our capacity as spirits, we

are admitted citizens of an invisible and holier fatherland. There is a

patriotism of the soul whose claim absolves us from our other and

terrene fealty. Our true country is that ideal realm which we represent

to ourselves under the names of religion, duty, and the like. Our

terrestrial organizations are but far-off approaches to so fair a model,

and all they are verily traitors who resist not any attempt to divert

them from this their original intendment. When, therefore, one would

have us to fling up our caps and shout with the multitude,--'_Our

country, however bounded!_' he demands of us that we sacrifice the

larger to the less, the higher to the lower, and that we yield to the

imaginary claims of a few acres of soil our duty and privilege as

liegemen of Truth. Our true country is bounded on the north and the

south, on the east and the west, by Justice, and when she oversteps that

invisible boundary-line by so much as a hair's-breadth, she ceases to be

our mother, and chooses rather to be looked upon _quasi noverca_. That

is a hard choice when our earthly love of country calls upon us to tread

one path and our duty points us to another. We must make as noble and

becoming an election as did Penelope between Icarius and Ulysses.

Veiling our faces, we must take silently the hand of Duty to follow her.

Shortly after the publication of the foregoing poem, there appeared some

comments upon it in one of the public prints which seemed to call for

animadversion. I accordingly addressed to Mr. Buckingham, of the Boston

Courier, the following letter.

JAALAM, November 4, 1847.

'_To the Editor of the Courier:_

'RESPECTED SIR,--Calling at the post-office this morning, our worthy and

efficient postmaster offered for my perusal a paragraph in the Boston

Morning Post of the 3d instant, wherein certain effusions of the

pastoral muse are attributed to the pen of Mr. James Russell Lowell. For

aught I know or can affirm to the contrary, this Mr. Lowell may be a

very deserving person and a youth of parts (though I have seen verses of

his which I could never rightly understand); and if he be such, he, I am

certain, as well as I, would be free from any proclivity to appropriate

to himself whatever of credit (or discredit) may honestly belong to

another. I am confident, that, in penning these few lines, I am only

forestalling a disclaimer from that young gentleman, whose silence

hitherto, when rumor pointed to himward, has excited in my bosom mingled

emotions of sorrow and surprise. Well may my young parishioner, Mr.

Biglow, exclaim with the poet,

"Sic vos non vobis," &c.;

though, in saying this, I would not convey the impression that he is a

proficient in the Latin tongue,--the tongue, I might add, of a Horace

and a Tully.

'Mr. B. does not employ his pen, I can safely say, for any lucre of

worldly gain, or to be exalted by the carnal plaudits of men, _digito

monstrari, &c_. He does not wait upon Providence for mercies, and in his

heart mean _merces_. But I should esteem myself as verily deficient in

my duty (who am his friend and in some unworthy sort his spiritual

_fidus Achates_, &c.), if I did not step forward to claim for him

whatever measure of applause might be assigned to him by the judicious.

'If this were a fitting occasion, I might venture here a brief

dissertation touching the manner and kind of my young friend's poetry.

But I dubitate whether this abstruser sort of speculation (though

enlivened by some apposite instances from Aristophanes) would

sufficiently interest your oppidan readers. As regards their satirical

tone, and their plainness of speech, I will only say, that, in my

pastoral experience, I have found that the Arch-Enemy loves nothing

better than to be treated as a religious, moral, and intellectual being,

and that there is no _apage Sathanas!_ so potent as ridicule. But it is

a kind of weapon that must have a button of good-nature on the point of

it.

'The productions of Mr. B. have been stigmatized in some quarters as

unpatriotic; but I can vouch that he loves his native soil with that

hearty, though discriminating, attachment which springs from an intimate

social intercourse of many years' standing. In the ploughing season, no

one has a deeper share in the well-being of the country than he. If Dean

Swift were right in saying that he who makes two blades of grass grow

where one grew before confers a greater benefit on the state than he who

taketh a city, Mr. B. might exhibit a fairer claim to the Presidency

than General Scott himself. I think that some of those disinterested

lovers of the hard-handed democracy, whose fingers have never touched

anything rougher than the dollars of our common country, would hesitate

to compare palms with him. It would do your heart good, respected Sir,

to see that young man mow. He cuts a cleaner and wider swath than any in

this town.

'But it is time for me to be at my Post. It is very clear that my young

friend's shot has struck the lintel, for the Post is shaken (Amos ix.

1). The editor of that paper is a strenuous advocate of the Mexican war,

and a colonel, as I am given to understand. I presume, that, being

necessarily absent in Mexico, he has left his journal in some less

judicious hands. At any rate, the Post has been too swift on this

occasion. It could hardly have cited a more incontrovertible line from

any poem than that which it has selected for animadversion, namely,--

"We kind o' thought Christ went agin war an' pillage."

'If the Post maintains the converse of this proposition, it can hardly

be considered as a safe guide-post for the moral and religious portions

of its party, however many other excellent qualities of a post it may be

blessed with. There is a sign in London on which is painted,--"The Green

Man." It would do very well as a portrait of any individual who should

support so unscriptural a thesis. As regards the language of the line

in question, I am bold to say that He who readeth the hearts of men will

not account any dialect unseemly which conveys a sound, and pious

sentiment. I could wish that such sentiments were more common, however

uncouthly expressed. Saint Ambrose affirms, that _veritas a quocunque_

(why not, then, _quomodocunque?) dicatur, a, spiritu sancto est_. Digest

also this of Baxter: "The plainest words are the most profitable oratory

in the weightiest matters."

'When the paragraph in question was shown to Mr. Biglow, the only part

of it which seemed to give him any dissatisfaction was that which

classed him with the Whig party. He says, that, if resolutions are a

nourishing kind of diet, that party must be in a very hearty and

flourishing condition; for that they have quietly eaten more good ones

of their own baking than he could have conceived to be possible without

repletion. He has been for some years past (I regret to say) an ardent

opponent of those sound doctrines of protective policy which form so

prominent a portion of the creed of that party. I confess, that, in some

discussions which I have had with him on this point in my study, he has

displayed a vein of obstinacy which I had not hitherto detected in his

composition. He is also (_horresco referens_) infected in no small

measure with the peculiar notions of a print called the Liberator, whose

heresies I take every proper opportunity of combating, and of which, I

thank God, I have never read a single line.

'I did not see Mr. B.'s verses until they appeared in print, and there

_is_ certainly one thing in them which I consider highly improper. I

allude to the personal references to myself by name. To confer notoriety

on an humble individual who is laboring quietly in his vocation, and who

keeps his cloth as free as he can from the dust of the political arena

(though _voe mihi si non evangelizavero_), is no doubt an indecorum. The

sentiments which he attributes to me I will not deny to be mine. They

were embodied, though in a different form, in a discourse preached upon

the last day of public fasting, and were acceptable to my entire people

(of whatever political views), except the postmaster, who dissented _ex

officio_. I observe that you sometimes devote a portion of your paper to

a religious summary. I should be well pleased to furnish a copy of my

discourse for insertion in this department of your instructive journal.

By omitting the advertisements, it might easily be got within the limits

of a single number, and I venture to insure you the sale of some scores

of copies in this town. I will cheerfully render myself responsible for

ten. It might possibly be advantageous to issue it as an _extra_. But

perhaps you will not esteem it an object, and I will not press it. My

offer does not spring from any weak desire of seeing my name in print;

for I can enjoy this satisfaction at any time by turning to the

Triennial Catalogue of the University, where it also possesses that

added emphasis of Italics with which those of my calling are

distinguished.

'I would simply add, that I continue to fit ingenuous youth for college,

and that I have two spacious and airy sleeping apartments at this moment

unoccupied. _Ingenuas didicisse_, &c. Terms, which vary according to the

circumstances of the parents, may be known on application to me by

letter, post-paid. In all cases the lad will be expected to fetch his

own towels. This rule, Mrs. W. desires me to add, has no exceptions.

'Respectfully, your obedient servant,

'HOMER WILBUR, A.M.

'P.S. Perhaps the last paragraph may look like an attempt to obtain the

insertion of my circular gratuitously. If it should appear to you in

that light, I desire that you would erase it, or charge for it at the

usual rates, and deduct the amount from the proceeds in your hands from

the sale of my discourse, when it shall be printed. My circular is much

longer and more explicit, and will be forwarded without charge to any

who may desire it. It has been very neatly executed on a letter sheet,

by a very deserving printer, who attends upon my ministry, and is a

creditable specimen of the typographic art. I have one hung over my

mantelpiece in a neat frame, where it makes a beautiful and appropriate

ornament, and balances the profile of Mrs. W., cut with her toes by the

young lady born without arms.

'H.W.'

I have in the foregoing letter mentioned General Scott in connection

with the Presidency, because I have been given to understand that he has

blown to pieces and otherwise caused to be destroyed more Mexicans than

any other commander. His claim would therefore be deservedly considered

the strongest. Until accurate returns of the Mexicans killed, wounded,

and maimed be obtained, it will be difficult to settle these nice points

of precedence. Should it prove that any other officer has been more

meritorious and destructive than General S., and has thereby rendered

himself more worthy of the confidence and support of the conservative

portion of our community, I shall cheerfully insert his name, instead of

that of General S., in a future edition. It may be thought, likewise,

that General S. has invalidated his claims by too much attention to the

decencies of apparel, and the habits belonging to a gentleman. These

abstruser points of statesmanship are beyond my scope. I wonder not that

successful military achievement should attract the admiration of the

multitude. Rather do I rejoice with wonder to behold how rapidly this

sentiment is losing its hold upon the popular mind. It is related of

Thomas Warton, the second of that honored name who held the office of

Poetry Professor at Oxford, that, when one wished to find him, being

absconded, as was his wont, in some obscure alehouse, he was counselled

to traverse the city with a drum and fife, the sound of which inspiring

music would be sure to draw the Doctor from his retirement into the

street. We are all more or less bitten with this martial insanity.

_Nescio qua dulcedine ... cunctos ducit_. I confess to some infection of

that itch myself. When I see a Brigadier-General maintaining his

insecure elevation in the saddle under the severe fire of the

training-field, and when I remember that some military enthusiasts,

through haste, inexperience, or an over-desire to lend reality to those

fictitious combats, will sometimes discharge their ramrods, I cannot but

admire, while I deplore, the mistaken devotion of those heroic officers.

_Semel insanivimus omnes_. I was myself, during the late war with Great

Britain, chaplain of a regiment, which was fortunately never called to

active military duty. I mention this circumstance with regret rather

than pride. Had I been summoned to actual warfare, I trust that I might

have been strengthened to bear myself after the manner of that reverend

father in our New England Israel, Dr. Benjamin Colman, who, as we are

told in Turell's life of him, when the vessel in which he had taken

passage for England was attacked by a French privateer, 'fought like a

philosopher and a Christian, ... and prayed all the while he charged and

fired.' As this note is already long, I shall not here enter upon a

discussion of the question, whether Christians may lawfully be soldiers.

I think it sufficiently evident, that, during the first two centuries of

the Christian era, at least, the two professions were esteemed

incompatible. Consult Jortin on this head,--H.W.]

No. IV

REMARKS OF INCREASE D. O'PHACE, ESQUIRE,

AT AN EXTRUMPERY CAUCUS IN STATE STREET, REPORTED BY MR. H. BIGLOW

[The ingenious reader will at once understand that no such speech as the

following was ever _totidem verbis_ pronounced. But there are simpler

and less guarded wits, for the satisfying of which such an explanation

may be needful. For there are certain invisible lines, which as Truth

successively overpasses, she becomes Untruth to one and another of us,

as a large river, flowing from one kingdom into another, sometimes takes

a new name, albeit the waters undergo no change, how small soever. There

is, moreover, a truth of fiction more veracious than the truth of fact,

as that of the Poet, which represents to us things and events as they

ought to be, rather than servilely copies them as they are imperfectly

imaged in the crooked and smoky glass of our mundane affairs. It is this

which makes the speech of Antonius, though originally spoken in no wider

a forum than the brain of Shakespeare, more historically valuable than

that other which Appian has reported, by as much as the understanding of

the Englishman was more comprehensive than that of the Alexandrian. Mr.

Biglow, in the present instance, has only made use of a license assumed

by all the historians of antiquity, who put into the mouths of various

characters such words as seem to them most fitting to the occasion and

to the speaker. If it be objected that no such oration could ever have

been delivered, I answer, that there are few assemblages for

speech-making which do not better deserve the title of _Parliamentum

Indoctorum_ than did the sixth Parliament of Henry the Fourth, and that

men still continue to have as much faith in the Oracle of Fools as ever

Pantagruel had. Howell, in his letters, recounts a merry tale of a

certain ambassador of Queen Elizabeth, who, having written two

letters,--one to her Majesty, and the other to his wife,--directed them

at cross-purposes, so that the Queen was beducked and bedeared and

requested to send a change of hose, and the wife was beprincessed and

otherwise unwontedly besuperlatived, till the one feared for the wits of

her ambassador, and the other for those of her husband. In like manner

it may be presumed that our speaker has misdirected some of his

thoughts, and given to the whole theatre what he would have wished to

confide only to a select auditory at the back of the curtain. For it is

seldom that we can get any frank utterance from men, who address, for

the most part, a Buncombe either in this world or the next. As for their

audiences, it may be truly said of our people, that they enjoy one

political institution in common with the ancient Athenians: I mean a

certain profitless kind of, _ostracism_, wherewith, nevertheless, they

seem hitherto well enough content. For in Presidential elections, and

other affairs of the sort, whereas I observe that the _oysters_ fall to

the lot of comparatively few, the _shells_ (such as the privileges of

voting as they are told to do by the _ostrivori_ aforesaid, and of

huzzaing at public meetings) are very liberally distributed among the

people, as being their prescriptive and quite sufficient portion.

The occasion of the speech is supposed to be Mr. Palfrey's refusal to

vote for the Whig candidate for the Speakership.--H.W.]

No? Hez he? He haint, though? Wut? Voted agin him?

Ef the bird of our country could ketch him, she'd skin him;

I seem 's though I see her, with wrath in each quill,

Like a chancery lawyer, afilin' her bill,

An' grindin' her talents ez sharp ez all nater,

To pounce like a writ on the back o' the traitor.

Forgive me, my friends, ef I seem to be het,

But a crisis like this must with vigor be met;

Wen an Arnold the star-spangled banner bestains,

Holl Fourth o' Julys seem to bile in my veins. 10

Who ever'd ha' thought sech a pisonous rig

Would be run by a chap thet wuz chose fer a Wig?

'We knowed wut his princerples wuz 'fore we sent him'?

Wut wuz there in them from this vote to prevent him?

A marciful Providunce fashioned us holler

O' purpose thet we might our princerples swaller;

It can hold any quantity on 'em, the belly can,

An' bring 'em up ready fer use like the pelican,

Or more like the kangaroo, who (wich is stranger)

Puts her family into her pouch wen there's danger. 20

Aint princerple precious? then, who's goin' to use it

Wen there's resk o' some chap's gittin' up to abuse it?

I can't tell the wy on 't, but nothin' is so sure

Ez thet princerple kind o' gits spiled by exposure;[19]

A man that lets all sorts o' folks git a sight on 't

Ough' to hev it all took right away, every mite on 't;

Ef he cant keep it all to himself wen it's wise to,

He aint one it's fit to trust nothin' so nice to.

Besides, ther's a wonderful power in latitude

To shift a man's morril relations an' attitude; 30

Some flossifers think thet a fakkilty's granted

The minnit it's proved to be thoroughly wanted,

Thet a change o' demand makes a change o' condition,

An' thet everythin' 's nothin' except by position;

Ez, for instance, thet rubber-trees fust begun bearin'

Wen p'litikle conshunces come into wearin',

Thet the fears of a monkey, whose holt chanced to fail,

Drawed the vertibry out to a prehensile tail;

So, wen one's chose to Congriss, ez soon ez he's in it,

A collar grows right round his neck in a minnit, 40

An' sartin it is thet a man cannot be strict

In bein' himself, when he gits to the Deestrict,

Fer a coat thet sets wal here in ole Massachusetts,

Wen it gits on to Washinton, somehow askew sets.

