This 'ere 's about the meanest place a skunk could wal diskiver (Saltillo 's Mexican, I b'lieve, fer wut we call Saltriver). The sort o' trash a feller gits to eat doos beat all nater, I 'd give a year's pay fer a smell o' one good bluenose tater; The country here thet Mister Bolles declared to be so charmin' Throughout is swarmin' with the most alarmin' kind o' varmin'. He talked about delishis froots, but then it wuz a wopper all, The holl on't 's mud an' prickly pears, with here an' there a chapparal; You see a feller peekin' out, an', fust you know, a lariat Is round your throat an' you a copse, 'fore you can say, "Wut air ye at?"[10] You never see sech darned gret bugs (it may not be irrelevant To say I 've seen a scarabaeus pilularius[11] big ez a year old elephant), The rigiment come up one day in time to stop a red bug From runnin' off with Cunnle Wright,—'t wuz jest a common cimex lectularius. One night I started up on eend an' thought I wuz to hum agin, I heern a horn, thinks I it 's Sol the fisherman hez come agin, His bellowses is sound enough,—ez I 'm a livin' creeter, I felt a thing go thru my leg,—'t wuz nothin' more 'n a skeeter! Then there 's the yaller fever, tu, they call it here el vomito,— (Come, thet wun't du, you landcrab there, I tell ye to le' go my toe! My gracious! it 's a scorpion thet 's took a shine to play with 't, I dars n't skeer the tarnal thing fer fear he 'd run away with 't.) Afore I come away from hum I hed a strong persuasion Thet Mexicans worn't human beans,[12]—an ourang outang nation, A sort o' folks a chap could kill an' never dream on 't arter, No more 'n a feller 'd dream o' pigs thet he hed hed to slarter; I 'd an idee thet they were built arter the darkie fashion all, An' kickin' coloured folks about, you know, 's a kind o' national; But wen I jined I worn't so wise ez thet air queen o' Sheby, Fer, come to look at 'em, they aint much diff'rent from wut we be, An' here we air ascrougin' 'em out o' thir own dominions, Ashelterin' 'em, ez Caleb sez, under our eagle's pinions, Wich means to take a feller up jest by the slack o' 's trowsis An' walk him Spanish clean right out o' all his homes an' houses; Wal, it doos seem a curus way, but then hooraw fer Jackson! It must be right, fer Caleb sez it 's reg'lar Anglosaxon. The Mex'cans don't fight fair, they say, they piz'n all the water, An' du amazin' lots o' things thet is n't wut they ough' to; Bein' they haint no lead, they make their bullets out o' copper An' shoot the darned things at us, tu, wich Caleb sez aint proper; He sez they 'd ough' to stan' right up an' let us pop 'em fairly (Guess wen he ketches 'em at thet he 'll hev to git up airly), Thet our nation 's bigger 'n theirn an' so its rights air bigger, An' thet it 's all to make 'em free thet we air pullin' trigger, Thet Anglo Saxondom's idee 's abreakin' 'em to pieces, An' thet idee 's thet every man doos jest wut he damn pleases; Ef I don't make his meanin' clear, perhaps in some respex I can, I know thet "every man" don't mean a nigger or a Mexican; An' there 's another thing I know, an' thet is, ef these creeturs, Thet stick an Anglosaxon mask onto State-prison feeturs, Should come to Jaalam Centre fer to argify an' spout on 't, The gals 'ould count the silver spoons the minnit they cleared out on 't.

This goin' ware glory waits ye haint one agreeable feetur, An' ef it worn't fer wakin' snakes, I 'd home agin short meter; O, would n't I be off, quick time, ef 't worn't thet I wuz sartin They 'd let the daylight into me to pay me fer desartin! I don't approve o' tellin' tales, but jest to you I may state Our ossifers aint wut they wuz afore they left the Bay-state; Then it wuz "Mister Sawin, sir, you 're middlin' well now, be ye? Step up an' take a nipper, sir; I 'm dreffle glad to see ye;" But now it 's "Ware 's my eppylet? here, Sawin, step an' fetch it! An' mind your eye, be thund'rin' spry, or, damn ye, you shall ketch it!" Wal, ez the Doctor sez, some pork will bile so, but by mighty, Ef I hed some on 'em to hum, I 'd give 'em linkum vity, I 'd play the rogue's march on their hides an' other music follerin'—— But I must close my letter here, for one on 'em 's ahollerin', These Anglosaxon ossifers,—wal, taint no use ajawin', I 'm safe enlisted fer the war,

Yourn,

BIRDOFREDOM SAWIN.

