HERE BJARNA GRIMOLFSSON FIRST DRANK CLOUD-BROTHER THROUGH CHILD-OF-LAND-AND-WATER:

that is, drew smoke through a reed stem. In other words, we have here a record of the first smoking of the herb Nicotiana Tabacum by an European on this continent. The probable results of this discovery are so vast as to baffle conjecture. If it be objected, that the smoking of a pipe would hardly justify the setting up of a memorial stone, I answer, that even now the Moquis Indian, ere he takes his first whiff, bows reverently toward the four quarters of the sky in succession, and that the loftiest monuments have been read to perpetuate fame, which is the dream of the shadow of smoke. The Saga, it will be remembered, leaves this Bjarna to a fate something like that of Sir Humphrey Gilbert, on board a sinking ship in the 'wormy sea,' having generously given up his place in the boat to a certain Icelander. It is doubly pleasant, therefore, to meet with this proof that the brave old man arrived safely in Vinland, and that his declining years were cheered by the respectful attentions of the dusky denizens of our then uninvaded forest. Most of all was I gratified, however, in thus linking forever the name of my native town with one of the most momentous occurrences of modern times. Hitherto Jalaam, though in soil, climate, and geographical position as highly qualified to be the theatre of remarkable historical incidents as any spot on the earth's surface, has been, if I may say it without seeming to question the wisdom of Providence, almost maliciously neglected, as it might appear, by occurrences of world-wide interest in want of a situation. And in matters of this nature it must be confessed that adequate events are as necessary as the vates sacer to record them. Jaalam stood always modestly ready, but circumstances made no fitting response to her generous intentions. Now, however, she assumes her place on the historick roll. I have hitherto been a zealous opponent of the Circean herb, but I shall now reexamine the question without bias.

I am aware that the Rev. Jonas Tutchel, in a recent communication to the 'Bogus Four Corners Weekly Meridian,' has endeavored to show that this is the sepulchral inscription of Thorwald Eriksson, who, as is well-known, was slain in Vinland by the natives. But I think he has been misled by a preconceived theory, and cannot but feel that he has thus made an ungracious return for my allowing him to inspect the stone with the aid of my own glasses (he having by accident left his at home) and in my own study. The heathen ancients might have instructed this Christian minister in the rites of hospitality; but much is to be pardoned to the spirit of self-love. He must indeed be ingenious who can make out the words her hvilir from any characters in the inscription in question, which, whatever else it may be, is certainly not mortuary. And even should the reverend gentleman succeed in persuading some fantastical wits of the soundness of his views, I do not see what useful end he will have gained. For if the English Courts of Law hold the testimony of gravestones from the burial-grounds of Protestant dissenters to be questionable, even where it is essential in proving a descent, I cannot conceive that the epitaphial assertions of heathens should be esteemed of more authority by any man of orthodox sentiments.

At this moment, happening to cast my eyes upon the stone, whose characters a transverse light from my southern window brings out with singular distinctness, another interpretation has occurred to me, promising even more interesting results. I hasten to close my letter in order to follow at once the clue thus providentially suggested.

I inclose, as usual, a contribution from Mr. Biglow, and remain,

Gentlemen, with esteem and respect,

Your Obedient Humble Servant,

HOMER WILBUR, A.M.

I thank ye, my frien's, for the warmth o' your greetin': Ther' 's few airthly blessin's but wut's vain an' fleetin'; But ef ther' is one thet hain't no cracks an' flaws, An' is wuth goin' in for, it's pop'lar applause; It sends up the sperits ez lively ez rockets, An' I feel it—wal, down to the eend o' my pockets. Jes' lovin' the people is Canaan in view, But it's Canaan paid quarterly t' hev 'em love you; It's a blessin' thet's breakin' out ollus in fresh spots; It's a-follerin' Moses 'thout losin' the flesh-pots. 10 But, Gennlemen, 'scuse me, I ain't sech a raw cus Ez to go luggin' ellerkence into a caucus,— Thet is, into one where the call comprehen's Nut the People in person, but on'y their frien's; I'm so kin' o' used to convincin' the masses Of th' edvantage o' bein' self-governin' asses, I forgut thet we're all o' the sort thet pull wires An' arrange for the public their wants an' desires, An' thet wut we hed met for wuz jes' to agree Wut the People's opinions in futur' should be. 20

Now, to come to the nub, we've ben all disappinted, An' our leadin' idees are a kind o' disjinted, Though, fur ez the nateral man could discern, Things ough' to ha' took most an oppersite turn. But The'ry is jes' like a train on the rail, Thet, weather or no, puts her thru without fail, While Fac' 's the ole stage thet gits sloughed in the ruts, An' hez to allow for your darned efs an' buts, An' so, nut intendin' no pers'nal reflections, They don't—don't nut allus, thet is,—make connections: 30 Sometimes, when it really doos seem thet they'd oughter Combine jest ez kindly ez new rum an' water, Both'll be jest ez sot in their ways ez a bagnet, Ez otherwise-minded ez th' eends of a magnet, An' folks like you 'n' me, thet ain't ept to be sold, Git somehow or 'nother left out in the cold.

I expected 'fore this, 'thout no gret of a row, Jeff D. would ha' ben where A. Lincoln is now, With Taney to say 'twuz all legle an' fair, An' a jury o' Deemocrats ready to swear 40 Thet the ingin o' State gut throwed into the ditch By the fault o' the North in misplacin' the switch. Things wuz ripenin' fust-rate with Buchanan to nuss 'em; But the People—they wouldn't be Mexicans, cuss 'em! Ain't the safeguards o' freedom upsot, 'z you may say, Ef the right o' rev'lution is took clean away? An' doosn't the right primy-fashy include The bein' entitled to nut be subdued? The fect is, we'd gone for the Union so strong, When Union meant South ollus right an' North wrong, 50 Thet the People gut fooled into thinkin' it might Worry on middlin' wal with the North in the right. We might ha' ben now jest ez prosp'rous ez France, Where p'litikle enterprise hez a fair chance, An' the People is heppy an' proud et this hour, Long ez they hev the votes, to let Nap hey the power; But our folks they went an' believed wut we'd told 'em An', the flag once insulted, no mortle could hold 'em. 'Twuz pervokin' jest when we wuz cert'in to win,— And I, for one, wun't trust the masses agin: 60 For a People thet knows much ain't fit to be free In the self-cockin', back-action style o' J.D.

I can't believe now but wut half on 't is lies; For who'd thought the North wuz agoin' to rise, Or take the pervokin'est kin' of a stump, 'thout 'twuz sunthin' ez pressin' ez Gabr'el's las' trump? Or who'd ha' supposed, arter sech swell an' bluster 'bout the lick-ary-ten-on-ye fighters they'd muster, Raised by hand on briled lightnin', ez op'lent 'z you please In a primitive furrest ol femmily-trees,— 70 Who'd ha' thought thet them Southuners ever 'ud show Starns with pedigrees to 'em like theirn to the foe, Or, when the vamosin' come, ever to find Nat'ral masters in front an' mean white folks behind? By ginger, ef I'd ha' known half I know now, When I wuz to Congress, I wouldn't, I swow, Hey let 'em cair on so high-minded an' sarsy, 'thout some show o' wut you may call vicy-varsy. To be sure, we wuz under a contrac' jes' then To be dreffle forbearin' towards Southun men; 80 We hed to go sheers in preservin' the bellance; An' ez they seemed to feel they wuz wastin' their tellents 'thout some un to kick, 'twarn't more 'n proper, you know, Each should furnish his part; an' sence they found the toe, An' we wuzn't cherubs—wal, we found the buffer, For fear thet the Compromise System should suffer.