Resolves, do you say, o' the Springfield Convention?

Thet's precisely the pint I was goin' to mention;

Resolves air a thing we most gen'ally keep ill,

They're a cheap kind o' dust fer the eyes o' the people;

A parcel o' delligits jest git together

An' chat fer a spell o' the crops an' the weather, 50

Then, comin' to order, they squabble awile

An' let off the speeches they're ferful'll spile;

Then--Resolve,--Thet we wunt hev an inch o' slave territory;

Thet President Polk's holl perceedins air very tory;

Thet the war is a damned war, an' them thet enlist in it

Should hev a cravat with a dreffle tight twist in it;

Thet the war is a war fer the spreadin' o' slavery;

Thet our army desarves our best thanks fer their bravery;

Thet we're the original friends o' the nation,

All the rest air a paltry an' base fabrication; 60

Thet we highly respect Messrs. A, B, an' C,

An' ez deeply despise Messrs. E, F, an' G.

In this way they go to the eend o' the chapter,

An' then they bust out in a kind of a raptur

About their own vartoo, an' folks's stone-blindness

To the men thet 'ould actilly do 'em a kindness,--

The American eagle,--the Pilgrims thet landed,--

Till on ole Plymouth Rock they git finally stranded.

Wal, the people they listen an' say, 'Thet's the ticket;

Ez fer Mexico, 'taint no great glory to lick it, 70

But 'twould be a darned shame to go pullin' o' triggers

To extend the aree of abusin' the niggers.'

So they march in percession, an' git up hooraws,

An' tramp thru the mud far the good o' the cause,

An' think they're a kind o' fulfillin' the prophecies,

Wen they're on'y jest changin' the holders of offices;

Ware A sot afore, B is comf'tably seated,

One humbug's victor'ous an' t' other defeated,

Each honnable doughface gits jest wut he axes,

An' the people,--their annooal soft-sodder an' taxes. 80

Now, to keep unimpaired all these glorious feeturs

Thet characterize morril an' reasonin' creeturs,

Thet give every paytriot all he can cram,

Thet oust the untrustworthy Presidunt Flam,

An' stick honest Presidunt Sham in his place,

To the manifest gain o' the holl human race,

An' to some indervidgewals on 't in partickler,

Who love Public Opinion an' know how to tickle her,--

I say thet a party with gret aims like these

Must stick jest ez close ez a hive full o' bees. 90

I'm willin' a man should go tollable strong

Agin wrong in the abstract, fer thet kind o' wrong

Is ollers unpop'lar an' never gits pitied,

Because it's a crime no one never committed;

But he mus'n't be hard on partickler sins,

Coz then he'll be kickin' the people's own shins;

On'y look at the Demmercrats, see wut they've done

Jest simply by stickin' together like fun;

They've sucked us right into a mis'able war

Thet no one on airth aint responsible for; 100

They've run us a hundred cool millions in debt

(An' fer Demmercrat Horners there's good plums left yet);

They talk agin tayriffs, but act fer a high one,

An' so coax all parties to build up their Zion;

To the people they're ollers ez slick ez molasses,

An' butter their bread on both sides with The Masses,

Half o' whom they've persuaded, by way of a joke,

Thet Washinton's mantlepiece fell upon Polk.

Now all o' these blessin's the Wigs might enjoy,

Ef they'd gumption enough the right means to imploy;[20] 110

Fer the silver spoon born in Dermoc'acy's mouth

Is a kind of a scringe thet they hev to the South;

Their masters can cuss 'em an' kick 'em an' wale 'em.

An' they notice it less 'an the ass did to Balaam;

In this way they screw into second-rate offices

Wich the slaveholder thinks 'ould substract too much off his ease;

The file-leaders, I mean, du, fer they, by their wiles,

Unlike the old viper, grow fat on their files.

Wal, the Wigs hev been tryin' to grab all this prey frum 'em

An' to hook this nice spoon o' good fortin' away frum 'em, 120

An' they might ha' succeeded, ez likely ez not,

In lickin' the Demmercrats all round the lot,

Ef it warn't thet, wile all faithful Wigs were their knees on,

Some stuffy old codger would holler out,--'Treason!

You must keep a sharp eye on a dog thet hez bit you once,

An' _I_ aint agoin' to cheat my constitoounts,'--

Wen every fool knows thet a man represents

Not the fellers thet sent him, but them on the fence,--

Impartially ready to jump either side

An' make the fust use of a turn o' the tide,-- 130

The waiters on Providunce here in the city,

Who compose wut they call a State Centerl Committy,

Constitoounts air hendy to help a man in,

But arterwards don't weigh the heft of a pin,

Wy, the people can't all live on Uncle Sam's pus,

So they've nothin' to du with 't fer better or wus;

It's the folks thet air kind o' brought up to depend on 't

Thet hev any consarn in 't, an' thet is the end on 't.

Now here wuz New England ahevin' the honor

Of a chance at the Speakership showered upon her;-- 140

Do you say, 'She don't want no more Speakers, but fewer;

She's hed plenty o' them, wut she wants is a _doer'_?

Fer the matter o' thet, it's notorous in town

Thet her own representatives du her quite brown.

But thet's nothin' to du with it; wut right hed Palfrey

To mix himself up with fanatical small fry?

Warn't we gittin' on prime with our hot an' cold blowin',

Acondemnin' the war wilst we kep' it agoin'?

We'd assumed with gret skill a commandin' position.

On this side or thet, no one couldn't tell wich one, 150

So, wutever side wipped, we'd a chance at the plunder

An' could sue fer infringin' our paytented thunder;

We were ready to vote fer whoever wuz eligible,

Ef on all pints at issoo he'd stay unintelligible.

Wal, sposin' we hed to gulp down our perfessions.

We were ready to come out next mornin' with fresh ones;

Besides, ef we did, 'twas our business alone,

Fer couldn't we du wut we would with our own?

An' ef a man can, wen pervisions hev riz so,

Eat up his own words, it's a marcy it is so. 160

Wy, these chaps frum the North, with back-bones to 'em, darn 'em,

'Ould be wuth more 'an Gennle Tom Thumb is to Barnum:

Ther's enough thet to office on this very plan grow,

By exhibitin' how very small a man can grow;

But an M.C. frum here ollers hastens to state he

Belongs to the order called invertebraty,

Wence some gret filologists judge primy fashy

Thet M.C. is M.T. by paronomashy;

An' these few exceptions air _loosus naytury_

Folks 'ould put down their quarters to stare at, like fury. 170

It's no use to open the door o' success,

Ef a member can bolt so fer nothin' or less;

Wy, all o' them grand constitootional pillers

Our fore-fathers fetched with 'em over the billers,

Them pillers the people so soundly hev slep' on,

Wile to slav'ry, invasion, an' debt they were swep' on,

Wile our Destiny higher an' higher kep' mountin'

(Though I guess folks'll stare wen she hends her account in),

Ef members in this way go kickin' agin 'em,

They wunt hev so much ez a feather left in 'em. 180

An', ez fer this Palfrey,[21] we thought wen we'd gut him in,

He'd go kindly in wutever harness we put him in;

Supposin' we _did_ know thet he wuz a peace man?

Does he think he can be Uncle Sammle's policeman,

An' wen Sam gits tipsy an' kicks up a riot,

Lead him off to the lockup to snooze till he's quiet?

Wy, the war is a war thet true paytriots can bear, ef

It leads to the fat promised land of a tayriff;

_We_ don't go an' fight it, nor aint to be driv on,

Nor Demmercrats nuther, thet hev wut to live on; 190

Ef it aint jest the thing thet's well pleasin' to God,

It makes us thought highly on elsewhere abroad;

The Rooshian black eagle looks blue in his eerie

An' shakes both his heads wen he hears o' Monteery;

In the Tower Victory sets, all of a fluster,

An' reads, with locked doors, how we won Cherry Buster;

An' old Philip Lewis--thet come an' kep' school here

Fer the mere sake o' scorin his ryalist ruler

On the tenderest part of our kings _in futuro_--

Hides his crown underneath an old shut in his bureau, 200

Breaks off in his brags to a suckle o' merry kings,

How he often hed hided young native Amerrikins,

An' turnin' quite faint in the midst of his fooleries,

Sneaks down stairs to bolt the front door o' the Tooleries.[22]

You say, 'We'd ha' seared 'em by growin' in peace,

A plaguy sight more then by bobberies like these'?

Who is it dares say thet our naytional eagle

Won't much longer be classed with the birds thet air regal,

Coz theirn be hooked beaks, an' she, arter this slaughter,

'll bring back a bill ten times longer 'n she'd ough' to? 210

Wut's your name? Come, I see ye, you up-country feller,

You've put me out severil times with your beller;

Out with it! Wut? Biglow? I say nothin' furder,

Thet feller would like nothin' better 'n a murder;

He's a traiter, blasphemer, an' wut ruther worse is,

He puts all his ath'ism in dreffle bad verses;

Socity aint safe till sech monsters air out on it,

Refer to the Post, ef you hev the least doubt on it;

Wy, he goes agin war, agin indirect taxes,

Agin sellin' wild lands 'cept to settlers with axes, 220

Agin holdin' o' slaves, though he knows it's the corner

Our libbaty rests on, the mis'able scorner!

In short, he would wholly upset with his ravages

All thet keeps us above the brute critters an' savages,

An' pitch into all kinds o' briles an' confusions

The holl of our civerlized, free institutions;

He writes fer thet ruther unsafe print, the Courier,

An' likely ez not hez a squintin' to Foorier;

I'll be----, thet is, I mean I'll be blest,

Ef I hark to a word frum so noted a pest; 230

I sha'nt talk with _him_, my religion's too fervent.

Good mornin', my friends, I'm your most humble servant.

[Into the question whether the ability to express ourselves in

articulate language has been productive of more good or evil, I shall

not here enter at large. The two faculties of speech and of

speech-making are wholly diverse in their natures. By the first we make

ourselves intelligible, by the last unintelligible, to our fellows. It

has not seldom occurred to me (noting how in our national legislature

everything runs to talk, as lettuces, if the season or the soil be

unpropitious, shoot up lankly to seed, instead of forming handsome

heads) that Babel was the first Congress, the earliest mill erected for

the manufacture of gabble. In these days, what with Town Meetings,

School Committees, Boards (lumber) of one kind and another, Congresses,

Parliaments, Diets, Indian Councils, Palavers, and the like, there is

scarce a village which has not its factories of this description driven

by milk-and-water power. I cannot conceive the confusion of tongues to

have been the curse of Babel, since I esteem my ignorance of other

languages as a kind of Martello-tower, in which I am safe from the

furious bombardments of foreign garrulity. For this reason I have ever

preferred the study of the dead languages, those primitive formations

being Ararats upon whose silent peaks I sit secure and watch this new

deluge without fear, though it rain figures (_simulacra_, semblances) of

speech forty days and nights together, as it not uncommonly happens.

Thus is my coat, as it were, without buttons by which any but a vernacular

wild bore can seize me. Is it not possible that the Shakers may intend

to convey a quiet reproof and hint, in fastening their outer garments

with hooks and eyes?

This reflection concerning Babel, which I find in no Commentary, was

first thrown upon my mind when an excellent deacon of my congregation

(being infected with the Second Advent delusion) assured me that he had

received a first instalment of the gift of tongues as a small earnest of

larger possessions in the like kind to follow. For, of a truth, I could

not reconcile it with my ideas of the Divine justice and mercy that the

single wall which protected people of other languages from the

incursions of this otherwise well-meaning propagandist should be broken

down.

In reading Congressional debates, I have fancied, that, after the

subsidence of those painful buzzings in the brain which result from such

exercises, I detected a slender residuum of valuable information. I made

the discovery that _nothing_ takes longer in the saying than anything

else, for as _ex nihilo nihil fit_, so from one polypus _nothing_ any

number of similar ones may be produced. I would recommend to the

attention of _viva voce_ debaters and controversialists the admirable

example of the monk Copres, who, in the fourth century, stood for half

an hour in the midst of a great fire, and thereby silenced a Manichæan

antagonist who had less of the salamander in him. As for those who

quarrel in print, I have no concern with them here, since the eyelids

are a divinely granted shield against all such. Moreover, I have

observed in many modern books that the printed portion is becoming

gradually smaller, and the number of blank or fly-leaves (as they are

called) greater. Should this fortunate tendency of literature continue,

books will grow more valuable from year to year, and the whole Serbonian

bog yield to the advances of firm arable land.

The sagacious Lacedæmonians, hearing that Tesephone had bragged that he

could talk all day long on any given subject, made no more ado, but

forthwith banished him, whereby they supplied him a topic and at the

same time took care that his experiment upon it should be tried out of

earshot.

I have wondered, in the Representatives' Chamber of our own

Commonwealth, to mark how little impression seemed to be produced by

that emblematic fish suspended over the heads of the members. Our wiser

ancestors, no doubt, hung it there as being the animal which the

Pythagoreans reverenced for its silence, and which certainly in that

particular does not so well merit the epithet _cold blooded_, by which

naturalists distinguish it, as certain bipeds, afflicted with

ditch-water on the brain, who take occasion to tap themselves in Faneuil

Halls, meeting-houses, and other places of public resort.--H.W.]

No. V

THE DEBATE IN THE SENNIT

SOT TO A NUSRY RHYME

[The incident which gave rise to the debate satirized in the following

verses was the unsuccessful attempt of Drayton and Sayres to give

freedom to seventy men and women, fellow-beings and fellow-Christians.

Had Tripoli, instead of Washington, been the scene of this undertaking,

the unhappy leaders in it would have been as secure of the theoretic as

they now are of the practical part of martyrdom. I question whether the

Dey of Tripoli is blessed with a District Attorney so benighted as ours

at the seat of government. Very fitly is he named Key, who would allow

himself to be made the instrument of locking the door of hope against

sufferers in such a cause. Not all the waters of the ocean can cleanse

the vile smutch of the jailer's fingers from off that little Key.

_Ahenea clavis_, a brazen Key indeed!

Mr. Calhoun, who is made the chief speaker in this burlesque, seems to

think that the light of the nineteenth century is to be put out as soon

as he tinkles his little cow-bell curfew. Whenever slavery is touched,

he sets up his scarecrow of dissolving the Union. This may do for the

North, but I should conjecture that something more than a

pumpkin-lantern is required to scare manifest and irretrievable Destiny

out of her path. Mr. Calhoun cannot let go the apron-string of the Past.

The Past is a good nurse, but we must be weaned from her sooner or

later, even though, like Plotinus, we should run home from school to ask

the breast, after we are tolerably well-grown youths. It will not do for

us to hide our faces in her lap, whenever the strange Future holds out

her arms and asks us to come to her.

But we are all alike. We have all heard it said, often enough, that

little boys must not play with fire; and yet, if the matches be taken

away from us, and put out of reach upon the shelf, we must needs get

into our little corner, and scowl and stamp and threaten the dire

revenge of going to bed without our supper. The world shall stop till we

get our dangerous plaything again. Dame Earth, meanwhile, who has more

than enough household matters to mind, goes bustling hither and thither

as a hiss or a sputter tells her that this or that kettle of hers is

boiling over, and before bedtime we are glad to eat our porridge cold,

and gulp down our dignity along with it.

Mr. Calhoun has somehow acquired the name of a great statesman, and, if

it be great statesmanship to put lance in rest and run a tilt at the

Spirit of the Age with the certainty of being next moment hurled neck

and heels into the dust amid universal laughter, he deserves the title.

He is the Sir Kay of our modern chivalry. He should remember the old

Scandinavian mythus. Thor was the strongest of gods, but he could not

wrestle with Time, nor so much as lift up a fold of the great snake

which bound the universe together; and when he smote the Earth, though

with his terrible mallet, it was but as if a leaf had fallen. Yet all

the while it seemed to Thor that he had only been wrestling with an old

woman, striving to lift a cat, and striking a stupid giant on the head.