[Those have not been wanting (as, indeed, when hath Satan been to seek for attorneys?) who have maintained that our late inroad upon Mexico was undertaken, not so much for the avenging of any national quarrel, as for the spreading of free institutions and of Protestantism. Capita vix duabus Anticyris medenda! Verily I admire that no pious sergeant among these new Crusaders beheld Martin Luther riding at the front of the host upon a tamed pontifical bull, as, in that former invasion of Mexico, the zealous Diaz (spawn though he were of the Scarlet Woman) was favoured with a vision of St. James of Compostella, skewering the infidels upon his apostolical lance. We read, also, that Richard of the lion heart, having gone to Palestine on a similar errand of mercy, was divinely encouraged to cut the throats of such Paynims as refused to swallow the bread of life (doubtless that they might be thereafter incapacitated for swallowing the filthy gobbets of Mahound) by angels of heaven, who cried to the king and his knights,—Seigneurs, tuez! tuez! providentially using the French tongue, as being the only one understood by their auditors. This would argue for the pantoglottism of these celestial intelligences, while, on the other hand, the Devil, teste Cotton Mather, is unversed in certain of the Indian dialects. Yet must he be a semeiologist the most expert, making himself intelligible to every people and kindred by signs; no other discourse, indeed, being needful, than such as the mackerel-fisher holds with his finned quarry, who, if other bait be wanting, can by a bare bit of white rag at the end of a string captivate those foolish fishes. Such piscatorial oratory is Satan cunning in. Before one he trails a hat and feather, or a bare feather without a hat; before another, a Presidential chair, or a tidewaiter's stool, or a pulpit in the city, no matter what. To us, dangling there over our heads, they seem junkets dropped out of the seventh heaven, sops dipped in nectar, but, once in our mouths, they are all one, bits of fuzzy cotton.

This, however, by the way. It is time now revocare gradum. While so many miracles of this sort, vouched by eye-witnesses, have encouraged the arms of Papists, not to speak of those Dioscuri (whom we must conclude imps of the pit) who sundry times captained the pagan Roman soldiery, it is strange that our first American crusade was not in some such wise also signalized. Yet it is said that the Lord hath manifestly prospered our armies. This opens the question, whether, when our hands are strengthened to make great slaughter of our enemies, it be absolutely and demonstratively certain that this might is added to us from above, or whether some Potentate from an opposite quarter may not have a finger in it, as there are few pies into which his meddling digits are not thrust. Would the Sanctifier and Setter-apart of the seventh day have assisted in a victory gained on the Sabbath, as was one in the late war? Or has that day become less an object of his especial care since the year 1697, when so manifest a providence occurred to Mr. William Trowbridge, in answer to whose prayers, when he and all on shipboard with him were starving, a dolphin was sent daily, "which was enough to serve 'em; only on Saturdays they still catched a couple, and on the Lord's Days they could catch none at all"? Haply they might have been permitted, by way of mortification, to take some few sculpins (those banes of the salt-water angler), which unseemly fish would, moreover, have conveyed to them a symbolical reproof for their breach of the day, being known in the rude dialect of our mariners as Cape Cod Clergymen.

It has been a refreshment to many nice consciences to know that our Chief Magistrate would not regard with eyes of approval the (by many esteemed) sinful pastime of dancing, and I own myself to be so far of that mind, that I could not but set my face against this Mexican Polka, though danced to the Presidential piping with a Gubernatorial second. If ever the country should be seized with another such mania de propaganda fide, I think it would be wise to fill our bombshells with alternate copies of the Cambridge Platform and the Thirty-nine Articles, which would produce a mixture of the highest explosive power, and to wrap every one of our cannon-balls in a leaf of the New Testament, the reading of which is denied to those who sit in the darkness of Popery. Those iron evangelists would thus be able to disseminate vital religion and Gospel truth in quarters inaccessible to the ordinary missionary. I have seen lads, unimpregnate with the more sublimated punctiliousness of Walton, secure pickerel, taking their unwary siesta beneath the lily-pads too nigh the surface, with a gun and small shot. Why not, then, since gunpowder was unknown to the apostles (not to enter here upon the question whether it were discovered before that period by the Chinese), suit our metaphor to the age in which we live, and say shooters as well as fishers of men?