I wun't say the plan hedn't onpleasant featurs,— For men are perverse an' onreasonin' creaturs, An' forgit thet in this life 'tain't likely to heppen Their own privit fancy should ollus be cappen,— 90 But it worked jest ez smooth ez the key of a safe, An' the gret Union bearin's played free from all chafe. They warn't hard to suit, ef they hed their own way, An' we (thet is, some on us) made the thing pay: 'twuz a fair give-an'-take out of Uncle Sam's heap; Ef they took wut warn't theirn, wut we give come ez cheap; The elect gut the offices down to tide-waiter, The people took skinnin' ez mild ez a tater. Seemed to choose who they wanted tu, footed the bills, An' felt kind o' 'z though they wuz havin' their wills, 100 Which kep' 'em ez harmless an' cherfle ez crickets, While all we invested wuz names on the tickets; Wal, ther' 's nothin', for folks fond o' lib'ral consumption Free o' charge, like democ'acy tempered with gumption!

Now warn't thet a system wuth pains in presarvin', Where the people found jints an' their frien's done the carvin',— Where the many done all o' their thinkin' by proxy, An' were proud on 't ez long ez 'twuz christened Democ'cy,— Where the few let us sap all o' Freedom's foundations, Ef you call it reformin' with prudence an' patience, 110 An' were willin' Jeff's snake-egg should hetch with the rest, Ef you writ 'Constitootional' over the nest? But it's all out o' kilter, ('twuz too good to last,) An' all jes' by J.D.'s perceedin' too fast; Ef he'd on'y hung on for a month or two more, We'd ha' gut things fixed nicer 'n they hed ben before: Afore he drawed off an' lef all in confusion, We wuz safely entrenched in the ole Constitootion, With an outlyin', heavy-gun, case-mated fort To rake all assailants,—I mean th' S.J. Court. 120 Now I never'll acknowledge (nut ef you should skin me) 'twuz wise to abandon sech works to the in'my, An' let him fin' out thet wut scared him so long, Our whole line of argyments, lookin' so strong, All our Scriptur an' law, every the'ry an' fac', Wuz Quaker-guns daubed with Pro-slavery black. Why, ef the Republicans ever should git Andy Johnson or some one to lend 'em the wit An' the spunk jes' to mount Constitootion an' Court With Columbiad guns, your real ekle-rights sort, 130 Or drill out the spike from the ole Declaration Thet can kerry a solid shot clearn roun' creation, We'd better take maysures for shettin' up shop, An' put off our stock by a vendoo or swop.

But they wun't never dare tu; you'll see 'em in Edom 'fore they ventur' to go where their doctrines 'ud lead 'em: They've ben takin' our princerples up ez we dropt 'em, An' thought it wuz terrible 'cute to adopt 'em; But they'll fin' out 'fore long thet their hope's ben deceivin' 'em, An' thet princerples ain't o' no good, ef you b'lieve in 'em; It makes 'em tu stiff for a party to use, 141 Where they'd ough' to be easy 'z an ole pair o' shoes. If we say 'n our pletform thet all men are brothers, We don't mean thet some folks ain't more so 'n some others; An' it's wal understood thet we make a selection, An' thet brotherhood kin' o' subsides arter 'lection. The fust thing for sound politicians to larn is, Thet Truth, to dror kindly in all sorts o' harness, Mus' be kep' in the abstract,—for, come to apply it, You're ept to hurt some folks's interists by it. 150 Wal, these 'ere Republicans (some on 'em) ects Ez though gineral mexims 'ud suit speshle facts; An' there's where we'll nick 'em, there's where they'll be lost; For applyin' your princerple's wut makes it cost, An' folks don't want Fourth o' July t' interfere With the business-consarns o' the rest o' the year, No more 'n they want Sunday to pry an' to peek Into wut they are doin' the rest o' the week.

A ginooine statesman should be on his guard, Ef he must hev beliefs, nut to b'lieve 'em tu hard; 160 For, ez sure ez he does, he'll be blartin' 'em out 'thout regardin' the natur' o' man more 'n a spout, Nor it don't ask much gumption to pick out a flaw In a party whose leaders are loose in the jaw: An' so in our own case I ventur' to hint Thet we'd better nut air our perceedin's in print, Nor pass resserlootions ez long ez your arm Thet may, ez things heppen to turn, du us harm; For when you've done all your real meanin' to smother, The darned things'll up an' mean sunthin' or 'nother. 170 Jeff'son prob'ly meant wal with his 'born free an' ekle,' But it's turned out a real crooked stick in the sekle; It's taken full eighty-odd year—don't you see?— From the pop'lar belief to root out thet idee, An', arter all, suckers on 't keep buddin' forth In the nat'lly onprincipled mind o' the North. No, never say nothin' without you're compelled tu, An' then don't say nothin' thet you can be held tu, Nor don't leave no friction-idees layin' loose For the ign'ant to put to incend'ary use. 180

You know I'm a feller thet keeps a skinned eye On the leetle events thet go skurryin' by, Coz it's of'ner by them than by gret ones you'll see Wut the p'litickle weather is likely to be. Now I don't think the South's more 'n begun to be licked, But I du think, ez Jeff says, the wind-bag's gut pricked; It'll blow for a spell an' keep puffin' an' wheezin', The tighter our army an' navy keep, squeezin'— For they can't help spread-eaglein' long 'z ther's a mouth To blow Enfield's Speaker thru lef' at the South. 190 But it's high time for us to be settin' our faces Towards reconstructin' the national basis, With an eye to beginnin' agin on the jolly ticks We used to chalk up 'hind the back-door o' politics; An' the fus' thing's to save wut of Slav'ry ther's lef' Arter this (I mus' call it) imprudence o' Jeff: For a real good Abuse, with its roots fur an' wide, Is the kin' o' thing I like to hev on my side; A Scriptur' name makes it ez sweet ez a rose, An' it's tougher the older an' uglier it grows— 200 (I ain't speakin' now o' the righteousness of it, But the p'litickle purchase it gives an' the profit).