And in old times, doubtless, the giants _were_ stupid, and there was no

better sport for the Sir Launcelots and Sir Gawains than to go about

cutting off their great blundering heads with enchanted swords. But

things have wonderfully changed. It is the giants, nowadays, that have

the science and the intelligence, while the chivalrous Don Quixotes of

Conservatism still cumber themselves with the clumsy armor of a bygone

age. On whirls the restless globe through unsounded time, with its

cities and its silences, its births and funerals, half light, half

shade, but never wholly dark, and sure to swing round into the happy

morning at last. With an involuntary smile, one sees Mr. Calhoun letting

slip his pack-thread cable with a crooked pin at the end of it to anchor

South Carolina upon the bank and shoal of the Past.--H.W.]

TO MR. BUCKENAM

MR. EDITER, As i wuz kinder prunin round, in a little nussry sot out a

year or 2 a go, the Dbait in the sennit cum inter my mine An so i took &

Sot it to wut I call a nussry rime. I hev made sum onnable Gentlemun

speak thut dident speak in a Kind uv Poetikul lie sense the seeson is

dreffle backerd up This way

ewers as ushul

HOSEA BIGLOW.

'Here we stan' on the Constitution, by thunder!

It's a fact o' wich ther's bushils o' proofs;

Fer how could we trample on 't so, I wonder,

Ef 't worn't thet it's ollers under our hoofs?'

Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he:--

'Human rights haint no more

Right to come on this floor,

No more 'n the man in the moon,' sez he.

'The North haint no kind o' bisness with nothin,'

An' you've no idee how much bother it saves; 10

We aint none riled by their frettin' an' frothin',

We're _used_ to layin' the string on our slaves,'

Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;--

Sez Mister Foote,

'I should like to shoot

The holl gang, by the gret horn spoon!' sez he.

'Freedom's Keystone is Slavery, thet ther's no doubt on,

It's sutthin' thet's--wha' d' ye call it?--divine,--

An' the slaves thet we ollers _make_ the most out on

Air them north o' Mason an' Dixon's line,' 20

Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;--

'Fer all that,' sez Mangum,

''Twould be better to hang 'em

An' so git red on 'em soon,' sez he.

'The mass ough' to labor an' we lay on soffies,

Thet's the reason I want to spread Freedom's aree;

It puts all the cunninest on us in office,

An' reelises our Maker's orig'nal idee,'

Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;--

'Thet's ez plain,' sez Cass, 30

'Ez thet some one's an ass,

It's ez clear ez the sun is at noon,' sez he.

'Now don't go to say I'm the friend of oppression,

But keep all your spare breath fer coolin' your broth,

Fer I ollers hev strove (at least thet's my impression)

To make cussed free with the rights o' the North,'

Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;--

'Yes,' sez Davis o' Miss.,

'The perfection o' bliss

Is in skinnin' thet same old coon,' sez he. 40

'Slavery's a thing thet depends on complexion,

It's God's law thet fetters on black skins don't chafe;

Ef brains wuz to settle it (horrid reflection!)

Wich of our onnable body 'd be safe?'

Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;--

Sez Mister Hannegan,

Afore he began agin,

'Thet exception is quite oppertoon,' sez he.

'Gennle Cass, Sir, you needn't be twitchin' your collar,

_Your_ merit's quite clear by the dut on your knees, 50

At the North we don't make no distinctions o' color;

You can all take a lick at our shoes wen you please,'

Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;--

Sez Mister Jarnagin,

'They wun't hev to larn agin,

They all on 'em know the old toon,' sez he.

'The slavery question aint no ways bewilderin,'

North an' South hev one int'rest, it's plain to a glance;

No'thern men, like us patriarchs, don't sell their childrin,

But they _du_ sell themselves, ef they git a good chance,' 60

Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;--

Sez Atherton here,

'This is gittin' severe,

I wish I could dive like a loon,' sez he.

'It'll break up the Union, this talk about freedom,

An' your fact'ry gals (soon ez we split) 'll make head,

An' gittin' some Miss chief or other to lead 'em,

'll go to work raisin' permiscoous Ned,'

Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;--

'Yes, the North,' sez Colquitt, 70

'Ef we Southeners all quit,

Would go down like a busted balloon,' sez he.

'Jest look wut is doin', wut annyky's brewin'

In the beautiful clime o' the olive an' vine,

All the wise aristoxy's atumblin' to ruin,

An' the sankylots drorin' an' drinkin' their wine,'

Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;--

'Yes,' sez Johnson, 'in France

They're beginnin' to dance

Beëlzebub's own rigadoon,' sez he. 80

'The South's safe enough, it don't feel a mite skeery,

Our slaves in their darkness an' dut air tu blest

Not to welcome with proud hallylugers the ery

Wen our eagle kicks yourn from the naytional nest,'

Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;--

'Oh,' sez Westcott o' Florida,

'Wut treason is horrider

Then our priv'leges tryin' to proon?' sez he.

'It's 'coz they're so happy, thet, wen crazy sarpints

Stick their nose in our bizness, we git so darned riled; 90

We think it's our dooty to give pooty sharp hints,

Thet the last crumb of Edin on airth sha'n't be spiled,'

Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;--

'Ah,' sez Dixon H. Lewis,

'It perfectly true is

Thet slavery's airth's grettest boon,' sez he.

[It was said of old time, that riches have wings; and, though this be

not applicable in a literal strictness to the wealth of our patriarchal

brethren of the South, yet it is clear that their possessions have legs,

and an unaccountable propensity for using them in a northerly direction.

I marvel that the grand jury of Washington did not find a true bill

against the North Star for aiding and abetting Drayton and Sayres. It

would have been quite of a piece with the intelligence displayed by the

South on other questions connected with slavery. I think that no ship of

state was ever freighted with a more veritable Jonah than this same

domestic institution of ours. Mephistopheles himself could not feign so

bitterly, so satirically sad a sight as this of three millions of human

beings crushed beyond help or hope by this one mighty argument,--_Our

fathers knew no better!_ Nevertheless, it is the unavoidable destiny of

Jonahs to be cast overboard sooner or later. Or shall we try the

experiment of hiding our Jonah in a safe place, that none may lay hands

on him to make jetsam of him? Let us, then, with equal forethought and

wisdom, lash ourselves to the anchor, and await, in pious confidence,

the certain result. Perhaps our suspicious passenger is no Jonah after

all, being black. For it is well known that a superintending Providence

made a kind of sandwich of Ham and his descendants, to be devoured by

the Caucasian race.

In God's name, let all, who hear nearer and nearer the hungry moan of

the storm and the growl of the breakers, speak out! But, alas! we have

no right to interfere. If a man pluck an apple of mine, he shall be in

danger of the justice; but if he steal my brother, I must be silent. Who

says this? Our Constitution, consecrated by the callous consuetude of

sixty years, and grasped in triumphant argument by the left hand of him

whose right hand clutches the clotted slave-whip. Justice, venerable

with the undethronable majesty of countless æons, says,--SPEAK! The

Past, wise with the sorrows and desolations of ages, from amid her

shattered fanes and wolf-housing palaces, echoes,--SPEAK! Nature,

through her thousand trumpets of freedom, her stars, her sunrises, her

seas, her winds, her cataracts, her mountains blue with cloudy pines,

blows jubilant encouragement, and cries,--SPEAK! From the soul's

trembling abysses the still, small voice not vaguely murmurs,--SPEAK!

But, alas! the Constitution and the Honorable Mr. Bagowind, M.C.,

say--BE DUMB!

It occurs to me to suggest, as a topic of inquiry in this connection,

whether, on that momentous occasion when the goats and the sheep shall

be parted, the Constitution and the Honorable Mr. Bagowind, M.C., will

be expected to take their places on the left as our hircine vicars.

Quid sum miser tunc dicturus?

Quem patronum rogaturus?

There is a point where toleration sinks into sheer baseness and

poltroonery. The toleration of the worst leads us to look on what is

barely better as good enough, and to worship what is only moderately

good. Woe to that man, or that nation, to whom mediocrity has become an

ideal!

Has our experiment of self-government succeeded, if it barely manage to

_rub and go?_ Here, now, is a piece of barbarism which Christ and the

nineteenth century say shall cease, and which Messrs. Smith, Brown, and

others say shall _not_ cease. I would by no means deny the eminent

respectability of these gentlemen, but I confess, that, in such a

wrestling match, I cannot help having my fears for them.

_Discite justitiam, moniti, et non temnere divos_.

H.W.]

No. VI

THE PIOUS EDITOR'S CREED

[At the special instance of Mr. Biglow, I preface the following satire

with an extract from a sermon preached during the past summer, from

Ezekiel xxxiv. 2: 'Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of

Israel.' Since the Sabbath on which this discourse was delivered, the

editor of the 'Jaalam Independent Blunderbuss' has unaccountably

absented himself from our house of worship.

'I know of no so responsible position as that of the public journalist.

The editor of our day bears the same relation to his time that the clerk

bore to the age before the invention of printing. Indeed, the position

which he holds is that which the clergyman should hold even now. But the

clergyman chooses to walk off to the extreme edge of the world, and to

throw such seed as he has clear over into that darkness which he calls

the Next Life. As if _next_ did not mean _nearest_, and as if any life

were nearer than that immediately present one which boils and eddies all

around him at the caucus, the ratification meeting, and the polls! Who

taught him to exhort men to prepare for eternity, as for some future era

of which the present forms no integral part? The furrow which Time is

even now turning runs through the Everlasting, and in that must he

plant, or nowhere. Yet he would fain believe and teach that we are

_going_ to have more of eternity than we have now. This _going_ of his

is like that of the auctioneer, on which _gone_ follows before we have

made up our minds to bid,--in which manner, not three months back, I

lost an excellent copy of Chappelow on Job. So it has come to pass that

the preacher, instead of being a living force, has faded into an

emblematic figure at christenings, weddings, and funerals. Or, if he

exercise any other function, it is as keeper and feeder of certain

theologic dogmas, which, when occasion offers, he unkennels with a

_staboy!_ "to bark and bite as 'tis their nature to," whence that

reproach of _odium theologicum_ has arisen.

'Meanwhile, see what a pulpit the editor mounts daily, sometimes with a

congregation of fifty thousand within reach of his voice, and never so

much as a nodder, even, among them! And from what a Bible can he choose

his text,--a Bible which needs no translation, and which no priestcraft

can shut and clasp from the laity,--the open volume of the world, upon

which, with a pen of sunshine or destroying fire, the inspired Present

is even now writing the annals of God! Methinks the editor who should

understand his calling, and be equal thereto, would truly deserve that

title of [Greek: poimaen laon], which Homer bestows upon princes. He

would be the Moses of our nineteenth century; and whereas the old Sinai,

silent now, is but a common mountain stared at by the elegant tourist

and crawled over by the hammering geologist, he must find his tables of

the new law here among factories and cities in this Wilderness of Sin

(Numbers xxxiii. 12) called Progress of Civilization, and be the captain

of our Exodus into the Canaan of a truer social order.

'Nevertheless, our editor will not come so far within even the shadow of

Sinai as Mahomet did, but chooses rather to construe Moses by Joe Smith.

He takes up the crook, not that the sheep may be fed, but that he may

never want a warm woollen suit and a joint of mutton.

_Immemor, O, fidei, pecorumque oblite tuorum!_

For which reason I would derive the name _editor_ not so much from

_edo_, to publish, as from _edo_, to eat, that being the peculiar

profession to which he esteems himself called. He blows up the flames of

political discord for no other occasion than that he may thereby handily

boil his own pot. I believe there are two thousand of these

mutton-loving shepherds in the United States, and of these, how many

have even the dimmest perception of their immense power, and the duties

consequent thereon? Here and there, haply, one. Nine hundred and

ninety-nine labor to impress upon the people the great principles of

_Tweedledum_, and other nine hundred and ninety-nine preach with equal

earnestness the gospel according to _Tweedledee_.'--H.W.]

I du believe in Freedom's cause,

Ez fur away ez Payris is;

I love to see her stick her claws

In them infarnal Phayrisees;

It's wal enough agin a king

To dror resolves an' triggers,--

But libbaty's a kind o' thing

Thet don't agree with niggers.

I du believe the people want

A tax on teas an' coffees, 10

Thet nothin' aint extravygunt,--

Purvidin' I'm in office;

For I hev loved my country sence

My eye-teeth filled their sockets,

An' Uncle Sam I reverence,

Partic'larly his pockets.

I du believe in _any_ plan

O' levyin' the texes,

Ez long ez, like a lumberman,

I git jest wut I axes; 20

I go free-trade thru thick an' thin,

Because it kind o' rouses

The folks to vote,--an' keeps us in

Our quiet custom-houses.

I du believe it's wise an' good

To sen' out furrin missions,

Thet is, on sartin understood

An' orthydox conditions;--

I mean nine thousan' dolls. per ann.,

Nine thousan' more fer outfit, 30

An' me to recommend a man

The place 'ould jest about fit.

I du believe in special ways

O' prayin' an' convartin';

The bread comes back in many days,

An' buttered, tu, fer sartin;

I mean in preyin' till one busts

On wut the party chooses,

An' in convartin' public trusts

To very privit uses. 40

I du believe hard coin the stuff

Fer 'lectioneers to spout on;

The people's ollers soft enough

To make hard money out on;

Dear Uncle Sam pervides fer his,

An' gives a good-sized junk to all,--

I don't care _how_ hard money is,

Ez long ez mine's paid punctooal.

I du believe with all my soul

In the gret Press's freedom, 50

To pint the people to the goal

An' in the traces lead 'em;

Palsied the arm thet forges yokes

At my fat contracts squintin',

An' withered be the nose thet pokes

Inter the gov'ment printin'!

I du believe thet I should give

Wut's his'n unto Cæsar,

Fer it's by him I move an' live,

Frum him my bread an' cheese air; 60

I du believe thet all o' me

Doth bear his superscription,--

Will, conscience, honor, honesty,

An' things o' thet description.

I du believe in prayer an' praise

To him that hez the grantin'

O' jobs,--in every thin' thet pays,

But most of all in CANTIN';

This doth my cup with marcies fill,

This lays all thought o' sin to rest,-- 70

I _don't_ believe in princerple,

But oh, I _du_ in interest.

I du believe in bein' this

Or thet, ez it may happen

One way or t'other hendiest is

To ketch the people nappln';

It aint by princerples nor men

My preudunt course is steadied,--

I scent wich pays the best, an' then

Go into it baldheaded. 80

I du believe thet holdin' slaves

Comes nat'ral to a Presidunt,

Let 'lone the rowdedow it saves

To hev a wal-broke precedunt:

Fer any office, small or gret,

I couldn't ax with no face,

'uthout I'd ben, thru dry an' wet,

Th' unrizzest kind o' doughface.

I du believe wutever trash

'll keep the people in blindness,-- 90

Thet we the Mexicuns can thrash

Right inter brotherly kindness,

Thet bombshells, grape, an' powder 'n' ball

Air good-will's strongest magnets,

Thet peace, to make it stick at all,

Must be druv in with bagnets.

In short, I firmly du believe

In Humbug generally,

Fer it's a thing thet I perceive

To hev a solid vally; 100

This heth my faithful shepherd ben,

In pasturs sweet heth led me,

An' this'll keep the people green

To feed ez they hev fed me.

[I subjoin here another passage from my before-mentioned discourse.

'Wonderful, to him that has eyes to see it rightly, is the newspaper. To

me, for example, sitting on the critical front bench of the pit, in my

study here in Jaalam, the advent of my weekly journal is as that of a

strolling theatre, or rather of a puppet-show, on whose stage, narrow as

it is, the tragedy, comedy, and farce of life are played in little.

Behold the whole huge earth sent to me hebdomadally in a brown-paper

wrapper!

