By this time everybody has seen _Rip Van Winkle,_ and everybody has
expressed the same unbounded admiration of Mr. JEFFERSON'S matchless
genius. But the world never has been, and doubtless never will be,
without the pestiferous presence of Reformers, Men of Progress, Earnest
Men, who insist upon improving everything after their own fashion, and
who are unhappy because they did not have the opportunity of making the
solar year consist of an even number of days, and because they were not
present at the building of the Ark, in order to urge upon NOAH the
propriety of attaching a screw propeller to that primitive Great
Eastern. These horribly energetic nuisances never find anything that
precisely suits them, and are always insisting that everything stands in
need of the improvements which they gratuitously suggest. Latterly they
have ventured to attack _Rip Van Winkle,_--not the actor, but the
play,--and to insist that the closing scene should be so modified as to
make the play a temperance lecture of the most unmistakable character.
If you recollect--as of course you do--the last scene in that exquisite
drama, you can still hear "RIP'S" tremulous voice as he says, "I will
take my pipe and my glass, and will tell my strange story to all my
friends. And I will drink _your_ good health, and your family's, and may
you live long and prosper." And now come the Progressive Nuisances, and
ask Mr. JEFFERSON to change this ending so that it will read as
follows:--