Things look pooty squally, it must be allowed, An' I don't see much signs of a bow in the cloud: Ther's too many Deemocrats—leaders wut's wuss— Thet go for the Union 'thout carin' a cuss Ef it helps ary party thet ever wuz heard on, So our eagle ain't made a split Austrian bird on. But ther's still some consarvative signs to be found Thet shows the gret heart o' the People is sound: 210 (Excuse me for usin' a stump-phrase agin, But, once in the way on 't, they will stick like sin:) There's Phillips, for instance, hez jes' ketched a Tartar In the Law-'n'-Order Party of ole Cincinnater; An' the Compromise System ain't gone out o' reach, Long 'z you keep the right limits on freedom o' speech. 'Twarn't none too late, neither, to put on the gag, For he's dangerous now he goes in for the flag. Nut thet I altogether approve o' bad eggs, They're mos' gin'ly argymunt on its las' legs,— 220 An' their logic is ept to be tu indiscriminate, Nor don't ollus wait the right objecs to 'liminate; But there is a variety on 'em, you'll find, Jest ez usefle an' more, besides bein' refined,— I mean o' the sort thet are laid by the dictionary, Sech ez sophisms an' cant, thet'll kerry conviction ary Way thet you want to the right class o' men, An' are staler than all 't ever come from a hen: 'Disunion' done wal till our resh Southun friends Took the savor all out on 't for national ends; 230 But I guess 'Abolition' 'll work a spell yit, When the war's done, an' so will 'Forgive-an'-forgit.' Times mus' be pooty thoroughly out o' all jint, Ef we can't make a good constitootional pint; An' the good time'll come to be grindin' our exes, When the war goes to seed in the nettle o' texes: Ef Jon'than don't squirm, with sech helps to assist him, I give up my faith in the free-suffrage system; Democ'cy wun't be nut a mite interestin', Nor p'litikle capital much wuth investin'; 240 An' my notion is, to keep dark an' lay low Till we see the right minute to put in our blow.—

But I've talked longer now 'n I hed any idee, An' ther's others you want to hear more 'n you du me; So I'll set down an' give thet 'ere bottle a skrimmage, For I've spoke till I'm dry ez a real graven image.



No. VI

SUNTHIN' IN THE PASTORAL LINE

TO THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY

JAALAM, 17th May, 1862.

GENTLEMEN,—At the special request of Mr. Biglow, I intended to inclose, together with his own contribution, (into which, at my suggestion, he has thrown a little more of pastoral sentiment than usual,) some passages from my sermon on the day of the National Fast, from the text, 'Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them,' Heb. xiii, 3. But I have not leisure sufficient at present for the copying of them, even were I altogether satisfied with the production as it stands. I should prefer, I confess, to contribute the entire discourse to the pages of your respectable miscellany, if it should be found acceptable upon perusal, especially as I find the difficulty in selection of greater magnitude than I had anticipated. What passes without challenge in the fervour of oral delivery, cannot always stand the colder criticism of the closet. I am not so great an enemy of Eloquence as my friend Mr. Biglow would appear to be from some passages in his contribution for the current month. I would not, indeed, hastily suspect him of covertly glancing at myself in his somewhat caustick animadversions, albeit some of the phrases he girds at are not entire strangers to my lips. I am a more hearty admirer of the Puritans than seems now to be the fashion, and believe, that, if they Hebraized a little too much in their speech, they showed remarkable practical sagacity as statesmen and founders. But such phenomena as Puritanism are the results rather of great religious than of merely social convulsions, and do not long survive them. So soon as an earnest conviction has cooled into a phrase, its work is over, and the best that can be done with it is to bury it. Ite, missa est. I am inclined to agree with Mr. Biglow that we cannot settle the great political questions which are now presenting themselves to the nation by the opinions of Jeremiah or Ezekiel as to the wants and duties of the Jews in their time, nor do I believe that an entire community with their feelings and views would be practicable or even agreeable at the present day. At the same time I could wish that their habit of subordinating the actual to the moral, the flesh to the spirit, and this world to the other, were more common. They had found out, at least, the great military secret that soul weighs more than body.—But I am suddenly called to a sick-bed in the household of a valued parishioner.

With esteem and respect,

Your obedient servant,

HOMER WILBUR.

Once git a smell o' musk into a draw, An' it clings hold like precerdents in law: Your gra'ma'am put it there,—when, goodness knows,— To jes' this-worldify her Sunday-clo'es; But the old chist wun't sarve her gran'son's wife, (For, 'thout new funnitoor, wut good in life?) An' so ole clawfoot, from the precinks dread O' the spare chamber, slinks into the shed, Where, dim with dust, it fust or last subsides To holdin' seeds an' fifty things besides; 10 But better days stick fast in heart an' husk, An' all you keep in 't gits a scent o' musk.

Jes' so with poets: wut they've airly read Gits kind o' worked into their heart an' head, So's't they can't seem to write but jest on sheers With furrin countries or played-out ideers, Nor hev a feelin', ef it doosn't smack O' wut some critter chose to feel 'way back: This makes 'em talk o' daisies, larks, an' things, Ez though we'd nothin' here that blows an' sings,— 20 (Why, I'd give more for one live bobolink Than a square mile o' larks in printer's ink,)— This makes 'em think our fust o' May is May, Which 'tain't, for all the almanicks can say.

O little city-gals, don't never go it Blind on the word o' noospaper or poet! They're apt to puff, an' May-day seldom looks Up in the country ez it doos in books; They're no more like than hornets'-nests an' hives, Or printed sarmons be to holy lives. 30 I, with my trouses perched on cowhide boots, Tuggin' my foundered feet out by the roots, Hev seen ye come to fling on April's hearse Your muslin nosegays from the milliner's, Puzzlin' to find dry ground your queen to choose, An' dance your throats sore in morocker shoes: I've seen ye an' felt proud, thet, come wut would, Our Pilgrim stock wuz pethed with hardihood. Pleasure doos make us Yankees kind o' winch, Ez though 'twuz sunthin' paid for by the inch; 40 But yit we du contrive to worry thru, Ef Dooty tells us thet the thing's to du, An' kerry a hollerday, ef we set out, Ez stiddily ez though 'twuz a redoubt.

I, country-born an' bred, know where to find Some blooms thet make the season suit the mind, An' seem to metch the doubtin' bluebird's notes,— Half-vent'rin' liverworts in furry coats, Bloodroots, whose rolled-up leaves ef you oncurl, Each on 'em's cradle to a baby-pearl,— 50 But these are jes' Spring's pickets; sure ez sin, The rebble frosts'll try to drive 'em in; For half our May's so awfully like Mayn't, 'twould rile a Shaker or an evrige saint; Though I own up I like our back'ard springs Thet kind o' haggle with their greens an' things, An' when you 'most give up, 'uthout more words Toss the fields full o' blossoms, leaves, an' birds; Thet's Northun natur', slow an' apt to doubt, But when it doos git stirred, ther' 's no gin-out! 60

Fust come the blackbirds clatt'rin' in tall trees, An' settlin' things in windy Congresses,— Queer politicians, though, for I'll be skinned Ef all on 'em don't head aginst the wind, 'fore long the trees begin to show belief,— The maple crimsons to a coral-reef. Then saffern swarms swing off from all the willers So plump they look like yaller caterpillars, Then gray hossches'nuts leetle hands unfold Softer 'n a baby's be at three days old: 70 Thet's robin-redbreast's almanick; he knows Thet arter this ther's only blossom-snows; So, choosin' out a handy crotch an' spouse, He goes to plast'rin' his adobe house.