'Hither, to my obscure corner, by wind or steam, on horseback or

dromedary-back, in the pouch of the Indian runner, or clicking over the

magnetic wires, troop all the famous performers from the four quarters

of the globe. Looked at from a point of criticism, tiny puppets they

seem all, as the editor sets up his booth upon my desk and officiates as

showman. Now I can truly see how little and transitory is life. The

earth appears almost as a drop of vinegar, on which the solar microscope

of the imagination must be brought to bear in order to make out

anything distinctly. That animalcule there, in the pea-jacket, is Louis

Philippe, just landed on the coast of England. That other, in the gray

surtout and cocked hat, is Napoleon Bonaparte Smith, assuring France

that she need apprehend no interference from him in the present alarming

juncture. At that spot, where you seem to see a speck of something in

motion, is an immense mass-meeting. Look sharper, and you will see a

mite brandishing his mandibles in an excited manner. That is the great

Mr. Soandso, defining his position amid tumultuous and irrepressible

cheers. That infinitesimal creature, upon whom some score of others, as

minute as he, are gazing in open-mouthed admiration, is a famous

philosopher, expounding to a select audience their capacity for the

Infinite. That scarce discernible pufflet of smoke and dust is a

revolution. That speck there is a reformer, just arranging the lever

with which he is to move the world. And lo, there creeps forward the

shadow of a skeleton that blows one breath between its grinning teeth,

and all our distinguished actors are whisked off the slippery stage into

the dark Beyond.

'Yes, the little show-box has its solemner suggestions. Now and then we

catch a glimpse of a grim old man, who lays down a scythe and hour-glass

in the corner while he shifts the scenes. There, too, in the dim

background, a weird shape is ever delving. Sometimes he leans upon his

mattock, and gazes, as a coach whirls by, bearing the newly married on

their wedding jaunt, or glances carelessly at a babe brought home from

christening. Suddenly (for the scene grows larger and larger as we look)

a bony hand snatches back a performer in the midst of his part, and him,

whom yesterday two infinities (past and future) would not suffice, a

handful of dust is enough to cover and silence forever. Nay, we see the

same fleshless fingers opening to clutch the showman himself, and guess,

not without a shudder, that they are lying in wait for spectator also.

'Think of it: for three dollars a year I buy a season-ticket to this

great Globe Theatre, for which God would write the dramas (only that we

like farces, spectacles, and the tragedies of Apollyon better), whose

scene-shifter is Time, and whose curtain is rung down by Death.

'Such thoughts will occur to me sometimes as I am tearing off the

wrapper of my newspaper. Then suddenly that otherwise too often vacant

sheet becomes invested for me with a strange kind of awe. Look! deaths

and marriages, notices of inventions, discoveries, and books, lists of

promotions, of killed, wounded, and missing, news of fires, accidents,

of sudden wealth and as sudden poverty;--I hold in my hand the ends of

myriad invisible electric conductors, along which tremble the joys,

sorrows, wrongs, triumphs, hopes, and despairs of as many men and women

everywhere. So that upon that mood of mind which seems to isolate me

from mankind as a spectator of their puppet-pranks, another supervenes,

in which I feel that I, too, unknown and unheard of, am yet of some

import to my fellows. For, through my newspaper here, do not families

take pains to send me, an entire stranger, news of a death among them?

Are not here two who would have me know of their marriage? And,

strangest of all, is not this singular person anxious to have me

informed that he has received a fresh supply of Dimitry Bruisgins? But

to none of us does the Present continue miraculous (even if for a moment

discerned as such). We glance carelessly at the sunrise, and get used to

Orion and the Pleiades. The wonder wears off, and to-morrow this sheet,

(Acts x. 11, 12) in which a vision was let down to me from Heaven, shall

be the wrappage to a bar of soap or the platter for a beggar's broken

victuals.'--H.W.]

No. VII

A LETTER

FROM A CANDIDATE FOR THE PRESIDENCY IN ANSWER TO SUTTIN QUESTIONS

PROPOSED BY MR. HOSEA BIGLOW, INCLOSED IN A NOTE FROM MR. BIGLOW TO S.H.

GAY, ESQ., EDITOR OF THE NATIONAL ANTI-SLAVERY STANDARD

[Curiosity may be said to be the quality which preeminently

distinguishes and segregates man from the lower animals. As we trace the

scale of animated nature downward, we find this faculty (as it may truly

he called) of the mind diminished in the savage, and wellnigh extinct

in the brute. The first object which civilized man proposes to himself I

take to be the finding out whatsoever he can concerning his neighbors.

_Nihil humanum a me alienum puto;_ I am curious about even John Smith.

The desire next in strength to this (an opposite pole, indeed, of the

same magnet) is that of communicating the unintelligence we have

carefully picked up.

Men in general may be divided into the inquisitive and the

communicative. To the first class belong Peeping Toms, eaves-droppers,

navel-contemplating Brahmins, metaphysicians, travellers, Empedocleses,

spies, the various societies for promoting Rhinothism, Columbuses,

Yankees, discoverers, and men of science, who present themselves to the

mind as so many marks of interrogation wandering up and down the world,

or sitting in studies and laboratories. The second class I should again

subdivide into four. In the first subdivision I would rank those who

have an itch to tell us about themselves,--as keepers of diaries,

insignificant persons generally, Montaignes, Horace Walpoles,

autobiographers, poets. The second includes those who are anxious to

impart information concerning other people,--as historians, barbers, and

such. To the third belong those who labor to give us intelligence about

nothing at all,--as novelists, political orators, the large majority of

authors, preachers, lecturers, and the like. In the fourth come those

who are communicative from motives of public benevolence,--as finders of

mares'-nests and bringers of ill news. Each of us two-legged fowls

without feathers embraces all these subdivisions in himself to a greater

or less degree, for none of us so much as lays an egg, or incubates a

chalk one, but straightway the whole barnyard shall know it by our

cackle or our cluck. _Omnibus hoc vitium est_. There are different

grades in all these classes. One will turn his telescope toward a

back-yard, another toward Uranus; one will tell you that he dined with

Smith, another that he supped with Plato. In one particular, all men may

be considered as belonging to the first grand division, inasmuch as they

all seem equally desirous of discovering the mote in their neighbor's eye.

To one or another of these species every human being may safely be

referred. I think it beyond a peradventure that Jonah prosecuted some

inquiries into the digestive apparatus of whales, and that Noah sealed

up a letter in an empty bottle, that news in regard to him might not be

wanting in case of the worst. They had else been super or subter human.

I conceive, also, that, as there are certain persons who continually

peep and pry at the keyhole of that mysterious door through which,

sooner or later, we all make our exits, so there are doubtless ghosts

fidgeting and fretting on the other side of it, because they have no

means of conveying back to this world the scraps of news they have

picked up in that. For there is an answer ready somewhere to every

question, the great law of _give and take_ runs through all nature, and

if we see a hook, we may be sure that an eye is waiting for it. I read

in every face I meet a standing advertisement of information wanted in

regard to A.B., or that the friends of C.D. can hear something to his

disadvantage by application to such a one.

It was to gratify the two great passions of asking and answering that

epistolary correspondence was first invented. Letters (for by this

usurped title epistles are now commonly known) are of several kinds.

First, there are those which are not letters at all--as letters-patent,

letters dismissory, letters enclosing bills, letters of administration,

Pliny's letters, letters of diplomacy, of Cato, of Mentor, of Lords

Lyttelton, Chesterfield, and Orrery, of Jacob Behmen, Seneca (whom St.

Jerome includes in his list of sacred writers), letters from abroad,

from sons in college to their fathers, letters of marque, and letters

generally, which are in no wise letters of mark. Second, are real

letters, such as those of Gray, Cowper, Walpole, Howell, Lamb, D.Y., the

first letters from children (printed in staggering capitals), Letters

from New York, letters of credit, and others, interesting for the sake

of the writer or the thing written. I have read also letters from Europe

by a gentleman named Pinto, containing some curious gossip, and which I

hope to see collected for the benefit of the curious. There are,

besides, letters addressed to posterity,--as epitaphs, for example,

written for their own monuments by monarchs, whereby we have lately

become possessed of the names of several great conquerors and kings of

kings, hitherto unheard of and still unpronounceable, but valuable to

the student of the entirely dark ages. The letter of our Saviour to King

Abgarus, that which St. Peter sent to King Pepin in the year of grace

755, that of the Virgin to the magistrates of Messina, that of the

Sanhedrim of Toledo to Annas and Caiaphas, A.D. 35, that of Galeazzo

Sforza's spirit to his brother Lodovico, that of St. Gregory

Thaumaturgus to the D----l, and that of this last-mentioned active

police-magistrate to a nun of Girgenti, I would place in a class by

themselves, as also the letters of candidates, concerning which I shall

dilate more fully in a note at the end of the following poem. At present

_sat prata biberunt_. Only, concerning the shape of letters, they are

all either square or oblong, to which general figures circular letters

and round-robins also conform themselves.--H.W.]

Deer Sir its gut to be the fashun now to rite letters to the candid 8s

and i wus chose at a publick Meetin in Jaalam to du wut wus nessary fur

that town. i writ to 271 ginerals and gut ansers to 209. tha air called

candid 8s but I don't see nothin candid about 'em. this here 1 wich I

send wus thought satty's factory. I dunno as it's ushle to print

Poscrips, but as all the ansers I got hed the saim, I sposed it wus

best. times has gretly changed. Formaly to knock a man into a cocked hat

wus to use him up, but now it ony gives him a chance fur the cheef

madgustracy.--H.B.

Dear Sir,--You wish to know my notions

On sartin pints thet rile the land;

There's nothin' thet my natur so shuns

Ez bein' mum or underhand;

I'm a straight-spoken kind o' creetur

Thet blurts right out wut's in his head.

An' ef I've one pecooler feetur,

It is a nose thet wunt be led.

So, to begin at the beginnin'

An' come direcly to the pint, 10

I think the country's underpinnin'

Is some consid'ble out o' jint;

I aint agoin' to try your patience

By tellin' who done this or thet,

I don't make no insinooations,

I jest let on I smell a rat.

Thet is, I mean, it seems to me so,

But, ef the public think I'm wrong,

I wunt deny but wut I be so,--

An' fact, it don't smell very strong; 20

My mind's tu fair to lose its balance

An' say wich party hez most sense;

There may be folks o' greater talence

Thet can't set stiddier on the fence.

I'm an eclectic; ez to choosin'

'Twixt this an' thet, I'm plaguy lawth;

I leave a side thet looks like losin',

But (wile there's doubt) I stick to both;

I stan' upon the Constitution,

Ez preudunt statesman say, who've planned 30

A way to git the most profusion

O' chances ez to _ware_ they'll stand.

Ez fer the war, I go agin it,--

I mean to say I kind o' du,--

Thet is, I mean thet, bein' in it,

The best way wuz to fight it thru';

Not but wut abstract war is horrid,

I sign to thet with all my heart,--

But civlyzation _doos_ git forrid 39

Sometimes upon a powder-cart.

About thet darned Proviso matter

I never hed a grain o' doubt.

Nor I aint one my sense to scatter

So 'st no one couldn't pick it out;

My love fer North an' South is equil,

So I'll jest answer plump an' frank,

No matter wut may be the sequil,--

Yes, Sir, I _am_ agin a Bank.

Ez to the answerin' o' questions,

I'm an off ox at bein' druv, 50

Though I ain't one thet ary test shuns

'll give our folks a helpin' shove;

Kind o' permiscoous I go it

Fer the holl country, an' the ground

I take, ez nigh ez I can show it,

Is pooty gen'ally all round.

I don't appruve o' givin' pledges;

You'd ough' to leave a feller free,

An' not go knockin' out the wedges

To ketch his fingers in the tree;

Pledges air awfle breachy cattle 61

Thet preudunt farmers don't turn out,--

Ez long 'z the people git their rattle,

Wut is there fer 'em to grout about?

Ez to the slaves, there's no confusion

In _my_ idees consarnin' them,--

_I_ think they air an Institution,

A sort of--yes, jest so,--ahem:

Do _I_ own any? Of my merit

On thet pint you yourself may jedge; 70

All is, I never drink no sperit,

Nor I haint never signed no pledge.

Ez to my princerples, I glory

In hevin' nothin' o' the sort;

I aint a Wig, I aint a Tory,

I'm jest a canderdate, in short;

Thet's fair an' square an' parpendicler

But, ef the Public cares a fig

To hev me an'thin' in particler,

Wy, I'm a kind o' peri-Wig. 80

P.S.

Ez we're a sort o' privateerin',

O' course, you know, it's sheer an' sheer,

An' there is sutthin' wuth your hearin'

I'll mention in _your_ privit ear;

Ef you git _me_ inside the White House,

Your head with ile I'll kin' o' 'nint

By gittin' _you_ inside the Lighthouse

Down to the eend o' Jaalam Pint.

An' ez the North hez took to brustlin'

At bein' scrouged frum off the roost, 90

I'll tell ye wut'll save all tusslin'

An' give our side a harnsome boost,--

Tell 'em thet on the Slavery question

I'm RIGHT, although to speak I'm lawth;

This gives you a safe pint to rest on,

An' leaves me frontin' South by North.

[And now of epistles candidatial, which are of two kinds,--namely,

letters of acceptance, and letters definitive of position. Our republic,

on the eve of an election, may safely enough be called a republic of

letters. Epistolary composition becomes then an epidemic, which seizes

one candidate after another, not seldom cutting short the thread of

political life. It has come to such a pass, that a party dreads less the

attacks of its opponents than a letter from its candidate. _Litera

scripta manet_, and it will go hard if something bad cannot be made of

it. General Harrison, it is well understood, was surrounded, during his

candidacy, with the _cordon sanitaire_ of a vigilance committee. No

prisoner in Spielberg was ever more cautiously deprived of writing

materials. The soot was scraped carefully from the chimney-places;

outposts of expert rifle-shooters rendered it sure death for any goose

(who came clad in feathers) to approach within a certain limited

distance of North Bend; and all domestic fowls about the premises were

reduced to the condition of Plato's original man. By these precautions

the General was saved. _Parva componere magnis_, I remember, that, when

party-spirit once ran high among my people, upon occasion of the choice

of a new deacon, I, having my preferences, yet not caring too openly to

express them, made use of an innocent fraud to bring about that result

which I deemed most desirable. My stratagem was no other than the

throwing a copy of the Complete Letter-Writer in the way of the

candidate whom I wished to defeat. He caught the infection, and

addressed a short note to his constituents, in which the opposite party

detected so many and so grave improprieties (he had modelled it upon the

letter of a young lady accepting a proposal of marriage), that he not

only lost his election, but, falling under a suspicion of Sabellianism

and I know not what (the widow Endive assured me that he was a

Paralipomenon, to her certain knowledge), was forced to leave the town.

Thus it is that the letter killeth.

The object which candidates propose to themselves in writing is to

convey no meaning at all. And here is a quite unsuspected pitfall into

which they successively plunge headlong. For it is precisely in such

cryptographies that mankind are prone to seek for and find a wonderful

amount and variety of significance. _Omne ignotum pro mirifico_. How do

we admire at the antique world striving to crack those oracular nuts

from Delphi, Hammon, and elsewhere, in only one of which can I so much

as surmise that any kernel had ever lodged; that, namely, wherein Apollo

confessed that he was mortal. One Didymus is, moreover, related to have

written six thousand books on the single subject of grammar, a topic

rendered only more tenebrific by the labors of his successors, and which

seems still to possess an attraction for authors in proportion as they

can make nothing of it. A singular loadstone for theologians, also, is

the Beast in the Apocalypse, whereof, in the course of my studies, I

have noted two hundred and three several interpretations, each

lethiferal to all the rest. _Non nostrum est tantas componere lites_,

yet I have myself ventured upon a two hundred and fourth, which I

embodied in a discourse preached on occasion of the demise of the late

usurper, Napoleon Bonaparte, and which quieted, in a large measure, the

minds of my people. It is true that my views on this important point

were ardently controverted by Mr. Shearjashub Holden, the then preceptor

of our academy, and in other particulars a very deserving and sensible

young man, though possessing a somewhat limited knowledge of the Greek

tongue. But his heresy struck down no deep root, and, he having been

lately removed by the hand of Providence, I had the satisfaction of

reaffirming my cherished sentiments in a sermon preached upon the Lord's

day immediately succeeding his funeral. This might seem like taking an

unfair advantage, did I not add that he had made provision in his last

will (being celibate) for the publication of a posthumous tractate in

support of his own dangerous opinions.