I do much fear that we shall be seized now and then with a Protestant fervour, as long as we have neighbour Naboths whose wallowings in Papistical mire excite our horror in exact proportion to the size and desirableness of their vineyards. Yet I rejoice that some earnest Protestants have been made by this war,—I mean those who protested against it. Fewer they were than I could wish, for one might imagine America to have been colonized by a tribe of those nondescript African animals the Aye-Ayes, so difficult a word is No to us all. There is some malformation or defect of the vocal organs, which either prevents our uttering it at all, or gives it so thick a pronunciation as to be unintelligible. A mouth filled with the national pudding, or watering in expectation thereof, is wholly incompetent to this refractory monosyllable. An abject and herpetic Public Opinion is the Pope, the Anti-Christ, for us to protest against e corde cordium. And by what College of Cardinals is this our God's-vicar, our binder and looser, elected? Very like, by the sacred conclave of Tag, Rag, and Bobtail, the gracious atmosphere of the grog-shop. Yet it is of this that we must all be puppets. This thumps the pulpit-cushion, this guides the editor's pen, this wags the senator's tongue. This decides what Scriptures are canonical, and shuffles Christ away into the Apocrypha. According to that sentence fathered upon Solon, {Houto demosion kakon erchetai oikad' hekasto}. This unclean spirit is skilful to assume various shapes. I have known it to enter my own study and nudge my elbow of a Saturday, under the semblance of a wealthy member of my congregation. It were a great blessing, if every particular of what in the sum we call popular sentiment could carry about the name of its manufacturer stamped legibly upon it. I gave a stab under the fifth rib to that pestilent fallacy,—"Our country, right or wrong,"—by tracing its original to a speech of Ensign Cilley at a dinner of the Bungtown Fencibles.—H. W.]

FOOTNOTES:

[5] In relation to this expression, I cannot but think that Mr. Biglow has been too hasty in attributing it to me. Though Time be a comparatively innocent personage to swear by, and though Longinus in his discourse {Peri Hypsous} has commended timely oaths as not only a useful but sublime figure of speech, yet I have always kept my lips free from that abomination. Odi profanum vulgus, I hate your swearing and hectoring fellows.—H. W.

[6] i hait the Site of a feller with a muskit as I du pizn But their is fun to a cornwallis I aint agoin' to deny it.—H. B.

[7] he means Not quite so fur i guess.—H. B.

[8] the ignerant creeter means Sekketary; but he ollers stuck to his books like cobbler's wax to an ile-stone.—H. B.

[9] it must be aloud that thare 's a streak o' nater in lovin' sho, but it sartinly is 1 of the curusest things in nater to see a rispecktable dri goods dealer (deekon off a chutch mayby) a riggin' himself out in the Weigh they du and struttin' round in the Reign aspilin' his trowsis and makin' wet goods of himself. Ef any thin 's foolisher and moor dicklus than militerry gloary it is milishy gloary.—H. B.

[10] these fellers are verry proppilly called Rank Heroes, and the more tha kill the ranker and more Herowick tha bekum.—H. B.

[11] it wuz "tumblebug" as he Writ it, but the parson put the Latten instid. i sed tother maid better meeter, but he said tha was eddykated peepl to Boston and tha would n't stan' it no how. idnow as tha wood and idnow as tha wood.—H. B.

[12] he means human beins, that 's wut he means. i spose he kinder thought tha wuz human beans ware the Xisle Poles comes from.—H. B.



No. III.

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 praecepta, 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 neighbour 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 he 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 give 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 principle 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 ignorance, 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 did n'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 drive 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. Patriae 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 some 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 ought 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 rumour 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 now. He cuts a cleaner and wider swarth 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 would 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 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 labouring quietly in his vocation, and who keeps his cloth as free as he can from the dust of the political arena (though vae 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 connexion 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 Mexican killed, wounded, and maimed be obtained, it would 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 honoured 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 EX-TRUMPERY 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 Shakspeare, 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 licence 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, 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 traiter. Forgive me, my friends, ef I seem to be het, But a crisis like this must with vigour be met; Wen an Arnold the star-spangled banner bestains, Holl Fourth o' Julys seem to bile in my veins.