Then seems to come a hitch,—things lag behind. Till some fine mornin' Spring makes up her mind, An' ez, when snow-swelled rivers cresh their dams Heaped-up with ice thet dovetails in an' jams, A leak comes spirtin' thru some pin-hole cleft, Grows stronger, fercer, tears out right an' left, 80 Then all the waters bow themselves an' come, Suddin, in one gret slope o' shedderin' foam, Jes' so our Spring gits eyerythin' in tune An' gives one leap from Aperl into June; Then all comes crowdin' in; afore you think, Young oak-leaves mist the side-hill woods with pink; The catbird in the laylock-bush is loud; The orchards turn to heaps o' rosy cloud; Red—cedars blossom tu, though few folks know it, An' look all dipt in sunshine like a poet; 90 The lime-trees pile their solid stacks o'shade An' drows'ly simmer with the bees' sweet trade; In ellum-shrouds the flashin' hangbird clings An' for the summer vy'ge his hammock slings; All down the loose-walled lanes in archin' bowers The barb'ry droops its strings o' golden flowers, Whose shrinkin' hearts the school-gals love to try, With pins,—they'll worry yourn so, boys, bimeby! But I don't love your cat'logue style,—do you?— Ez ef to sell off Natur' by vendoo; 100 One word with blood in 't's twice ez good ez two: 'nuff sed, June's bridesman, poet o' the year, Gladness on wings, the bobolink, is here; Half-hid in tip-top apple-blooms he swings, Or climbs aginst the breeze with quiverin' wings, Or, givin' way to 't in a mock despair, Runs down, a brook o' laughter, thru the air.

I ollus feel the sap start in my veins In Spring, with curus heats an' prickly pains Thet drive me, when I git a chance to walk 110 Off by myself to hev a privit talk With a queer critter thet can't seem to 'gree Along o' me like most folks,—Mister Me. Ther' 's times when I'm unsoshle ez a stone, An' sort o' suffercate to be alone,— I'm crowded jes' to think thet folks are nigh, An' can't bear nothin' closer than the sky; Now the wind's full ez shifty in the mind Ez wut it is ou'-doors, ef I ain't blind, An' sometimes, in the fairest sou'west weather, 120 My innard vane pints east for weeks together, My natur' gits all goose-flesh, an' my sins Come drizzlin' on my conscience sharp ez pins: Wal, et sech times I jes' slip out o' sight An' take it out in a fair stan'-up fight With the one cuss I can't lay on the shelf, The crook'dest stick in all the heap,—Myself.

'Twuz so las' Sabbath arter meetin'-time: Findin' my feelin's wouldn't noways rhyme With nobody's, but off the hendle flew 130 An' took things from an east-wind pint o' view, I started off to lose me in the hills Where the pines be, up back o' 'Siah's Mills: Pines, ef you're blue, are the best friends I know, They mope an' sigh an' sheer your feelin's so,— They hesh the ground beneath so, tu, I swan, You half-forgit you've gut a body on. Ther' 's a small school'us' there where four roads meet, The door-steps hollered out by little feet, An' side-posts carved with names whose owners grew 140 To gret men, some on 'em, an' deacons, tu; 'tain't used no longer, coz the town hez gut A high-school, where they teach the Lord knows wut: Three-story larnin' 's pop'lar now: I guess We thriv' ez wal on jes' two stories less, For it strikes me ther' 's sech a thing ez sinnin' By overloadin' children's underpinnin': Wal, here it wuz I larned my ABC, An' it's a kind o' favorite spot with me.

We're curus critters: Now ain't jes' the minute 150 Thet ever fits us easy while we're in it; Long ez 'twuz futur', 'twould be perfect bliss,— Soon ez it's past, thet time's wuth ten o' this; An' yit there ain't a man thet need be told Thet Now's the only bird lays eggs o' gold. A knee-high lad, I used to plot an' plan An' think 'twuz life's cap-sheaf to be a man: Now, gittin' gray, there's nothin' I enjoy Like dreamin' back along into a boy: So the ole school'us' is a place I choose 160 Afore all others, ef I want to muse; I set down where I used to set, an' git My boyhood back, an' better things with it,— Faith, Hope, an' sunthin', ef it isn't Cherrity, It's want o' guile, an' thet's ez gret a rerrity,— While Fancy's cushin', free to Prince and Clown, Makes the hard bench ez soft ez milk-weed-down.

Now, 'fore I knowed, thet Sabbath arternoon When I sot out to tramp myself in tune, I found me in the school'us' on my seat, 170 Drummin' the march to No-wheres with my feet. Thinkin' o' nothin', I've heerd ole folks say Is a hard kind o' dooty in its way: It's thinkin' everythin' you ever knew, Or ever hearn, to make your feelin's blue. I sot there tryin' thet on for a spell: I thought o' the Rebellion, then o' Hell, Which some folks tell ye now is jest a metterfor (A the'ry, p'raps, it wun't feel none the better for); I thought o' Reconstruction, wut we'd win 180 Patchin' our patent self-blow-up agin: I thought ef this 'ere milkin' o' the wits, So much a month, warn't givin' Natur' fits,— Ef folks warn't druv, findin' their own milk fail, To work the cow thet hez an iron tail, An' ef idees 'thout ripenin' in the pan Would send up cream to humor ary man: From this to thet I let my worryin' creep. Till finally I must ha' fell asleep.

Our lives in sleep are some like streams thet glide 190 'twixt flesh an' sperrit boundin' on each side, Where both shores' shadders kind o' mix an' mingle In sunthin' thet ain't jes' like either single; An' when you cast off moorin's from To-day, An' down towards To-morrer drift away, The imiges thet tengle on the stream Make a new upside-down'ard world o' dream: Sometimes they seem like sunrise-streaks an' warnin's O' wut'll be in Heaven on Sabbath-mornin's, An', mixed right in ez ef jest out o' spite, 200 Sunthin' thet says your supper ain't gone right. I'm gret on dreams, an' often when I wake, I've lived so much it makes my mem'ry ache. An' can't skurce take a cat-nap in my cheer 'thout hevin' 'em, some good, some bad, all queer.