I know of nothing in our modern times which approaches so nearly to the

ancient oracle as the letter of a Presidential candidate. Now, among the

Greeks, the eating of beans was strictly forbidden to all such as had it

in mind to consult those expert amphibologists, and this same

prohibition on the part of Pythagoras to his disciples is understood to

imply an abstinence from politics, beans having been used as ballots.

That other explication, _quod videlicet sensus eo cibo obtundi

existimaret_, though supported _pugnis et calcibus_ by many of the

learned, and not wanting the countenance of Cicero, is confuted by the

larger experience of New England. On the whole, I think it safer to

apply here the rule of interpretation which now generally obtains in

regard to antique cosmogonies, myths, fables, proverbial expressions,

and knotty points generally, which is, to find a common-sense meaning,

and then select whatever can be imagined the most opposite thereto. In

this way we arrive at the conclusion, that the Greeks objected to the

questioning of candidates. And very properly, if, as I conceive, the

chief point be not to discover what a person in that position is, or

what he will do, but whether he can be elected. _Vos exemplaria Græca

nocturna versate manu, versate diurna_.

But, since an imitation of the Greeks in this particular (the asking of

questions being one chief privilege of freemen) is hardly to be hoped

for, and our candidates will answer, whether they are questioned or not,

I would recommend that these ante-electionary dialogues should be

carried on by symbols, as were the diplomatic correspondences of the

Scythians an Macrobii, or confined to the language of signs, like the

famous interview of Panurge and Goatsnose. A candidate might then

convey a suitable reply to all committees of inquiry by closing one eye,

or by presenting them with a phial of Egyptian darkness to be speculated

upon by their respective constituencies. These answers would be

susceptible of whatever retrospective construction the exigencies of the

political campaign might seem to demand, and the candidate could take

his position on either side of the fence with entire consistency. Or, if

letters must be written, profitable use might be made of the Dighton

rock hieroglyphic or the cuneiform script, every fresh decipherer of

which is enabled to educe a different meaning, whereby a sculptured

stone or two supplies us, and will probably continue to supply

posterity, with a very vast and various body of authentic history. For

even the briefest epistle in the ordinary chirography is dangerous.

There is scarce any style so compressed that superfluous words may not

be detected in it. A severe critic might curtail that famous brevity of

Cæsar's by two thirds, drawing his pen through the supererogatory

_veni_ and _vidi_. Perhaps, after all, the surest footing of hope is to

be found in the rapidly increasing tendency to demand less and less of

qualification in candidates. Already have statesmanship, experience, and

the possession (nay, the profession, even) of principles been rejected

as superfluous, and may not the patriot reasonably hope that the ability

to write will follow? At present, there may be death in pothooks as well

as pots, the loop of a letter may suffice for a bowstring, and all the

dreadful heresies of Antislavery may lurk in a flourish.--H.W.]

No. VIII

A SECOND LETTER FROM B. SAWIN, ESQ.

[In the following epistle, we behold Mr. Sawin returning, a _miles

emeritus_, to the bosom of his family. _Quantum mutatus!_ The good

Father of us all had doubtless intrusted to the keeping of this child of

his certain faculties of a constructive kind. He had put in him a share

of that vital force, the nicest economy of every minute atom of which is

necessary to the perfect development of Humanity. He had given him a

brain and heart, and so had equipped his soul with the two strong wings

of knowledge and love, whereby it can mount to hang its nest under the

eaves of heaven. And this child, so dowered, he had intrusted to the

keeping of his vicar, the State. How stands the account of that

stewardship? The State, or Society (call her by what name you will), had

taken no manner of thought of him till she saw him swept out into the

street, the pitiful leavings of last night's debauch, with cigar-ends,

lemon-parings, tobacco-quids, slops, vile stenches, and the whole

loathsome next-morning of the bar-room,--an own child of the Almighty

God! I remember him as he was brought to be christened, a ruddy, rugged

babe; and now there he wallows, reeking, seething,--the dead corpse, not

of a man, but of a soul,--a putrefying lump, horrible for the life that

is in it. Comes the wind of heaven, that good Samaritan, and parts the

hair upon his forehead, nor is too nice to kiss those parched, cracked

lips; the morning opens upon him her eyes full of pitying sunshine, the

sky yearns down to him,--and there he lies fermenting. O sleep! let me

not profane thy holy name by calling that stertorous unconsciousness a

slumber! By and by comes along the State, God's vicar. Does she say, 'My

poor, forlorn foster-child! Behold here a force which I will make dig

and plant and build for me'? Not so, but, 'Here is a recruit ready-made

to my hand, a piece of destroying energy lying unprofitably idle.' So

she claps an ugly gray suit on him, puts a musket in his grasp, and

sends him off, with Gubernatorial and other godspeeds, to do duty as a

destroyer.

I made one of the crowd at the last Mechanics' Fair, and, with the rest,

stood gazing in wonder at a perfect machine, with its soul of fire, its

boiler-heart that sent the hot blood pulsing along the iron arteries,

and its thews of steel. And while I was admiring the adaptation of means

to end, the harmonious involutions of contrivance, and the

never-bewildered complexity, I saw a grimed and greasy fellow, the

imperious engine's lackey and drudge, whose sole office was to let fall,

at intervals, a drop or two of oil upon a certain joint. Then my soul

said within me, See there a piece of mechanism to which that other you

marvel at is but as the rude first effort of a child,--a force which not

merely suffices to set a few wheels in motion, but which can send an

impulse all through the infinite future,--a contrivance, not for turning

out pins, or stitching button-holes, but for making Hamlets and Lears.

And yet this thing of iron shall be housed, waited on, guarded from rust

and dust, and it shall be a crime but so much as to scratch it with a

pin; while the other, with its fire of God in it, shall be buffeted

hither and thither, and finally sent carefully a thousand miles to be

the target for a Mexican cannon-ball. Unthrifty Mother State! My heart

burned within me for pity and indignation, and I renewed this covenant

with my own soul,--_In aliis mansuetus ero, at, in blasphemiis contra

Christum, non ita._.--H.W.]

I spose you wonder ware I be; I can't tell, fer the soul o' me,

Exacly ware I be myself,--meanin' by thet the holl o' me.

Wen I left hum, I hed two legs, an' they worn't bad ones neither,

(The scaliest trick they ever played wuz bringin' on me hither,)

Now one on 'em's I dunno ware;--they thought I wuz adyin',

An' sawed it off because they said 'twuz kin' o' mortifyin';

I'm willin' to believe it wuz, an' yit I don't see, nuther,

Wy one shoud take to feelin' cheap a minnit sooner 'n t'other,

Sence both wuz equilly to blame; but things is ez they be;

It took on so they took it off, an' thet's enough fer me: 10

There's one good thing, though, to be said about my wooden new one,--

The liquor can't git into it ez 't used to in the true one;

So it saves drink; an' then, besides, a feller couldn't beg

A gretter blessin' then to hev one ollers sober peg;

It's true a chap's in want o' two fer follerin' a drum,

But all the march I'm up to now is jest to Kingdom Come.

I've lost one eye, but thet's a loss it's easy to supply

Out o' the glory thet I've gut, fer thet is all my eye;

An' one is big enough, I guess, by diligently usin' it,

To see all I shall ever git by way o' pay fer losin' it; 20

Off'cers I notice, who git paid fer all our thumps an' kickins,

Du wal by keepin' single eyes arter the fattest pickins;

So, ez the eye's put fairly out, I'll larn to go without it,

An' not allow _myself_ to be no gret put out about it.

Now, le' me see, thet isn't all; I used, 'fore leavin' Jaalam,

To count things on my finger-eends, but sutthin' seems to ail 'em:

Ware's my left hand? Oh, darn it, yes, I recollect wut's come on 't;

I haint no left arm but my right, an' thet's gut jest a thumb on 't;

It aint so bendy ez it wuz to cal'late a sum on 't.

I've hed some ribs broke,--six (I b'lieve),--I haint kep' no account on

'em; 30

Wen pensions git to be the talk, I'll settle the amount on 'em.

An' now I'm speakin' about ribs, it kin' o' brings to mind

One thet I couldn't never break,--the one I lef' behind;

Ef you should see her, jest clear out the spout o' your invention

An' pour the longest sweetnin' in about an annooal pension,

An' kin' o' hint (in case, you know, the critter should refuse to be

Consoled) I aint so 'xpensive now to keep ez wut I used to be;

There's one arm less, ditto one eye, an' then the leg thet's wooden

Can be took off an' sot away wenever ther's a puddin'.

I spose you think I'm comin' back ez opperlunt ez thunder, 40

With shiploads o' gold images an' varus sorts o' plunder;

Wal, 'fore I vullinteered, I thought this country wuz a sort o'

Canaan, a reg'lar Promised Land flowin' with rum an' water,

Ware propaty growed up like time, without no cultivation,

An' gold wuz dug ez taters be among our Yankee nation,

Ware nateral advantages were pufficly amazin',

Ware every rock there wuz about with precious stuns wuz blazin'.

Ware mill-sites filled the country up ez thick ez you could cram 'em,

An' desput rivers run about a beggin' folks to dam 'em;

Then there were meetinhouses, tu, chockful o' gold an' silver 50

Thet you could take, an' no one couldn't hand ye in no bill fer;--

Thet's wut I thought afore I went, thet's wut them fellers told us

Thet stayed to hum an' speechified an' to the buzzards sold us;

I thought thet gold-mines could be gut cheaper than Chiny asters,

An' see myself acomin' back like sixty Jacob Astors;

But sech idees soon melted down an' didn't leave a grease-spot;

I vow my holl sheer o' the spiles wouldn't come nigh a V spot;

Although, most anywares we've ben, you needn't break no locks,

Nor run no kin' o' risks, to fill your pocket full o' rocks.

I 'xpect I mentioned in my last some o' the nateral feeturs 60

O' this all-fiered buggy hole in th' way o' awfle creeturs,

But I fergut to name (new things to speak on so abounded)

How one day you'll most die o' thust, an' 'fore the next git drownded.

The clymit seems to me jest like a teapot made o' pewter

Our Preudence hed, thet wouldn't pour (all she could du) to suit her;

Fust place the leaves 'ould choke the spout, so's not a drop 'ould dreen

out,

Then Prude 'ould tip an' tip an' tip, till the holl kit bust clean out,

The kiver-hinge-pin bein' lost, tea-leaves an' tea an' kiver

'ould all come down _kerswosh!_ ez though the dam bust in a river.

Jest so 'tis here; holl months there aint a day o' rainy weather, 70

An' jest ez th' officers 'ould be a layin' heads together

Ez t' how they'd mix their drink at sech a milingtary deepot,--

'Twould pour ez though the lid wuz off the everlastin' teapot.

The cons'quence is, thet I shall take, wen I'm allowed to leave here,

One piece o' propaty along, an' thet's the shakin' fever;

It's reggilar employment, though, an' thet aint thought to harm one,

Nor 'taint so tiresome ez it wuz with t'other leg an' arm on;

An' it's a consolation, tu, although it doosn't pay,

To hev it said you're some gret shakes in any kin' o' way.

'Tworn't very long, I tell ye wut, I thought o' fortin-makin',-- 80

One day a reg'lar shiver-de-freeze, an' next ez good ez bakin',--

One day abrilin' in the sand, then smoth'rin' in the mashes,--

Git up all sound, be put to bed a mess o' hacks an' smashes.

But then, thinks I, at any rate there's glory to be hed,--

Thet's an investment, arter all, thet mayn't turn out so bad;

But somehow, wen we'd fit an' licked, I ollers found the thanks

Gut kin' o' lodged afore they come ez low down ez the ranks;

The Gin'rals gut the biggest sheer, the Cunnles next, an' so on,--

_We_ never gat a blasted mite o' glory ez I know on;

An' spose we hed, I wonder how you're goin' to contrive its 90

Division so's to give a piece to twenty thousand privits;

Ef you should multiply by ten the portion o' the brav'st one,

You wouldn't git more 'n half enough to speak of on a grave-stun;

We git the licks,--we're jest the grist thet's put into War's hoppers;

Leftenants is the lowest grade thet helps pick up the coppers.

It may suit folks thet go agin a body with a soul in 't,

An' aint contented with a hide without a bagnet hole in 't;

But glory is a kin' o' thing _I_ sha'n't pursue no furder,

Coz thet's the off'cers' parquisite,--yourn's on'y jest the murder.

Wal, arter I gin glory up, thinks I at least there's one 100

Thing in the bills we aint bed yit, an' thet's the GLORIOUS FUN;

Ef once we git to Mexico, we fairly may persume we

All day an' night shall revel in the halls o' Montezumy.

I'll tell ye wut _my_ revels wuz, an' see how you would like 'em;

_We_ never gut inside the hall: the nighest ever _I_ come

Wuz stan'in' sentry in the sun (an', fact, it _seemed_ a cent'ry)

A ketchin' smells o' biled an' roast thet come out thru the entry,

An' hearin' ez I sweltered thru my passes an' repasses,

A rat-tat-too o' knives an' forks, a clinkty-clink o' glasses:

I can't tell off the bill o' fare the Gin'rals hed inside; 110

All I know is, thet out o' doors a pair o' soles wuz fried,

An' not a hunderd miles away from ware this child wuz posted,

A Massachusetts citizen wuz baked an' biled an' roasted;

The on'y thing like revellin' thet ever come to me

Wuz bein' routed out o' sleep by thet darned revelee.

They say the quarrel's settled now; for my part I've some doubt on 't,

't'll take more fish-skin than folks think to take the rile clean on 't;

At any rate I'm so used up I can't do no more fightin',

The on'y chance thet's left to me is politics or writin';

Now, ez the people's gut to hev a milingtary man, 120

An' I aint nothin' else jest now, I've hit upon a plan;

The can'idatin' line, you know, 'ould suit me to a T,

An' ef I lose, 'twunt hurt my ears to lodge another flea;

So I'll set up ez can'idate fer any kin' o' office,

(I mean fer any thet includes good easy-cheers an' soffies;

Fer ez tu runnin' fer a place ware work's the time o' day,

You know thet's wut I never did,--except the other way;)

Ef it's the Presidential cheer fer wich I'd better run,

Wut two legs anywares about could keep up with my one?

There aint no kin' o' quality in can'idates, it's said, 130

So useful eza wooden leg,--except a wooden head;

There's nothin' aint so poppylar--(wy, it 's a parfect sin

To think wut Mexico hez paid fer Santy Anny's pin;)--

Then I haint gut no princerples, an', sence I wuz knee-high,

I never _did_ hev any gret, ez you can testify;

I'm a decided peace-man, tu, an' go agin the war,--

Fer now the holl on 't's gone an' past, wut is there to go _for_?

Ef, wile you're 'lectioneerin' round, some curus chaps should beg

To know my views o' state affairs, jest answer WOODEN LEG!

Ef they aint settisfied with thet, an' kin' o' pry an' doubt 140

An' ax fer sutthin' deffynit, jest say ONE EYE PUT OUT!

Thet kin' o' talk I guess you'll find'll answer to a charm,

An' wen you're druv tu nigh the wall, hol' up my missin' arm;

Ef they should nose round fer a pledge, put on a vartoous look

An' tell 'em thet's precisely wut I never gin nor--took!

Then you can call me 'Timbertoes,'--thet's wut the people likes;

Sutthin' combinin' morril truth with phrases sech ez strikes;

Some say the people's fond o' this, or thet, or wut you please,--

I tell ye wut the people want is jest correct idees;

'Old Timbertoes,' you see, 's a creed it's safe to be quite bold

on, 150

There's nothin' in 't the other side can any ways git hold on;

It's a good tangible idee, a sutthin' to embody

Thet valooable class o' men who look thru brandy-toddy;

It gives a Party Platform, tu, jest level with the mind

Of all right-thinkin', honest folks thet mean to go it blind;

Then there air other good hooraws to dror on ez you need 'em,

Sech ez the ONE-EYED SLARTERER, the BLOODY BIRDOFREDUM:

Them's wut takes hold o' folks thet think, ez well ez o' the masses,

An' makes you sartin o' the aid o' good men of all classes.