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 principles wuz 'fore we sent him"? What wuz ther in them from this vote to pervent him? A marciful Providunce fashioned us holler O' purpose thet we might our principles 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. Aint principle precious? then, who 's goin' to use it Wen there 's risk o' some chaps gittin' up to abuse it? I can't tell the wy on 't, but nothin' is so sure Ez thet principle kind o' gits spiled by exposure;[13] A man thet lets all sorts o' folks git a sight on 't Ough' to hev it all took right away, every mite on 't; Ef he can't keep it all to himself when 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; 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, fer instance, thet rubber-trees fust begun bearin' Wen p'litickle 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, An' sartin it is thet a man cannot be strict In bein' himself, when he gets 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 percisely 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, 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; That President Polk's holl perceedins air very tory; Thet the war 's 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; 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 and say, "Thet 's the ticket! Ez for Mexico, t'aint no glory to lick it, But 't would be a darned shame to go pullin' o' triggers To extend the aree of abusin' the niggers."

So they march in percessions, an' git up hooraws, An' tramp thru the mud fer the good o' the cause, An' think they 're 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.

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 great aims like these Must stick jest ez close ez a hive full o' bees.

I 'm willin' a man should go tollable strong Agin wrong in the abstract, fer that 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; They 've run us a hundred cool millions in debt, (An' fer Demmercrat Horners ther '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 mantelpiece fell upon Polk.

Now all o' these blessins the Wigs might enjoy, Ef they 'd gumption enough the right means to imploy;[14] Fer the silver spoon born in Dermocracy'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, 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,— 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 That 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;— 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 gettin' 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 could n't tell wich one, So, wutever side wipped, we 'd a chance at the plunder An' could sue for infringin' our paytended 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, 't was our business alone, Fer could n'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.

Wy, these chaps from 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.

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 four fathers fetched with 'em over the billers, Them pillers the people so soundly hev slept on, Wile to slav'ry, invasion, an' debt they were swept 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.

An', ez fer this Palfrey,[15] 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 Samwell'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; 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; Wile 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 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.[16]

You say,—"We 'd ha' scared 'em by growin' in peace, A plaguy sight more then by bobberies like these"? Who is it dares say thet "our naytional eagle Wun'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 ough' to"? 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 put 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, 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 civilized, free institutions; He writes fer thet rather 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; I shan't 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 Manichaean 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.

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

FOOTNOTES:

[13] The speaker is of a different mind from Tully, who, in his recently discovered tractate De Republica, tells us,—Nec vero habere virtutem satis est, quasi artem aliquam, nisi utare, and from our Milton, who says,—"I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat."—Areop. He had taken the words out of the Roman's mouth, without knowing it, and might well exclaim with Austin (if saint's name may stand sponsor for a curse). Pereant qui ante nos nostra dixerint!—H. W.

[14] That was a pithy saying of Persius, and fits our politicians without a wrinkle,—Magister artis, ingeniique largitor venter.—H. W.

[15] There is truth yet in this of Juvenal,—

"Dat veniam corvis, vexat censura columbas."

[16] Jortin is willing to allow of other miracles besides those recorded in Holy Writ, and why not of other prophecies? It is granting too much to Satan to suppose him, as divers of the learned have done, the inspirer of the ancient oracles. Wiser, I esteem it, to give chance the credit of the successful ones. What is said here of Louis Philippe was verified in some of its minute particulars within a few months' time. Enough to have made the fortune of Delphi or Ammon, and no thanks to Beelzebub neither! That of Seneca in Medea will suit here:—

"Rapida fortuna ac levis, Praecepsque regno eripuit, exsilio dedit."

Let us allow, even to richly deserved misfortune, our commiseration, and be not overhasty meanwhile in our censure of the French people, left for the first time to govern themselves, remembering that wise sentence of AEschylus,—

{Hapas de trachys hostis an neon krate.} 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 knit 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, now-a-days, that have the science and the intelligence, while the chivalrous Don Quixotes of Conservatism still cumber themselves with the clumsy armour of a by-gone 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 that 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 oilers 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; 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," Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;— "Fer all thet," sez Mangum, "'T would be better to hang 'em, An' so git red on 'em soon," sez he.