Now I wuz settin' where I'd ben, it seemed, An' ain't sure yit whether I r'ally dreamed, Nor, ef I did, how long I might ha' slep', When I hearn some un stompin' up the step, An' lookin' round, ef two an' two make four, 210 I see a Pilgrim Father in the door. He wore a steeple-hat, tall boots, an' spurs With rowels to 'em big ez ches'nut-burrs, An' his gret sword behind him sloped away Long 'z a man's speech thet dunno wut to say.— 'Ef your name's Biglow, an' your given-name Hosee,' sez he, 'it's arter you I came: I'm your gret-gran'ther multiplied by three.'— 'My wut?' sez I.—'Your gret-gret-gret,' sez he: 'You wouldn't ha' never ben here but for me. 220 Two hundred an' three year ago this May The ship I come in sailed up Boston Bay; I'd been a cunnle in our Civil War,— But wut on airth hev you gut up one for? Coz we du things in England, 'tain't for you To git a notion you can du 'em tu: I'm told you write in public prints: ef true, It's nateral you should know a thing or two.'— 'Thet air's an argymunt I can't endorse,— 'twould prove, coz you wear spurs, you kep' a horse: 230 For brains,' sez I, 'wutever you may think, Ain't boun' to cash the drafs o' pen-an'-ink,— Though mos' folks write ez ef they hoped jes' quickenin' The churn would argoo skim-milk into thickenin'; But skim-milk ain't a thing to change its view O' wut it's meant for more 'n a smoky flue. But du pray tell me, 'fore we furder go, How in all Natur' did you come to know 'bout our affairs,' sez I, 'in Kingdom-Come?'— 'Wal, I worked round at sperrit-rappin' some, 240 An' danced the tables till their legs wuz gone, In hopes o' larnin' wut wuz goin' on,' Sez he, 'but mejums lie so like all-split Thet I concluded it wuz best to quit. But, come now, ef you wun't confess to knowin', You've some conjectures how the thing's a-goin'.'— 'Gran'ther,' sez I, 'a vane warn't never known Nor asked to hev a jedgment of its own; An' yit, ef 'tain't gut rusty in the jints. It's safe to trust its say on certin pints: 250 It knows the wind's opinions to a T, An' the wind settles wut the weather'll be.' 'I never thought a scion of our stock Could grow the wood to make a weather-cock; When I wuz younger 'n you, skurce more 'n a shaver, No airthly wind,' sez he, 'could make me waver!' (Ez he said this, he clinched his jaw an' forehead, Hitchin' his belt to bring his sword-hilt forrard.)— 'Jes so it wuz with me,' sez I, 'I swow. When I wuz younger 'n wut you see me now,— 260 Nothin' from Adam's fall to Huldy's bonnet, Thet I warn't full-cocked with my jedgment on it; But now I'm gittin' on in life, I find It's a sight harder to make up my mind,— Nor I don't often try tu, when events Will du it for me free of all expense. The moral question's ollus plain enough,— It's jes' the human-natur' side thet's tough; 'Wut's best to think mayn't puzzle me nor you,— The pinch comes in decidin' wut to du; 270 Ef you read History, all runs smooth ez grease, Coz there the men ain't nothin' more 'n idees,— But come to make it, ez we must to-day, Th' idees hev arms an' legs an' stop the way; It's easy fixin' things in facts an' figgers,— They can't resist, nor warn't brought up with niggers; But come to try your the'ry on,—why, then Your facts and figgers change to ign'ant men Actin' ez ugly—'—'Smite 'em hip an' thigh!' Sez gran'ther, 'and let every man-child die! 280 Oh for three weeks o' Crommle an' the Lord! Up, Isr'el, to your tents an' grind the sword!'— 'Thet kind o' thing worked wal in ole Judee, But you forgit how long it's ben A.D.; You think thet's ellerkence,—I call it shoddy, A thing,' sez I, 'wun't cover soul nor body; I like the plain all-wool o' common-sense, Thet warms ye now, an' will a twelvemonth hence, You took to follerin' where the Prophets beckoned, An', fust you knowed on, back come Charles the Second; Now wut I want's to hev all we gain stick, 291 An' not to start Millennium too quick; We hain't to punish only, but to keep, An' the cure's gut to go a cent'ry deep.' 'Wall, milk-an'-water ain't the best o' glue,' Sez he, 'an' so you'll find afore you're thru; Ef reshness venters sunthin', shilly-shally Loses ez often wut's ten times the vally. Thet exe of ourn, when Charles's neck gut split, Opened a gap thet ain't bridged over yit: 300 Slav'ry's your Charles, the Lord hez gin the exe'— 'Our Charles,' sez I, 'hez gut eight million necks. The hardest question ain't the black man's right, The trouble is to 'mancipate the white; One's chained in body an' can be sot free, But t'other's chained in soul to an idee: It's a long job, but we shall worry thru it; Ef bagnets fail, the spellin'-book must du it.' 'Hosee,' sez he, 'I think you're goin' to fail: The rettlesnake ain't dangerous in the tail; 310 This 'ere rebellion's nothing but the rettle,— You'll stomp on thet an' think you've won the bettle: It's Slavery thet's the fangs an' thinkin' head, An' ef you want selvation, cresh it dead,— An' cresh it suddin, or you'll larn by waitin' Thet Chance wun't stop to listen to debatin'!'— 'God's truth!' sez I,—'an' ef I held the club, An' knowed jes' where to strike,—but there's the rub!'— 'Strike soon,' sez he, 'or you'll be deadly ailin',— Folks thet's afeared to fail are sure o' failin'; 320 God hates your sneakin' creturs thet believe He'll settle things they run away an' leave!' He brought his foot down fiercely, ez he spoke, An' give me sech a startle thet I woke.



No. VII

LATEST VIEWS OF MR. BIGLOW

PRELIMINARY NOTE

[It is with feelings of the liveliest pain that we inform our readers of the death of the Reverend Homer Wilbur, A.M., which took place suddenly, by an apoplectic stroke, on the afternoon of Christmas day, 1862. Our venerable friend (for so we may venture to call him, though we never enjoyed the high privilege of his personal acquaintance) was in his eighty-fourth year, having been born June 12, 1779, at Pigsgusset Precinct (now West Jerusha) in the then District of Maine. Graduated with distinction at Hubville College in 1805, he pursued his theological studies with the late Reverend Preserved Thacker, D.D., and was called to the charge of the First Society in Jaalam in 1809, where he remained till his death.

'As an antiquary he has probably left no superior, if, indeed, an equal,' writes his friend and colleague, the Reverend Jeduthun Hitchcock, to whom we are indebted for the above facts; 'in proof of which I need only allude to his "History of Jaalam, Genealogical, Topographical, and Ecclesiastical," 1849, which has won him an eminent and enduring place in our more solid and useful literature. It is only to be regretted that his intense application to historical studies should have so entirely withdrawn him from the pursuit of poetical composition, for which he was endowed by Nature with a remarkable aptitude. His well-known hymn, beginning "With clouds of care encompassed round," has been attributed in some collections to the late President Dwight, and it is hardly presumptuous to affirm that the simile of the rainbow in the eighth stanza would do no discredit to that polished pen.'

We regret that we have not room at present for the whole of Mr. Hitchcock's exceedingly valuable communication. We hope to lay more liberal extracts from it before our readers at an early day. A summary of its contents will give some notion of its importance and interest. It contains: 1st, A biographical sketch of Mr. Wilbur, with notices of his predecessors in the pastoral office, and of eminent clerical contemporaries; 2d, An obituary of deceased, from the Punkin-Falls 'Weekly Parallel;' 3d, A list of his printed and manuscript productions and of projected works; 4th, Personal anecdotes and recollections, with specimens of table-talk; 5th, A tribute to his relict, Mrs. Dorcas (Pilcox) Wilbur; 6th, A list of graduates fitted for different colleges by Mr. Wilbur, with biographical memoranda touching the more distinguished; 7th, Concerning learned, charitable, and other societies, of which Mr. Wilbur was a member, and of those with which, had his life been prolonged, he would doubtless have been associated, with a complete catalogue of such Americans as have been Fellows of the Royal Society; 8th, A brief summary of Mr. Wilbur's latest conclusions concerning the Tenth Horn of the Beast in its special application to recent events, for which the public, as Mr. Hitchcock assures us, have been waiting with feelings of lively anticipation; 9th, Mr. Hitchcock's own views on the same topic; and, 10th, A brief essay on the importance of local histories. It will be apparent that the duty of preparing Mr. Wilbur's biography could not have fallen into more sympathetic hands.