There's one thing I'm in doubt about: in order to be Presidunt, 160

It's absolutely ne'ssary to be a Southern residunt;

The Constitution settles thet, an' also thet a feller

Must own a nigger o' some sort, jet black, or brown, or yeller.

Now I haint no objections agin particklar climes,

Nor agin ownin' anythin' (except the truth sometimes),

But, ez I haint no capital, up there among ye, maybe,

You might raise funds enough fer me to buy a low-priced baby,

An' then to suit the No'thern folks, who feel obleeged to say

They hate an' cus the very thing they vote fer every day,

Say you're assured I go full butt fer Libbaty's diffusion 170

An' make the purchis on'y jest to spite the Institootion;--

But, golly! there's the currier's hoss upon the pavement pawin'!

I'll be more 'xplicit in my next.

Yourn, BIRDOFREDUM SAWIN.

[We have now a tolerably fair chance of estimating how the balance-sheet

stands between our returned volunteer and glory. Supposing the entries

to be set down on both sides of the account in fractional parts of one

hundred, we shall arrive at something like the following result:--

B. SAWIN, Esq., _in account with_ (BLANK) GLORY.

_Cr._

By loss of one leg............................................... 20

" do. one arm................................................ 15

" do. four fingers............................................ 5

" do. one eye................................................ 10

" the breaking of six ribs........................................ 6

" having served under Colonel Cushing one month.................. 44

-------

100

_Dr._

To one 675th three cheers in Faneuil Hall......................... 30

" do. do. on occasion of presentation of sword to Colonel Wright.. 25

To one suit of gray clothes (ingeniously unbecoming).............. 15

" musical entertainments (drum and fife six months)............... 5

" one dinner after return......................................... 1

" chance of pension............................................... 1

" privilege of drawing longbow during rest of natural life....... 23

------

100

E.E.

It should appear that Mr. Sawin found the actual feast curiously the

reverse of the bill of fare advertised in Faneuil Hall and other places.

His primary object seems to have been the making of his fortune.

_Quærenda pecunia primum, virtus post nummos_. He hoisted sail for

Eldorado, and shipwrecked on Point Tribulation. _Quid, non mortalia

pectora cogis, auri sacra fames?_ The speculation has sometimes crossed

my mind, in that dreary interval of drought which intervenes between

quarterly stipendiary showers, that Providence, by the creation of a

money-tree, might have simplified wonderfully the sometimes perplexing

problem of human life. We read of bread-trees, the butter for which lies

ready-churned in Irish bogs. Milk-trees we are assured of in South

America, and stout Sir John Hawkins testifies to water-trees in the

Canaries. Boot-trees bear abundantly in Lynn and elsewhere; and I have

seen, in the entries of the wealthy, hat-trees with a fair show of

fruit. A family-tree I once cultivated myself, and found therefrom but a

scanty yield, and that quite tasteless and innutritious. Of trees

bearing men we are not without examples; as those in the park of Louis

the Eleventh of France. Who has forgotten, moreover, that olive-tree,

growing in the Athenian's back-garden, with its strange uxorious crop,

for the general propagation of which, as of a new and precious variety,

the philosopher Diogenes, hitherto uninterested in arboriculture, was so

zealous? In the _sylva_ of our own Southern States, the females of my

family have called my attention to the china-tree. Not to multiply

examples, I will barely add to my list the birch-tree, in the smaller

branches of which has been implanted so miraculous a virtue for

communicating the Latin and Greek languages, and which may well,

therefore, be classed among the trees producing necessaries of

life,--_venerabile donum fatalis virgæ_. That money-trees existed in

the golden age there want not prevalent reasons for our believing. For

does not the old proverb, when it asserts that money does not grow on

_every_ bush, imply _a fortiori_ that there were certain bushes which

did produce it? Again, there is another ancient saw to the effect that

money is the _root_ of all evil. From which two adages it may be safe to

infer that the aforesaid species of tree first degenerated into a shrub,

then absconded underground, and finally, in our iron age, vanished

altogether. In favorable exposures it may be conjectured that a specimen

or two survived to a great age, as in the garden of the Hesperides; and,

indeed, what else could that tree in the Sixth Æneid have been with a

branch whereof the Trojan hero procured admission to a territory, for

the entering of which money is a surer passport than to a certain other

more profitable and too foreign kingdom? Whether these speculations of

mine have any force in them, or whether they will not rather, by most

readers, be deemed impertinent to the matter in hand, is a question

which I leave to the determination of an indulgent posterity. That there

were, in more primitive and happier times, shops where money was

sold,--and that, too, on credit and at a bargain,--I take to be matter

of demonstration. For what but a dealer in this article was that Æolus

who supplied Ulysses with motive-power for his fleet in bags? what that

Ericus, King of Sweden, who is said to have kept the winds in his cap?

what, in more recent times, those Lapland Nornas who traded in favorable

breezes? All which will appear the more clearly when we consider, that,

even to this day, _raising the wind_ is proverbial for raising money,

and that brokers and banks were invented by the Venetians at a later

period.

And now for the improvement of this digression. I find a parallel to Mr.

Sawin's fortune in an adventure of my own. For, shortly after I had

first broached to myself the before-stated natural-historical and

archæological theories, as I was passing, _haec negotia penitus mecum

revolvens_, through one of the obscure suburbs of our New England

metropolis, my eye was attracted by these words upon a signboard,--CHEAP

CASH-STORE. Here was at once the confirmation of my speculations, and

the substance of my hopes. Here lingered the fragment of a happier past,

or stretched out the first tremulous organic filament of a more

fortunate future. Thus glowed the distant Mexico to the eyes of Sawin,

as he looked through the dirty pane of the recruiting-office window, or

speculated from the summit of that mirage-Pisgah which the imps of the

bottle are so cunning to raise up. Already had my Alnaschar-fancy (even

during that first half-believing glance) expended in various useful

directions the funds to be obtained by pledging the manuscript of a

proposed volume of discourses. Already did a clock ornament the tower of

the Jaalam meeting-house, a gift appropriately, but modestly,

commemorated in the parish and town records, both, for now many years,

kept by myself. Already had my son Seneca completed his course at the

University. Whether, for the moment, we may not be considered as

actually lording it over those Baratarias with the viceroyalty of which

Hope invests us, and whether we are ever so warmly housed as in our

Spanish castles, would afford matter of argument. Enough that I found

that signboard to be no other than a bait to the trap of a decayed

grocer. Nevertheless, I bought a pound of dates (getting short weight by

reason of immense flights of harpy flies who pursued and lighted upon

their prey even in the very scales), which purchase I made not only with

an eye to the little ones at home, but also as a figurative reproof of

that too frequent habit of my mind, which, forgetting the due order of

chronology, will often persuade me that the happy sceptre of Saturn is

stretched over this Astræa-forsaken nineteenth century.

Having glanced at the ledger of Glory under the title _Sawin, B._, let

us extend our investigations, and discover if that instructive volume

does not contain some charges more personally interesting to ourselves.

I think we should be more economical of our resources, did we thoroughly

appreciate the fact, that, whenever Brother Jonathan seems to be

thrusting his hand into his own pocket, he is, in fact, picking ours. I

confess that the late _muck_ which the country has been running has

materially changed my views as to the best method of raising revenue.

If, by means of direct taxation, the bills for every extraordinary

outlay were brought under our immediate eye, so that, like thrifty

housekeepers, we could see where and how fast the money was going, we

should be less likely to commit extravagances. At present, these things

are managed in such a hugger-mugger way, that we know not what we pay

for; the poor man is charged as much as the rich; and, while we are

saving and scrimping at the spigot, the government is drawing off at the

bung. If we could know that a part of the money we expend for tea and

coffee goes to buy powder and balls, and that it is Mexican blood which

makes the clothes on our backs more costly, it would set some of us

athinking. During the present fall, I have often pictured to myself a

government official entering my study and handing me the following

bill:--

WASHINGTON, Sept. 30, 1848,

REV. HOMER WILBUR to _Uncle Samuel_,

_Dr._

To his share of work done in Mexico

on partnership account, sundry

jobs, as below.

"killing, maiming and wounding

about 5000 Mexicans. . . . . . . . $2.00

"slaughtering one woman carrying

water to wounded. . . . . . . . . . .10

"extra work on two different Sabbaths

(one bombardment and one assault),

whereby the Mexicans were prevented

from defiling themselves with the

idolatries of high mass . . . . . . 3.50

"throwing an especially fortunate and

Protestant bomb-shell into the

Cathedral at Vera Cruz, whereby

several female Papists were slain

at the altar. . . . . . . . . . . . .50

"his proportion of cash paid for

conquered territory. . . . . . . . 1.75

"do. do. for conquering do . . . . . 1.50

"manuring do. with new superior

compost called 'American Citizen'. .50

"extending the area of freedom and

Protestantism. . . . . . . . . . . .01

"glory. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .01

_____

$9.87

_Immediate payment is requested._

N.B. Thankful for former favors, U.S. requests a continuance of

patronage. Orders executed with neatness and despatch. Terms as low as

those of any other contractor for the same kind and style of work.

I can fancy the official answering my look of horror with--'Yes, Sir, it

looks like a high charge. Sir; but in these days slaughtering is

slaughtering.' Verily, I would that every one understood that it was;

for it goes about obtaining money under the false pretence of being

glory. For me, I have an imagination which plays me uncomfortable

tricks. It happens to me sometimes to see a slaughterer on his way home

from his day's work, and forthwith my imagination puts a cocked-hat upon

his head and epaulettes upon his shoulders, and sets him up as a

candidate for the Presidency. So, also, on a recent public occasion, as

the place assigned to the 'Reverend Clergy' is just behind that of

'Officers of the Army and Navy' in processions, it was my fortune to be

seated at the dinner-table over against one of these respectable

persons. He was arrayed as (out of his own profession) only kings,

court-officers, and footmen are in Europe, and Indians in America. Now

what does my over-officious imagination but set to work upon him, strip

him of his gay livery, and present him to me coatless, his trousers

thrust into the tops of a pair of boots thick with clotted blood, and a

basket on his arm out of which lolled a gore-smeared axe, thereby

destroying my relish for the temporal mercies upon the board before me!

--H.W.]

No. IX

A THIRD LETTER FROM B. SAWIN, ESQ.

[Upon the following letter slender comment will be needful. In what

river Selemnus has Mr. Sawin bathed, that he has become so swiftly

oblivious of his former loves? From an ardent and (as befits a soldier)

confident wooer of that coy bride, the popular favor, we see him subside

of a sudden into the (I trust not jilted) Cincinnatus, returning to his

plough with a goodly sized branch of willow in his hand; figuratively

returning, however, to a figurative plough, and from no profound

affection for that honored implement of husbandry (for which, indeed,

Mr. Sawin never displayed any decided predilection), but in order to be

gracefully summoned therefrom to more congenial labors. It should seem

that the character of the ancient Dictator had become part of the

recognized stock of our modern political comedy, though, as our term of

office extends to a quadrennial length, the parallel is not so minutely

exact as could be desired. It is sufficiently so, however, for purposes

of scenic representation. An humble cottage (if built of logs, the

better) forms the Arcadian background of the stage. This rustic paradise

is labelled Ashland, Jaalam, North Bend, Marshfield, Kinderhook, or

Bâton Rouge, as occasion demands. Before the door stands a something

with one handle (the other painted in proper perspective), which

represents, in happy ideal vagueness, the plough. To this the defeated

candidate rushes with delirious joy, welcomed as a father by appropriate

groups of happy laborers, or from it the successful one is torn with

difficulty, sustained alone by a noble sense of public duty. Only I have

observed, that, if the scene be laid at Bâton Rouge or Ashland, the

laborers are kept carefully in the backgrouud, and are heard to shout

from behind the scenes in a singular tone resembling ululation, and

accompanied by a sound not unlike vigorous clapping. This, however, may

be artistically in keeping with the habits of the rustic population of

those localities. The precise connection between agricultural pursuits

and statesmanship I have not been able, after diligent inquiry, to

discover. But, that my investigations may not be barren of all fruit, I

will mention one curious statistical fact, which I consider thoroughly

established, namely, that no real farmer ever attains practically beyond

a seat in the General Court, however theoretically qualified for more

exalted station.

It is probable that some other prospect has been opened to Mr. Sawin,

and that he has not made this great sacrifice without some definite

understanding in regard to a seat in the cabinet or a foreign mission.

It may be supposed that we of Jaalam were not untouched by a feeling of

villatic pride in beholding our townsman occupying so large a space in

the public eye. And to me, deeply revolving the qualifications necessary

to a candidate in these frugal times, those of Mr. S. seemed peculiarly

adapted to a successful campaign. The loss of a leg, an arm, an eye, and

four fingers reduced him so nearly to the condition of a _vox et

præterea nihil_ that I could think of nothing but the loss of his head

by which his chance could have been bettered. But since he has chosen to

balk our suffrages, we must content ourselves with what we can get,

remembering _lactucas non esse dandas, dum cardui sufficiant_,--H.W.]

I spose you recollect thet I explained my gennle views

In the last billet thet I writ, 'way down frum Veery Cruze,

Jest arter I'd a kin' o' ben spontanously sot up

To run unannermously fer the Preserdential cup;

O' course it worn't no wish o' mine, 'twuz ferflely distressin',

But poppiler enthusiasm gut so almighty pressin'

Thet, though like sixty all along I fumed an' fussed an' sorrered,

There didn't seem no ways to stop their bringin' on me forrerd:

Fact is, they udged the matter so, I couldn't help admittin'

The Father o' his Country's shoes no feet but mine 'ould fit in, 10

Besides the savin' o' the soles fer ages to succeed,

Seein' thet with one wannut foot, a pair'd be more 'n I need;

An', tell ye wut, them shoes'll want a thund'rin sight o' patchin',

Ef this ere fashion is to last we've gut into o' hatchin'

A pair o' second Washintons fer every new election,--

Though, fer ez number one's consarned, I don't make no objection.

I wuz agoin' on to say thet wen at fust I saw

The masses would stick to 't I wuz the Country's father-'n-law,

(They would ha' hed it _Father_, but I told 'em 'twouldn't du,

Coz thet wuz sutthin' of a sort they couldn't split in tu, 20

An' Washinton hed hed the thing laid fairly to his door,

Nor darsn't say 'tworn't his'n, much ez sixty year afore,)

But 'taint no matter ez to thet; wen I wuz nomernated,

'Tworn't natur but wut I should feel consid'able elated,

An' wile the hooraw o' the thing wuz kind o' noo an' fresh,

I thought our ticket would ha' caird the country with a resh.

Sence I've come hum, though, an' looked round, I think I seem to find

Strong argimunts ez thick ez fleas to make me change my mind;

It's clear to any one whose brain aint fur gone in a phthisis,

Thet hail Columby's happy land is goin' thru a crisis, 30

An' 'twouldn't noways du to hev the people's mind distracted

By bein' all to once by sev'ral pop'lar names attackted;

'Twould save holl haycartloads o' fuss an' three four months o' jaw,

Ef some illustrous paytriot should back out an' withdraw;

So, ez I aint a crooked stick, jest like--like ole (I swow,

I dunno ez I know his name)--I'll go back to my plough.

Wenever an Amerikin distinguished politishin

Begins to try et wut they call definin' his posishin,

Wal, I, fer one, feel sure he ain't gut nothin' to define;

It's so nine cases out o' ten, but jest thet tenth is mine; 40

An' 'taint no more 'n proper 'n' right in sech a sitooation

To hint the course you think'll be the savin' o' the nation;

To funk right out o' p'lit'cal strife aint thought to be the thing,

Without you deacon off the toon you want your folks should sing;

So I edvise the noomrous friends thet's in one boat with me

To jest up killick, jam right down their hellum hard alee,

Haul the sheets taut, an', layin' out upon the Suthun tack,

Make fer the safest port they can, wich, _I_ think, is Ole Zack.

