[From the same]
Seeing, under our government, it is not purchasing a liberty by
pecuniary rewards, further, than compensating a prothonotary, for
taking bond and security, that guardians are agreed, and keeping a
just register, for the credit and safety of the rising family. And as
the contract is partly civil in its nature, and civil government is
bound to defend the civil rights--we believe it perfectly consonant to
the analogy of faith, which might be evinced from the fourth chapter
of Ruth. But as it is partly social, and the parties contracting come
under the mutual obligations to fulfil their relative duties, it ought
to be consummated before witnesses. And as it is partly religious,
every family appertaining to the Church of Christ, commences a
nursery, or infant society, to train up their family in the nurture
and admonition of the Lord. We believe it right, that whenever a
church in full order exists, that the pastor, or church officer should
consecrate them, to the business assigned them as a Church of Christ,
taking their obligations for the due performance of their duty.
THOMAS JOHNSON, Jr.
Thomas Johnson, Junior, the first Kentucky poet, who, for many years,
enjoyed the sobriquet of the "Drunken Poet of Danville," was born in
Virginia about 1760, and he came to Kentucky when twenty-five years of
age. He settled at Danville, then a village, and immediately entered
into the role of poet, punster, and ne'er-do-weel. Documentary
evidence is extant to prove that Danville was a gay little town when
the young Virginian arrived there about 1785; and he was early drawn
into excesses, or led others into them. Johnson was a rather prolific
maker of coarse satirical rhymes, which he finally assembled into a
small pamphlet, and published them as _The Kentucky Miscellany_
(Lexington, 1796). This was the first book of poems, if they may be so
termed, printed in Kentucky. The original price of this pamphlet was
nine pence the copy, but it is impossible to procure it today for any
price, and there is not an extant copy of this first edition. _The
Kentucky Miscellany_ went into a second edition in 1815, and a third
edition was published a few years later, but no copies of either
edition are extant. The fourth and final edition appeared from the
_Advertiser_ office at Lexington, in 1821, and a dog-eared,
much-mutilated copy of this is in the collection of the Filson Club in
Louisville--perhaps the only copy in the world. _The Miscellany_
contained but thirty-six small pages, about the size of the medical
almanacs of to-day. Many of the little verses are very vulgar and
actually obscene, perhaps due to the fact that Johnson could never
quite bury John Barleycorn alive. The most famous of them is the
_Extempore Grace_, which the bard delivered one day in the tavern of
old Erasmus Gill in Danville. In his cups he stumbled into the tavern
dining-room, where he found the meal over, and the guests gone,
nothing being left but the crumbs. He glanced at the tables, then at
Gill, and offered _Extempore Grace_. His lines on Danville, on
Kentucky, and on several other subjects reveal the satirist; and the
verses to Polly, his sweetheart, and to his favorite physician the
better elements in his nature. That these rather vulgar verses of
Johnson did not escape the censorship of Western advocates of the pure
food law in literature, is made certain by a letter from an Ohio
critic which appeared in the _Lexington Intelligencer_ for January 28,
1834. After having made a strong plea for the preservation of early
Western verse, the writer added: "I do not mean to embrace the low
doggerel of _Tom Johnson_; this was published some years ago, and I
never felt _decency_ more outraged than when it was handed me to read
by _mine landlady_! My stars! Save us from the _blackguardism_, for
the world is sufficiently demoralized." Had this early critic of Tom's
verses presented a bundle of them to some library, how many Western
writers would rise up and call him blessed! Johnson died and was
buried at Danville, but the date of his death or the exact place of
his burial is unknown. He had passed and was almost forgotten by 1830.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. _History of the Presbyterian Church in Kentucky_, by
R. H. Davidson (New York, 1847); _History of Kentucky_, by R. H.
Collins (Covington, Kentucky, 1882); _Centre College Cento_
(Danville, Kentucky, January, 1907); _Kentuckians in History and
Literature_, by J. W. Townsend (New York, 1907).