In a private letter with which the reverend gentleman has since favored us, he expresses the opinion that Mr. Wilbur's life was shortened by our unhappy civil war. It disturbed his studies, dislocated all his habitual associations and trains of thought, and unsettled the foundations of a faith, rather the result of habit than conviction, in the capacity of man for self-government. 'Such has been the felicity of my life,' he said to Mr. Hitchcock, on the very morning of the day he died, 'that, through the divine mercy, I could always say, Summum nec metuo diem, nec opto. It has been my habit, as you know, on every recurrence of this blessed anniversary, to read Milton's "Hymn of the Nativity" till its sublime harmonies so dilated my soul and quickened its spiritual sense that I seemed to hear that other song which gave assurance to the shepherds that there was One who would lead them also in green pastures and beside the still waters. But to-day I have been unable to think of anything but that mournful text, "I came not to send peace, but a sword," and, did it not smack of Pagan presumptuousness, could almost wish I had never lived to see this day.'

Mr. Hitchcock also informs us that his friend 'lies buried in the Jaalam graveyard, under a large red-cedar which he specially admired. A neat and substantial monument is to be erected over his remains, with a Latin epitaph written by himself; for he was accustomed to say, pleasantly, "that there was at least one occasion in a scholar's life when he might show the advantages of a classical training."'

The following fragment of a letter addressed to us, and apparently intended to accompany Mr. Biglow's contribution to the present number, was found upon his table after his decease.—EDITORS ATLANTIC MONTHLY.]

TO THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY

JAALAM, 24th Dec., 1862.

RESPECTED SIRS,—- The infirm state of my bodily health would be a sufficient apology for not taking up the pen at this time, wholesome as I deem it for the mind to apricate in the shelter of epistolary confidence, were it not that a considerable, I might even say a large, number of individuals in this parish expect from their pastor some publick expression of sentiment at this crisis. Moreover, Qui tacitus ardet magis uritur. In trying times like these, the besetting sin of undisciplined minds is to seek refuge from inexplicable realities in the dangerous stimulant of angry partisanship or the indolent narcotick of vague and hopeful vaticination: fortunamque suo temperat arbitrio. Both by reason of my age and my natural temperament, I am unfitted for either. Unable to penetrate the inscrutable judgments of God, I am more than ever thankful that my life has been prolonged till I could in some small measure comprehend His mercy. As there is no man who does not at some time render himself amenable to the one,—quum vix justus sit securus,—so there is none that does not feel himself in daily need of the other.

I confess I cannot feel, as some do, a personal consolation for the manifest evils of this war in any remote or contingent advantages that may spring from it. I am old and weak, I can bear little, and can scarce hope to see better days; nor is it any adequate compensation to know that Nature is young and strong and can bear much. Old men philosophize over the past, but the present is only a burthen and a weariness. The one lies before them like a placid evening landscape; the other is full of vexations and anxieties of housekeeping. It may be true enough that miscet haec illis, prohibetque Clotho fortunam stare, but he who said it was fain at last to call in Atropos with her shears before her time; and I cannot help selfishly mourning that the fortune of our Republick could not at least stay till my days were numbered.

Tibullus would find the origin of wars in the great exaggeration of riches, and does not stick to say that in the days of the beechen trencher there was peace. But averse as I am by nature from all wars, the more as they have been especially fatal to libraries, I would have this one go on till we are reduced to wooden platters again, rather than surrender the principle to defend which it was undertaken. Though I believe Slavery to have been the cause of it, by so thoroughly demoralizing Northern politicks for its own purposes as to give opportunity and hope to treason, yet I would not have our thought and purpose diverted from their true object,—the maintenance of the idea of Government. We are not merely suppressing an enormous riot, but contending for the possibility of permanent order coexisting with democratical fickleness; and while I would not superstitiously venerate form to the sacrifice of substance, neither would I forget that an adherence to precedent and prescription can alone give that continuity and coherence under a democratical constitution which are inherent in the person of a despotick monarch and the selfishness of an aristocratieal class. Stet pro ratione voluntas is as dangerous in a majority as in a tyrant.

I cannot allow the present production of my young friend to go out without a protest from me against a certain extremeness in his views, more pardonable in the poet than in the philosopher. While I agree with him, that the only cure for rebellion is suppression by force, yet I must animadvert upon certain phrases where I seem to see a coincidence with a popular fallacy on the subject of compromise. On the one hand there are those who do not see that the vital principle of Government and the seminal principle of Law cannot properly be made a subject of compromise at all, and on the other those who are equally blind to the truth that without a compromise of individual opinions, interests, and even rights, no society would be possible. In medio tutissimus. For my own part, I would gladly—

Ef I a song or two could make Like rockets druv by their own burnin', All leap an' light, to leave a wake Men's hearts an' faces skyward turnin'!— But, it strikes me, 'tain't jest the time Fer stringin' words with settisfaction: Wut's wanted now's the silent rhyme 'Twixt upright Will an' downright Action.

Words, ef you keep 'em, pay their keep, But gabble's the short cut to ruin; 10 It's gratis, (gals half-price,) but cheap At no rate, ef it henders doin'; Ther' 's nothin' wuss, 'less 'tis to set A martyr-prem'um upon jawrin': Teapots git dangerous, ef you shet Their lids down on 'em with Fort Warren.

'Bout long enough it's ben discussed Who sot the magazine afire, An' whether, ef Bob Wickliffe bust, 'Twould scare us more or blow us higher. 20 D' ye spose the Gret Foreseer's plan Wuz settled fer him in town-meetin'? Or thet ther'd ben no Fall o' Man, Ef Adam'd on'y bit a sweetin'?

Oh, Jon'than, ef you want to be A rugged chap agin an' hearty, Go fer wutever'll hurt Jeff D., Nut wut'll boost up ary party. Here's hell broke loose, an' we lay flat With half the univarse a-singe-in', 30 Till Sen'tor This an' Gov'nor Thet Stop squabblin' fer the gardingingin.

It's war we're in, not politics; It's systems wrastlin' now, not parties; An' victory in the eend'll fix Where longest will an' truest heart is, An' wut's the Guv'ment folks about? Tryin' to hope ther' 's nothin' doin', An' look ez though they didn't doubt Sunthin' pertickler wuz a-brewin'. 40

Ther' 's critters yit thet talk an' act Fer wut they call Conciliation; They'd hand a buff'lo-drove a tract When they wuz madder than all Bashan. Conciliate? it jest means be kicked, No metter how they phrase an' tone it; It means thet we're to set down licked, Thet we're poor shotes an' glad to own it!

A war on tick's ez dear 'z the deuce, But it wun't leave no lastin' traces, 50 Ez 'twould to make a sneakin' truce Without no moral specie-basis: Ef greenbacks ain't nut jest the cheese, I guess ther' 's evils thet's extremer,— Fer instance,—shinplaster idees Like them put out by Gov'nor Seymour.

Last year, the Nation, at a word, When tremblin' Freedom cried to shield her, Flamed weldin' into one keen sword Waitin' an' longin' fer a wielder: A splendid flash!—but how'd the grasp 61 With sech a chance ez thet wuz tally? Ther' warn't no meanin' in our clasp,— Half this, half thet, all shilly-shally.

More men? More man! It's there we fail; Weak plans grow weaker yit by lengthenin': Wut use in addin' to the tail, When it's the head's in need o' strengthenin'? We wanted one thet felt all Chief From roots o' hair to sole o' stockin', 70 Square-sot with thousan'-ton belief In him an' us, ef earth went rockin'!