Next thing you'll want to know, I spose, wut argimunts I seem

To see thet makes me think this ere'll be the strongest team; 50

Fust place, I've ben consid'ble round in bar-rooms an' saloons

Agetherin' public sentiment, 'mongst Demmercrats and Coons,

An' 'taint ve'y offen thet I meet a chap but wut goes in

Fer Rough an' Ready, fair an' square, hufs, taller, horns, an' skin;

I don't deny but wut, fer one, ez fur ez I could see,

I didn't like at fust the Pheladelphy nomernee:

I could ha' pinted to a man thet wuz, I guess, a peg

Higher than him,--a soger, tu, an' with a wooden leg;

But every day with more an' more o' Taylor zeal I'm burnin',

Seein' wich way the tide thet sets to office is aturnin'; 60

Wy, into Bellers's we notched the votes down on three sticks,--

'Twuz Birdofredum _one_, Cass _aught_ an Taylor

_twenty-six_,

An' bein' the on'y canderdate thet wuz upon the ground,

They said 'twuz no more 'n right thet I should pay the drinks all round;

Ef I'd expected sech a trick, I wouldn't ha' cut my foot

By goin' an' votin' fer myself like a consumed coot;

It didn't make no deff'rence, though; I wish I may be cust,

Ef Bellers wuzn't slim enough to say he wouldn't trust!

Another pint thet influences the minds o' sober jedges

Is thet the Gin'ral hezn't gut tied hand an' foot with pledges; 70

He hezn't told ye wut he is, an' so there aint no knowin'

But wut he may turn out to be the best there is agoin';

This, at the on'y spot thet pinched, the shoe directly eases,

Coz every one is free to 'xpect percisely wut he pleases:

I want free-trade; you don't; the Gin'ral isn't bound to neither;--

I vote my way; you, yourn; an' both air sooted to a T there.

Ole Rough an' Ready, tu, 's a Wig, but without bein' ultry;

He's like a holsome hayin' day, thet's warm, but isn't sultry;

He's jest wut I should call myself, a kin' of _scratch_ ez 'tware,

Thet aint exacly all a wig nor wholly your own hair; 80

I 've ben a Wig three weeks myself, jest o' this mod'rate sort,

An' don't find them an' Demmercrats so defferent ez I thought;

They both act pooty much alike, an' push an' scrouge an' cus;

They're like two pickpockets in league fer Uncle Samwells pus;

Each takes a side, an' then they squeeze the ole man in between 'em,

Turn all his pockets wrong side out an' quick ez lightnin' clean 'em;

To nary one on 'em I'd trust a secon'-handed rail

No furder off 'an I could sling a bullock by the tail.

Webster sot matters right in thet air Mashfiel' speech o' his'n;

'Taylor,' sez he, 'aint nary ways the one thet I'd a chizzen, 90

Nor he aint fittin' fer the place, an' like ez not he aint

No more 'n a tough ole bullethead, an' no gret of a saint;

But then,' sez he, 'obsarve my pint, he's jest ez good to vote fer

Ez though the greasin' on him worn't a thing to hire Choate fer;

Aint it ez easy done to drop a ballot in a box

Fer one ez 'tis fer t'other, fer the bull-dog ez the fox?'

It takes a mind like Dannel's, fact, ez big ez all ou' doors,

To find out thet it looks like rain arter it fairly pours;

I 'gree with him, it aint so dreffle troublesome to vote

Fer Taylor arter all,--it's jest to go an' change your coat; 100

Wen he's once greased, you'll swaller him an' never know on 't, scurce,

Unless he scratches, goin' down, with them 'ere Gin'ral's spurs.

I've ben a votin' Demmercrat, ez reg'lar as a clock,

But don't find goin' Taylor gives my narves no gret 'f a shock;

Truth is, the cutest leadin' Wigs, ever sence fust they found

Wich side the bread gut buttered on, hev kep' a edgin' round;

They kin' o' slipt the planks frum out th' ole platform one by one

An' made it gradooally noo, 'fore folks khow'd wut wuz done,

Till, fur 'z I know, there aint an inch thet I could lay my han' on,

But I, or any Demmercrat, feels comf'table to stan' on, 110

An' ole Wig doctrines act'lly look, their occ'pants bein' gone,

Lonesome ez steddies on a mash without no hayricks on.

I spose it's time now I should give my thoughts upon the plan,

Thet chipped the shell at Buffalo, o' settin' up ole Van.

I used to vote fer Martin, but, I swan, I'm clean disgusted,--

He aint the man thet I can say is fittin' to be trusted;

He aint half antislav'ry 'nough, nor I aint sure, ez some be,

He'd go in fer abolishin' the Deestrick o' Columby;

An', now I come to recollec', it kin' o' makes me sick 'z

A horse, to think o' wut he wuz in eighteen thirty-six. 120

An' then, another thing;--I guess, though mebby I am wrong,

This Buff'lo plaster aint agoin' to dror almighty strong;

Some folks, I know, hev gut th' idee thet No'thun dough'll rise,

Though, 'fore I see it riz an 'baked, I wouldn't trust my eyes;

'Twill take more emptins, a long chalk, than this noo party's gut,

To give sech heavy cakes ez them a start, I tell ye wut.

But even ef they caird the day, there wouldn't be no endurin'

To stan' upon a platform with sech critters ez Van Buren;--

An' his son John, tu, I can't think how thet 'ere chap should dare

To speak ez he doos; wy, they say he used to cuss an' swear! 130

I spose he never read the hymn thet tells how down the stairs

A feller with long legs wuz throwed thet wouldn't say his prayers.

This brings me to another pint: the leaders o' the party

Aint jest sech men ez I can act along with free an' hearty;

They aint not quite respectable, an' wen a feller's morrils

Don't toe the straightest kin' o' mark, wy, him an' me jest quarrils.

I went to a free soil meetin' once, an' wut d'ye think I see?

A feller was aspoutin' there thet act'lly come to me,

About two year ago last spring, ez nigh ez I can jedge,

An' axed me ef I didn't want to sign the Temprunce pledge! 140

He's one o' them that goes about an' sez you hedn't oughter

Drink nothin', mornin', noon, or night, stronger 'an Taunton water.

There's one rule I've ben guided by, in settlin' how to vote, ollers,--

I take the side thet _isn't_ took by them consarned teetotallers.

Ez fer the niggers, I've ben South, an' thet hez changed my min';

A lazier, more ongrateful set you couldn't nowers fin',

You know I mentioned in my last thet I should buy a nigger,

Ef I could make a purchase at a pooty mod'rate figger;

So, ez there's nothin' in the world I'm fonder of 'an gunnin',

I closed a bargain finally to take a feller runnin'. 150

I shou'dered queen's-arm an' stumped out, an' wen I come t' th' swamp,

'Tworn't very long afore I gut upon the nest o' Pomp;

I come acrost a kin' o' hut, an', playin' round the door,

Some little woolly-headed cubs, ez many 'z six or more.

At fust I thought o' firin', but _think twice_ is safest ollers;

There aint, thinks I, not one on 'em but's wuth his twenty dollars,

Or would be, ef I hed 'em back into a Christian land,--

How temptin' all on 'em would look upon an auction-stand!

(Not but wut _I_ hate Slavery, in th' abstract, stem to starn,--

I leave it ware our fathers did, a privit State consarn.) 160

Soon 'z they see me, they yelled an' run, but Pomp wuz out ahoein'

A leetle patch o' corn he hed, or else there aint no knowin'

He wouldn't ha' took a pop at me; but I hed gut the start,

An' wen he looked, I vow he groaned ez though he'd broke his heart;

He done it like a wite man, tu, ez nat'ral ez a pictur,

The imp'dunt, pis'nous hypocrite! wus 'an a boy constrictur.

'You can't gum _me_, I tell ye now, an' so you needn't try,

I 'xpect my eye-teeth every mail, so jest shet up,' sez I.

'Don't go to actin' ugly now, or else I'll let her strip,

You'd best draw kindly, seein' 'z how I've gut ye on the hip; 170

Besides, you darned ole fool, it aint no gret of a disaster

To be benev'lently druv back to a contented master,

Ware you hed Christian priv'ledges you don't seem quite aware on,

Or you'd ha' never run away from bein' well took care on;

Ez fer kin' treatment, wy, he wuz so fond on ye, he said,

He'd give a fifty spot right out, to git ye, 'live or dead;

Wite folks aint sot by half ez much; 'member I run away,

Wen I wuz bound to Cap'n Jakes, to Mattysqumscot Bay;

Don' know him, likely? Spose not; wal, the mean old codger went

An' offered--wut reward, think? Wal, it worn't no _less_ 'n

a cent.' 180

Wal, I jest gut 'em into line, an' druv 'em on afore me;

The pis'nous brutes, I'd no idee o' the ill-will they bore me;

We walked till som'ers about noon, an' then it grew so hot

I thought it best to camp awile, so I chose out a spot

Jest under a magnoly tree, an' there right down I sot;

Then I unstrapped my wooden leg, coz it begun to chafe,

An' laid it down 'longside o' me, supposin' all wuz safe;

I made my darkies all set down around me in a ring,

An' sot an' kin' o' ciphered up how much the lot would bring;

But, wile I drinked the peaceful cup of a pure heart an' min' 190

(Mixed with some wiskey, now an' then), Pomp he snaked up behin',

An' creepin' grad'lly close tu, ez quiet ez a mink,

Jest grabbed my leg, an' then pulled foot, quicker 'an you could wink,

An', come to look, they each on' em hed gut behin' a tree,

An' Pomp poked out the leg a piece, jest so ez I could see,

An' yelled to me to throw away my pistils an' my gun,

Or else thet they'd cair off the leg, an' fairly cut an' run.

I vow I didn't b'lieve there wuz a decent alligatur

Thet hed a heart so destitoot o' common human natur;

However, ez there worn't no help, I finally give in 200

An' heft my arms away to git my leg safe back agin.

Pomp gethered all the weapins up, an' then he come an' grinned,

He showed his ivory some, I guess, an' sez, 'You're fairly pinned;

Jest buckle on your leg agin, an' git right up an' come,

'T wun't du fer fammerly men like me to be so long frum hum.'

At fust I put my foot right down an' swore I wouldn't budge.

'Jest ez you choose,' sez he, quite cool, 'either be shot or trudge.'

So this black-hearted monster took an' act'lly druv me back

Along the very feetmarks o' my happy mornin' track,

An' kep' me pris'ner 'bout six months, an' worked me, tu, like sin, 210

Till I hed gut his corn an' his Carliny taters in;

He made me larn him readin', tu (although the crittur saw

How much it hut my morril sense to act agin the law),

So'st he could read a Bible he'd gut; an' axed ef I could pint

The North Star out; but there I put his nose some out o' jint,

Fer I weeled roun' about sou'west, an', lookin' up a bit,

Picked out a middlin' shiny one an' tole him thet wuz it.

Fin'lly he took me to the door, an' givin' me a kick,

Sez, 'Ef you know wut's best fer ye, be off, now, double-quick;

The winter-time's a comin' on, an' though I gut ye cheap, 220

You're so darned lazy, I don't think you're hardly woth your keep;

Besides, the childrin's growin' up, an' you aint jest the model

I'd like to hev 'em immertate, an' so you'd better toddle!'

Now is there anythin' on airth'll ever prove to me

Thet renegader slaves like him air fit fer bein' free?

D' you think they'll suck me in to jine the Buff'lo chaps, an' them

Rank infidels thet go agin the Scriptur'l cus o' Shem?

Not by a jugfull! sooner 'n thet, I'd go thru fire an' water;

Wen I hev once made up my mind, a meet'nhus aint sotter; 229

No, not though all the crows thet flies to pick my bones wuz cawin',--

I guess we're in a Christian land,--

Yourn,

BIRDOFREDUM SAWIN.

[Here, patient reader, we take leave of each other, I trust with some

mutual satisfaction. I say _patient_, for I love not that kind which

skims dippingly over the surface of the page, as swallows over a pool

before rain. By such no pearls shall be gathered. But if no pearls there

be (as, indeed the world is not without example of books wherefrom the

longest-winded diver shall bring up no more than his proper handful of

mud), yet let us hope that an oyster or two may reward adequate

perseverance. If neither pearls nor oysters, yet is patience itself a

gem worth diving deeply for.

It may seem to some that too much space has been usurped by my own

private lucubrations, and some may be fain to bring against me that old

jest of him who preached all his hearers out of the meeting-house save

only the sexton, who, remaining for yet a little space, from a sense of

official duty, at last gave out also, and, presenting the keys, humbly

requested our preacher to lock the doors, when he should have wholly

relieved himself of his testimony. I confess to a satisfaction in the

self act of preaching, nor do I esteem a discourse to be wholly thrown

away even upon a sleeping or unintelligent auditory. I cannot easily

believe that the Gospel of Saint John, which Jacques Cartier ordered to

be read in the Latin tongue to the Canadian savages, upon his first

meeting with them, fell altogether upon stony ground. For the

earnestness of the preacher is a sermon appreciable by dullest

intellects and most alien ears. In this wise did Episcopius convert many

to his opinions, who yet understood not the language in which he

discoursed. The chief thing is that the messenger believe that he has an

authentic message to deliver. For counterfeit messengers that mode of

treatment which Father John de Plano Carpini relates to have prevailed

among the Tartars would seem effectual, and, perhaps, deserved enough.

For my own part, I may lay claim to so much of the spirit of martyrdom

as would have led me to go into banishment with those clergymen whom

Alphonso the Sixth of Portugal drave out of his kingdom for refusing to

shorten their pulpit eloquence. It is possible, that, I having been

invited into my brother Biglow's desk, I may have been too little

scrupulous in using it for the venting of my own peculiar doctrines to a

congregation drawn together in the expectation and with the desire of

hearing him.

I am not wholly unconscious of a peculiarity of mental organization

which impels me, like the railroad-engine with its train of cars, to run

backward for a short distance in order to obtain a fairer start. I may

compare myself to one fishing from the rocks when the sea runs high,

who, misinterpreting the suction of the undertow for the biting of some

larger fish, jerks suddenly, and finds that he has _caught bottom_,

hauling in upon the end of his line a trail of various _algæ_, among

which, nevertheless, the naturalist may haply find somewhat to repay the

disappointment of the angler. Yet have I conscientiously endeavored to

adapt myself to the impatient temper of the age, daily degenerating more

and more from the high standard of our pristine New England. To the

catalogue of lost arts I would mournfully add also that of listening to

two-hour sermons. Surely we have been abridged into a race of pygmies.

For, truly, in those of the old discourses yet subsisting to us in

print, the endless spinal column of divisions and subdivisions can be

likened to nothing so exactly as to the vertebræ of the saurians,

whence the theorist may conjecture a race of Anakim proportionate to the

withstanding of these other monsters. I say Anakim rather than Nephelim,

because there seem reasons for supposing that the race of those whose

heads (though no giants) are constantly enveloped in clouds (which that

name imports) will never become extinct. The attempt to vanquish the

innumerable _heads_ of one of those aforementioned discourses may supply

us with a plausible interpretation of the second labor of Hercules, and

his successful experiment with fire affords us a useful precedent.

But while I lament the degeneracy of the age in this regard, I cannot

refuse to succumb to its influence. Looking out through my study-window,

I see Mr. Biglow at a distance busy in gathering his Baldwins, of which,

to judge by the number of barrels lying about under the trees, his crop

is more abundant than my own,--by which sight I am admonished to turn to

those orchards of the mind wherein my labors may be more prospered, and

apply myself diligently to the preparation of my next Sabbath's

discourse.--H.W.]