"The mass ough' to labour 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, "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.

"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.

"Gen'nle Cass, Sir, you need n't be twitchin' your collar, Your merit 's quite clear by the dut on your knees, At the North we don't make no distinctions o' colour; You can all take a lick at our shoes wen you please," Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;— Sez Mister Jarnagin, "They wunt 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," 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' promiscoous Ned," Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;— "Yes, the North," sez Colquitt, "Ef we Southerners 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 is tumblin' 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 Beelzebub's own rigadoon," sez he.

"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;— "O," 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; We think it 's our dooty to give pooty sharp hints, Thet the last crumb of Edin on airth shan'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 suetude of sixty years, and grasped in triumphant argument in the left hand of him whose right hand clutches the clotted slave-whip. Justice, venerable with the undethronable majesty of countless aeons, 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 Honourable Mr. Bagowind, M.C., say,—BE DUMB!

It occurs to me to suggest, as a topic of inquiry in this connexion, whether, on that momentous occasion when the goats and the sheep shall be parted, the Constitution and the Honourable Mr. Bagowind, M.C., will be expected to take their places on the left as our hircine vicars.

Quia 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 {poimen 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 labour 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 Paris is; I love to see her stick her claws In them infarnal Pharisees; 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, Thet nothin' aint extravygunt,— Purvidin' I 'm in office; Fer 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 taxes, Ez long ez, like a lumberman, I git jest wut I axes: 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, 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.

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, 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 Caesar, Fer it 's by him I move an' live, From him my bread an' cheese air; I du believe thet all o' me Doth bear his souperscription,— Will, conscience, honour, honesty, An' things o' thet description.

I du believe in prayer an' praise To him thet 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,— I don't believe in princerple, But, O, 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 nappin'; It aint by princerples nor men My preudunt course is steadied,— I scent wich pays the best, an' then Go into it baldheaded.

I du believe thet holdin' slaves Comes nat'ral tu a Presidunt, Let 'lone the rowdedow it saves To hev a wal-broke precedunt; Fer any office, small or gret, I could n't ax with no face, Without I 'd ben, thru dry an' wet, Th' unrizzest kind o' doughface.

I du believe wutever trash 'll keep the people in blindness,— 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; 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 horse-back 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 any thing distinctly. That animalcule there, in the pea-jacket, is Louis Philippe, just landed on the coast of England. That other, in the grey 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 for ever. 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 (even if for a moment discerned as such) continue miraculous. We glance carelessly at the sunrise, and get used to Orion and the Pleiades. The wonder wears off, and to-morrow this sheet, 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 ANTISLAVERY STANDARD.

[Curiosity may be said to be the quality which pre-eminently distinguishes and segregates man from the lower animals. As we trace the scale of animated nature downward, we find this faculty of the mind (as it may truly be called) diminished in the savage, and quite 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 neighbours. 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 intelligence.

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 labour 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 barn-yard 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 neighbour'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 key-hole 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 the world the scraps of news they have picked up. 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 of him 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 dimissory, letters inclosing 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, Howel, Lamb, 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 which St. Peter sent to King Pepin in the year of grace 755 I would place in a class by itself, 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, 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; 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 statesmun say, who 've planned 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 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 's no one could n'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, Though I aint one thet ary test shuns 'll give our folks a helpin' shove; Kind o' promiscoous 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 Thet preudunt farmers don't turn out,— Ez long 'z the people git their rattle, Wut is there fer 'm 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; All is, I never drink no sperit, Nor I haint never signed no pledge.

Ez to my principles, I glory In hevin' nothin' o' the sort; I aint a Wig, I aint a Tory, I 'm jest a candidate, 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.

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 Light-house Down to the eend o' Jaalam Pint.

An' ez the North hez took to brustlin' At bein' scrouged frum off the roost, 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 modeled 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, Ammon, 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 labours 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 re-affirming 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 Graeca 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 and 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 Caesar'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 pot-hooks as well as pots, the loop of a letter may suffice for a bow-string, and all the dreadful heresies of Anti-slavery may lurk in a flourish.—H. W.]