Ole Hick'ry wouldn't ha' stood see-saw 'Bout doin' things till they wuz done with,— He'd smashed the tables o' the Law In time o' need to load his gun with; He couldn't see but jest one side,— Ef his, 'twuz God's, an' thet wuz plenty; An' so his 'Forrards!' multiplied An army's fightin' weight by twenty. 80

But this 'ere histin', creak, creak, creak, Your cappen's heart up with a derrick, This tryin' to coax a lightnin'-streak Out of a half-discouraged hayrick, This hangin' on mont' arter mont' Fer one sharp purpose 'mongst the twitter,— I tell ye, it doos kind o' stunt The peth and sperit of a critter.

In six months where'll the People be, Ef leaders look on revolution 90 Ez though it wuz a cup o' tea,— Jest social el'ments in solution? This weighin' things doos wal enough When war cools down, an' comes to writin'; But while it's makin', the true stuff Is pison-mad, pig-headed fightin'.

Democ'acy gives every man The right to be his own oppressor; But a loose Gov'ment ain't the plan, Helpless ez spilled beans on a dresser: 100 I tell ye one thing we might larn From them smart critters, the Seceders,— Ef bein' right's the fust consarn, The 'fore-the-fust's cast-iron leaders.

But 'pears to me I see some signs Thet we're a-goin' to use our senses: Jeff druv us into these hard lines, An' ough' to bear his half th' expenses; Slavery's Secession's heart an' will, South, North, East, West, where'er you find it, 110 An' ef it drors into War's mill, D'ye say them thunder-stones sha'n't grind it?

D' ye s'pose, ef Jeff giv him a lick, Ole Hick'ry'd tried his head to sof'n So's 'twouldn't hurt thet ebony stick Thet's made our side see stars so of'n? 'No!' he'd ha' thundered, 'on your knees, An' own one flag, one road to glory! Soft-heartedness, in times like these, Shows sof'ness in the upper story!' 120

An' why should we kick up a muss About the Pres'dunt's proclamation? It ain't a-goin' to lib'rate us, Ef we don't like emancipation: The right to be a cussed fool Is safe from all devices human, It's common (ez a gin'l rule) To every critter born o' woman.

So we're all right, an' I, fer one, Don't think our cause'll lose in vally 130 By rammin' Scriptur' in our gun, An' gittin' Natur' fer an ally: Thank God, say I, fer even a plan To lift one human bein's level, Give one more chance to make a man, Or, anyhow, to spile a devil!

Not thet I'm one thet much expec' Millennium by express to-morrer; They will miscarry,—I rec'lec' Tu many on 'em, to my sorrer: Men ain't made angels in a day, 141 No matter how you mould an' labor 'em, Nor 'riginal ones, I guess, don't stay With Abe so of'n ez with Abraham.

The'ry thinks Fact a pooty thing, An' wants the banns read right ensuin'; But fact wun't noways wear the ring, 'Thout years o' settin' up an' wooin': Though, arter all, Time's dial-plate Marks cent'ries with the minute-finger, 150 An' Good can't never come tu late, Though it does seem to try an' linger.

An' come wut will, I think it's grand Abe's gut his will et last bloom-furnaced In trial-flames till it'll stand The strain o' bein' in deadly earnest: Thet's wut we want,—we want to know The folks on our side hez the bravery To b'lieve ez hard, come weal, come woe, In Freedom ez Jeff doos in Slavery. 160

Set the two forces foot to foot, An' every man knows who'll be winner, Whose faith in God hez ary root Thet goes down deeper than his dinner: Then 'twill be felt from pole to pole, Without no need o' proclamation, Earth's biggest Country's gut her soul An' risen up Earth's Greatest Nation!



No. VIII

KETTELOPOTOMACHIA

PRELIMINARY MOTE

[In the month of February, 1866, the editors of the 'Atlantic Monthly' received from the Rev. Mr. Hitchcock of Jaalam a letter enclosing the macaronic verses which follow, and promising to send more, if more should be communicated. 'They were rapped out on the evening of Thursday last past,' he says, 'by what claimed to be the spirit of my late predecessor in the ministry here, the Rev. Dr. Wilbur, through the medium of a young man at present domiciled in my family. As to the possibility of such spiritual manifestations, or whether they be properly so entitled, I express no opinion, as there is a division of sentiment on that subject in the parish, and many persons of the highest respectability in social standing entertain opposing views. The young man who was improved as a medium submitted himself to the experiment with manifest reluctance, and is still unprepared to believe in the authenticity of the manifestations. During his residence with me his deportment has always been exemplary; he has been constant in his attendance upon our family devotions and the public ministrations of the Word, and has more than once privately stated to me, that the latter had often brought him under deep concern of mind. The table is an ordinary quadrupedal one, weighing about thirty pounds, three feet seven inches and a half in height, four feet square on the top, and of beech or maple, I am not definitely prepared to say which. It had once belonged to my respected predecessor, and had been, so far as I can learn upon careful inquiry, of perfectly regular and correct habits up to the evening in question. On that occasion the young man previously alluded to had been sitting with his hands resting carelessly upon it, while I read over to him at his request certain portions of my last Sabbath's discourse. On a sudden the rappings, as they are called, commenced to render themselves audible, at first faintly, but in process of time more distinctly and with violent agitation of the table. The young man expressed himself both surprised and pained by the wholly unexpected, and, so far as he was concerned, unprecedented occurrence. At the earnest solicitation, however, of several who happened to be present, he consented to go on with the experiment, and with the assistance of the alphabet commonly employed in similar emergencies, the following communication was obtained and written down immediately by myself. Whether any, and if so, how much weight should be attached to it, I venture no decision. That Dr. Wilbur had sometimes employed his leisure in Latin versification I have ascertained to be the case, though all that has been discovered of that nature among his papers consists of some fragmentary passages of a version into hexameters of portions of the Song of Solomon. These I had communicated about a week or ten days previous[ly] to the young gentleman who officiated as medium in the communication afterwards received. I have thus, I believe, stated all the material facts that have any elucidative bearing upon this mysterious occurrence.'

So far Mr. Hitchcock, who seems perfectly master of Webster's unabridged quarto, and whose flowing style leads him into certain farther expatiations for which we have not room. We have since learned that the young man he speaks of was a sophomore, put under his care during a sentence of rustication from —— College, where he had distinguished himself rather by physical experiments on the comparative power of resistance in window-glass to various solid substances, than in the more regular studies of the place. In answer to a letter of inquiry, the professor of Latin says, 'There was no harm in the boy that I know of beyond his loving mischief more than Latin, nor can I think of any spirits likely to possess him except those commonly called animal. He was certainly not remarkable for his Latinity, but I see nothing in the verses you enclose that would lead me to think them beyond his capacity, or the result of any special inspiration whether of beech or maple. Had that of birch been tried upon him earlier and more faithfully, the verses would perhaps have been better in quality and certainly in quantity.' This exact and thorough scholar then goes on to point out many false quantities and barbarisms. It is but fair to say, however, that the author, whoever he was, seems not to have been unaware of some of them himself, as is shown by a great many notes appended to the verses as we received them, and purporting to be by Scaliger, Bentley, and others,—among them the Esprit de Voltaire! These we have omitted as clearly meant to be humorous and altogether failing therein.

Though entirely satisfied that the verses are altogether unworthy of Mr. Wilbur, who seems to Slave been a tolerable Latin scholar after the fashion of his day, yet we have determined to print them here, partly as belonging to the res gestae of this collection, and partly as a warning to their putative author which may keep him from such indecorous pranks for the future.]