MELIBOEUS-HIPPONAX

* * * * *

THE

Biglow Papers

SECOND SERIES

[Greek: 'Estin ar o idiotismos eniote tou kosmou parapolu

emphanistkoteron.']

LONGIXUS.

'J'aimerois mieulx que mon fils apprinst aux tavernes à parler, qu'aux

escholes de la parlerie.'

MONTAIGNE.

"Unser Sprach ist auch ein Sprach und fan so wohl ein Sad nennen als

die Lateiner saccus."

FISCHART.

'Vim rebus aliquando ipsa verborum humilitas affert.'

QUINTILIANUS.

'O ma lengo,

Plantarèy une estèlo à toun froun encrumit!'

JASMIN.

* * * * *

'Multos enim, quibus loquendi ratio non desit, invenias, quos curiose

potius loqui dixeris quam Latine; quomodo et illa Attica anus

Theophrastum, hominem alioqui disertissimum, annotata unius affectatione

verbi, hospitem dixit, nec alio se id deprehendisse interrogata

respondit, quam quod nimium Attice loqueretur.'--QUINTILIANUS.

'Et Anglice sermonicari solebat populo, sed secundum linguam Norfolchie

ubi natus et nutritus erat.'--CRONICA JOCELINI.

'La politique est une pierre attachée an cou de la littérature, et qui en

moins de six mois la submerge.... Cette politique va offenser mortellement

une moitié des lecteurs, et ennuyer l'autre qui l'a trouvée bien autrement

spéciale et énergique dans le journal du matin.'--HENRI BEYLE.

[When the book appeared it bore a dedication to E.R. Hoar, and was

introduced by an essay of the Yankee form of English speech. This

Introduction is so distinctly an essay that it has been thought best to

print it as an appendix to this volume, rather than allow it to break in

upon the pages of verse. There is, however, one passage in it which may

be repeated here, since it bears directly upon the poem which serves as

a sort of prelude to the series.]

'The only attempt I had ever made at anything like a pastoral (if that

may be called an attempt which was the result almost of pure accident)

was in _The Courtin'_. While the introduction to the First Series was

going through the press, I received word from the printer that there was

a blank page left which must be filled. I sat down at once and

improvised another fictitious "notice of the press," in which, because

verse would fill up space more cheaply than prose, I inserted an extract

from a supposed ballad of Mr. Biglow. I kept no copy of it, and the

printer, as directed, cut it off when the gap was filled. Presently I

began to receive letters asking for the rest of it, sometimes for the

_balance_ of it. I had none, but to answer such demands, I patched a

conclusion upon it in a later edition. Those who had only the first

continued to importune me. Afterward, being asked to write it out as an

autograph for the Baltimore Sanitary Commission Fair, I added other

verses, into some of which I infused a little more sentiment in a homely

way, and after a fashion completed it by sketching in the characters and

making a connected story. Most likely I have spoiled it, but I shall put

it at the end of this Introduction, to answer once for all those kindly

importunings.'

THE COURTIN'

God makes sech nights, all white an' still

Fur 'z you can look or listen,

Moonshine an' snow on field an' hill,

All silence an' all glisten.

Zekle crep' up quite unbeknown

An' peeked in thru' the winder,

An' there sot Huldy all alone,

'ith no one nigh to hender.

A fireplace filled the room's one side

With half a cord o' wood in--

There warn't no stoves (tell comfort died)

To bake ye to a puddin'.

The wa'nut logs shot sparkles out

Towards the pootiest, bless her,

An' leetle flames danced all about

The chiny on the dresser.

Agin the chimbley crook-necks hung,

An' in amongst 'em rusted

The ole queen's-arm thet gran'ther Young

Fetched back f'om Concord busted.

The very room, coz she was in,

Seemed warm f'om floor to ceilin',

An' she looked full ez rosy agin

Ez the apples she was peelin'.

'Twas kin' o' kingdom come to look

On sech a blessed cretur,

A dogrose blushin' to a brook

Ain't modester nor sweeter.

He was six foot o' man, A 1,

Clear grit an' human natur',

None couldn't quicker pitch a ton

Nor dror a furrer straighter.

He'd sparked it with full twenty gals,

Hed squired 'em, danced 'em, druv 'em,

Fust this one, an' then thet, by spells--

All is, he couldn't love 'em.

But long o' her his veins 'ould run

All crinkly like curled maple,

The side she breshed felt full o' sun

Ez a south slope in Ap'il.

She thought no v'ice hed sech a swing

Ez hisn in the choir;

My! when he made Ole Hunderd ring,

She _knowed_ the Lord was nigher.

An' she'd blush scarlit, right in prayer,

When her new meetin'-bunnet

Felt somehow thru' its crown a pair

O' blue eyes sot upon it.

Thet night, I tell ye, she looked _some!_

She seemed to've gut a new soul,

For she felt sartin-sure he'd come,

Down to her very shoe-sole.

She heered a foot, an' knowed it tu,

A-raspin' 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 sekle,

His heart kep' goin' pity-pat,

But hern went pity Zekle.

An' yit she gin her cheer a jerk

Ez though she wished him furder,

An' on her apples kep' to work,

Parin' away like murder.

'You want to see my Pa, I s'pose?'

'Wal ... no ... I come dasignin'--

'To see my Ma? She's sprinklin' clo'es

Agin to-morrer's i'nin'.'

To say why gals acts so or so,

Or don't, 'ould be persumin';

Mebby to mean _yes_ an' say _no_

Comes nateral to women.

He stood a spell on one foot fust,

Then stood a spell on t'other,

An' on which one he felt the wust

He couldn't ha' told ye nuther.

Says he, 'I'd better call agin:'

Says she, 'Think likely, Mister:'

Thet last word pricked him like a pin,

An' ... Wal, he up an' kist her.

When Ma bimeby upon 'em slips,

Huldy sot pale ez ashes,

All kin' o' smily roun' the lips

An' teary roun' the lashes.

For she was jes' the quiet kind

Whose naturs never vary,

Like streams that keep a summer mind

Snowhid in Jenooary.

The blood clost roun' her heart felt glued

Too tight for all expressin',

Tell mother see how metters stood,

An' gin 'em both her blessin'.

Then her red come back like the tide

Down to the Bay o' Fundy,

An' all I know is they was cried

In meetin' come nex' Sunday.

THE BIGLOW PAPERS

SECOND SERIES

No. I

BIRDOFREDUM SAWIN, ESQ.,

TO MR. HOSEA BIGLOW

LETTER FROM THE REVEREND HOMER WILBUR, M.A., ENCLOSING THE EPISTLE

AFORESAID

JAALAM, 15th Nov., 1861.

* * * * *

It is not from any idle wish to obtrude my humble person with undue

prominence upon the publick view that I resume my pen upon the present

occasion. _Juniores ad labores_. But having been a main instrument in

rescuing the talent of my young parishioner from being buried in the

ground, by giving it such warrant with the world as could be derived

from a name already widely known by several printed discourses (all of

which I may be permitted without immodesty to state have been deemed

worthy of preservation in the Library of Harvard College by my esteemed

friend Mr. Sibley), it seemed becoming that I should not only testify to

the genuineness of the following production, but call attention to it,

the more as Mr. Biglow had so long been silent as to be in danger of

absolute oblivion. I insinuate no claim to any share in the authorship

(_vix ea nostra voco_) of the works already published by Mr. Biglow, but

merely take to myself the credit of having fulfilled toward them the

office of taster (_experto crede_), who, having first tried, could

afterward bear witness (_credenzen_ it was aptly named by the Germans),

an office always arduous, and sometimes even dangerous, as in the case

of those devoted persons who venture their lives in the deglutition of

patent medicines (_dolus latet in generalibus_, there is deceit in the

most of them) and thereafter are wonderfully preserved long enough to

append their signatures to testimonials in the diurnal and hebdomadal

prints. I say not this as covertly glancing at the authors of certain

manuscripts which have been submitted to my literary judgment (though an

epick in twenty-four books on the 'Taking of Jericho' might, save for

the prudent forethought of Mrs. Wilbur in secreting the same just as I

had arrived beneath the walls and was beginning a catalogue of the

various horns and their blowers, too ambitiously emulous in longanimity

of Homer's list of ships, might, I say, have rendered frustrate any hope

I could entertain _vacare Musis_ for the small remainder of my days),

but only the further to secure myself against any imputation of unseemly

forthputting. I will barely subjoin, in this connexion, that, whereas

Job was left to desire, in the soreness of his heart, that his adversary

had written a book, as perchance misanthropically wishing to indite a

review thereof, yet was not Satan allowed so far to tempt him as to send

Bildad, Eliphaz, and Zophar each with an unprinted work in his wallet to

be submitted to his censure. But of this enough. Were I in need of other

excuse, I might add that I write by the express desire of Mr. Biglow

himself, whose entire winter leisure is occupied, as he assures me, in

answering demands for autographs, a labor exacting enough in itself, and

egregiously so to him, who, being no ready penman, cannot sign so much

as his name without strange contortions of the face (his nose, even,

being essential to complete success) and painfully suppressed

Saint-Vitus-dance of every muscle in his body. This, with his having

been put in the Commission of the Peace by our excellent Governor (_O,

si sic omnes!_) immediately on his accession to office, keeps him

continually employed. _Haud inexpertus loquor_, having for many years

written myself J.P., and being not seldom applied to for specimens of my

chirography, a request to which I have sometimes over weakly assented,

believing as I do that nothing written of set purpose can properly be

called an autograph, but only those unpremeditated sallies and lively

runnings which betray the fireside Man instead of the hunted Notoriety

doubling on his pursuers. But it is time that I should bethink me of St.

Austin's prayer, _libera me a meipso_, if I would arrive at the matter

in hand.

Moreover, I had yet another reason for taking up the pen myself. I am

informed that 'The Atlantic Monthly' is mainly indebted for its success

to the contributions and editorial supervision of Dr. Holmes, whose

excellent 'Annals of America' occupy an honored place upon my shelves.

The journal itself I have never seen; but if this be so, it might seem

that the recommendation of a brother-clergyman (though _par magis quam

similis_) should carry a greater weight. I suppose that you have a

department for historical lucubrations, and should be glad, if deemed

desirable, to forward for publication my 'Collections for the

Antiquities of Jaalam,' and my (now happily complete) pedigree of the

Wilbur family from its _fons et origo_, the Wild Boar of Ardennes.

Withdrawn from the active duties of my profession by the settlement of a

colleague-pastor, the Reverend Jeduthun Hitchcock, formerly of Brutus

Four-Corners, I might find time for further contributions to general

literature on similar topicks. I have made large advances towards a

completer genealogy of Mrs. Wilbur's family, the Pilcoxes, not, if I

know myself, from any idle vanity, but with the sole desire of rendering

myself useful in my day and generation. _Nulla dies sine lineâ_. I

inclose a meteorological register, a list of the births, deaths, and

marriages, and a few _memorabilia_ of longevity in Jaalam East Parish

for the last half-century. Though spared to the unusual period of more

than eighty years, I find no diminution of my faculties or abatement of

my natural vigor, except a scarcely sensible decay of memory and a

necessity of recurring to younger eyesight or spectacles for the finer

print in Cruden. It would gratify me to make some further provision for

declining years from the emoluments of my literary labors. I had

intended to effect an insurance on my life, but was deterred therefrom

by a circular from one of the offices, in which the sudden death of so

large a proportion of the insured was set forth as an inducement, that

it seemed to me little less than a tempting of Providence. _Neque in

summâ inopiâ levis esse senectus potest, ne sapienti quidem_.

Thus far concerning Mr. Biglow; and so much seemed needful (_brevis esse

laboro_) by way of preliminary, after a silence of fourteen years. He

greatly fears lest he may in this essay have fallen below himself, well

knowing that, if exercise be dangerous on a full stomach, no less so is

writing on a full reputation. Beset as he has been on all sides, he

could not refrain, and would only imprecate patience till he shall again

have 'got the hang' (as he calls it) of an accomplishment long disused.

The letter of Mr. Sawin was received some time in last June, and others

have followed which will in due season be submitted to the publick. How

largely his statements are to be depended on, I more than merely

dubitate. He was always distinguished for a tendency to

exaggeration,--it might almost be qualified by a stronger term.

_Fortiter mentire, aliquid hæret_ seemed to be his favorite rule of

rhetoric. That he is actually where he says he is the postmark would

seem to confirm; that he was received with the publick demonstrations he

describes would appear consonant with what we know of the habits of

those regions; but further than this I venture not to decide. I have

sometimes suspected a vein of humor in him which leads him to speak by

contraries; but since, in the unrestrained intercourse of private life,

I have never observed in him any striking powers of invention, I am the

more willing to put a certain qualified faith in the incidents and the

details of life and manners which give to his narratives some portion of

the interest and entertainment which characterizes a Century Sermon.

It may be expected of me that I should say something to justify myself

with the world for a seeming inconsistency with my well-known principles

in allowing my youngest son to raise a company for the war, a fact known

to all through the medium of the publick prints. I did reason with the

young man, but _expellas naturam furcâ tamen usque recurrit_. Having

myself been a chaplain in 1812, I could the less wonder that a man of

war had sprung from my loins. It was, indeed, grievous to send my

Benjamin, the child of my old age; but after the discomfiture of

Manassas, I with my own hands did buckle on his armor, trusting in the

great Comforter and Commander for strength according to my need. For

truly the memory of a brave son dead in his shroud were a greater staff

of my declining years than a living coward (if those may be said to have

lived who carry all of themselves into the grave with them), though his

days might be long in the land, and he should get much goods. It is not

till our earthen vessels are broken that we find and truly possess the

treasure that was laid up in them. _Migravi in animam meam_, I have

sought refuge in my own soul; nor would I be shamed by the heathen

comedian with his _Neqwam illud verbum, bene vult, nisi bene facit_.

During our dark days, I read constantly in the inspired book of Job,

which I believe to contain more food to maintain the fibre of the soul

for right living and high thinking than all pagan literature together,

though I would by no means vilipend the study of the classicks. There I

read that Job said in his despair, even as the fool saith in his heart

there is no God,--'The tabernacles of robbers prosper, and they that

provoke God are secure.' (Job xii. 6.) But I sought farther till I found

this Scripture also, which I would have those perpend who have striven

to turn our Israel aside to the worship of strange gods.--'If I did

despise the cause of my manservant or of my maid-servant, when they

contended with me, what then shall I do when God riseth up? and when he

visiteth, what shall I answer him?' (Job xxxi. 13, 14.) On this text I

preached a discourse on the last day of Fasting and Humiliation with

general acceptance, though there were not wanting one or two Laodiceans

who said that I should have waited till the President announced his

policy. But let us hope and pray, remembering this of Saint Gregory,

_Vult Deus rogari, vult cogi, vult quâdam importunitate vinci_.

We had our first fall of snow on Friday last. Frosts have been unusually

backward this fall. A singular circumstance occurred in this town on the

20th October, in the family of Deacon Pelatiah Tinkham. On the previous

evening, a few moments before family prayers,

* * * * *

[The editors of the 'Atlantic' find it necessary here to cut short the

letter of their valued correspondent, which seemed calculated rather on

the rates of longevity in Jaalam than for less favored localities. They

have every encouragement to hope that he will write again.]

With esteem and respect, Your obedient servant, Homer Wilbur, A.M.

It's some consid'ble of a spell sence I hain't writ no letters,

An' ther' 's gret changes hez took place in all polit'cle metters:

Some canderdates air dead an' gone, an' some hez ben defeated,

Which 'mounts to pooty much the same; fer it's ben proved repeated

A betch o' bread thet hain't riz once ain't goin' to rise agin,

An' it's jest money throwed away to put the emptins in:

But thet's wut folks wun't never larn; they dunno how to go,

Arter you want their room, no more 'n a bullet-headed bean;

Ther' 's ollers chaps a-hangin' roun' thet can't see peatime's past,

Mis'ble as roosters in a rain, heads down an' tails half-mast: 10

It ain't disgraceful bein' beat, when a holl nation doos it,

But Chance is like an amberill,--it don't take twice to lose it.