KETTELOPOTOMACHIA

P. Ovidii Nasonis carmen heroicum macaronicum perplexametrum, inter Getas getico moro compostum, denuo per medium ardentispiritualem adjuvante mensa diabolice obsessa, recuperatum, curaque Jo. Conradi Schwarzii umbrae, allis necnon plurimis adjuvantibus, restitutum.

LIBER I

Punctorum garretos colens et cellara Quinque, Gutteribus quae et gaudes sunday-am abstingere frontem, Plerumque insidos solita fluitare liquore Tanglepedem quem homines appellant Di quoque rotgut, Pimpliidis, rubicundaque, Musa, O, bourbonolensque, Fenianas rixas procul, alma, brogipotentis Patricii cyathos iterantis et horrida bella, Backos dum virides viridis Brigitta remittit, Linquens, eximios celebrem, da, Virginienses Rowdes, praecipue et TE, heros alte, Polarde! 10 Insignes juvenesque, illo certamine lictos, Colemane, Tylere, nec vos oblivione relinquam.

Ampla aquilae invictae fausto est sub tegmine terra, Backyfer, ooiskeo pollens, ebenoque bipede, Socors praesidum et altrix (denique quidruminantium), Duplefveorum uberrima; illis et integre cordi est Deplere assidue et sine proprio incommodo fiscum; Nunc etiam placidum hoc opus invictique secuti, Goosam aureos ni eggos voluissent immo necare Quae peperit, saltem ac de illis meliora merentem. 20

Condidit hanc Smithius Dux, Captinus inclytus ille Regis Ulyssae instar, docti arcum intendere longum; Condidit ille Johnsmith, Virginiamque vocavit, Settledit autem Jacobus rex, nomine primus, Rascalis implens ruptis, blagardisque deboshtis, Militibusque ex Falstaffi legione fugatis Wenchisque illi quas poterant seducere nuptas; Virgineum, ah, littus matronis talibus impar! Progeniem stirpe ex hoc non sine stigmate ducunt Multi sese qui jactant regum esse nepotes: 30 Haud omnes, Mater, genitos quae nuper habebas Bello fortes, consilio cautos, virtute decoros, Jamque et habes, sparso si patrio in sanguine virtus, Mostrabisque iterum, antiquis sub astris reducta! De illis qui upkikitant, dicebam, rumpora tanta, Letcheris et Floydis magnisque Extra ordine Billis; Est his prisca fides jurare et breakere wordum: Poppere fellerum a tergo, aut stickere clam bowiknifo, Haud sane facinus, dignum sed victrice lauro; Larrupere et nigerum, factum praestantius ullo: 40 Ast chlamydem piciplumatam, Icariam, flito et ineptam, Yanko gratis induere, illum et valido railo Insuper acri equitare docere est hospitio uti.

Nescio an ille Polardus duplefveoribus ortus, Sed reputo potius de radice poorwitemanorum; Fortuiti proles, ni fallor, Tylerus erat Praesidis, omnibus ab Whiggis nominatus a poor cuss; Et nobilem tertium evincit venerabile nomen. Ast animosi omnes bellique ad tympana ha! ha! Vociferant laeti, procul et si proelia, sive 50 Hostem incautum atsito possint shootere salvi; Imperiique capaces, esset si stylus agmen, Pro dulci spoliabant et sine dangere fito. Prae ceterisque Polardus: si Secessia licta, Se nunquam licturum jurat res et unheardof, Verbo haesit, similisque audaci roosteri invicto, Dunghilli solitus rex pullos whoppere molles, Grantum, hirelingos stripes quique et splendida tollunt Sidera, et Yankos, territum et omnem sarsuit orbem.

Usque dabant operam isti omnes, noctesque diesque, 60 Samuelem demulgere avunculum, id vero siccum; Uberibus sed ejus, et horum est culpa, remotis, Parvam domi vaccam, nec mora minima, quaerunt, Lacticarentem autem et droppam vix in die dantem; Reddite avunculi, et exclamabant, reddite pappam! Polko ut consule, gemens, Billy immurmurat Extra; Echo respondit, thesauro ex vacuo, pappam! Frustra explorant pocketa, ruber nare repertum; Officia expulsi aspiciunt rapta, et Paradisum Occlusum, viridesque Laud illis nascere backos; 70 Stupent tunc oculis madidis spittantque silenter. Adhibere usu ast longo vires prorsus inepti, Si non ut qui grindeat axve trabemve reuolvat, Virginiam excruciant totis nunc mightibu' matrem; Non melius, puta, nono panis dimidiumne est?

Readere ibi non posse est casus commoner ullo; Tanto intentius imprimere est opus ergo statuta; Nemo propterea pejor, melior, sine doubto, Obtineat qui contractum, si et postea rhino; Ergo Polardus, si quis, inexsuperabilis heros, 80 Colemanus impavidus nondum, atque in purpure natus Tylerus Iohanides celerisque in flito Nathaniel, Quisque optans digitos in tantum stickere pium, Adstant accincti imprimere aut perrumpere leges: Quales os miserum rabidi tres aegre molossi, Quales aut dubium textum atra in veste ministri, Tales circumstabant nunc nostri inopes hoc job.

Hisque Polardus voce canoro talia fatus: Primum autem, veluti est mos, praeceps quisque liquorat, Quisque et Nicotianum ingens quid inserit atrum, 90 Heroum nitidum decus et solamen avitum, Masticat ac simul altisonans, spittatque profuse: Quis de Virginia meruit praestantius unquam? Quis se pro patria curavit impigre tutum? Speechisque articulisque hominum quis fortior ullus, Ingeminans pennae lickos et vulnera vocis? Quisnam putidius (hic) sarsuit Yankinimicos, Saepius aut dedit ultro datam et broke his parolam? Mente inquassatus solidaque, tyranno minante, Horrisonis (hic) bombis moenia et alta quatente, 100 Sese promptum (hic) jactans Yankos lickere centum, Atque ad lastum invictus non surrendidit unquam? Ergo haud meddlite, posco, mique relinquite (hic) hoc job, Si non—knifumque enormem mostrat spittatque tremendus.

Dixerat: ast alii reliquorant et sine pauso Pluggos incumbunt maxillis, uterque vicissim Certamine innocuo valde madidam inquinat assem: Tylerus autem, dumque liquorat aridus hostis, Mirum aspicit duplumque bibentem, astante Lyaeo; Ardens impavidusque edidit tamen impia verba; 110 Duplum quamvis te aspicio, esses atque viginti, Mendacem dicerem totumque (hic) thrasherem acervum; Nempe et thrasham, doggonatus (hic) sim nisi faxem; Lambastabo omnes catawompositer-(hic) que chawam! Dixit et impulsus Ryeo ruitur bene titus, Illi nam gravidum caput et laterem habet in hatto.

Hunc inhiat titubansque Polardus, optat et illum Stickere inermem, protegit autem rite Lyaeus, Et pronos geminos, oculis dubitantibus, heros Cernit et irritus hostes, dumque excogitat utrum 120 Primum inpitchere, corruit, inter utrosque recumbit, Magno asino similis nimio sub pondere quassus: Colemanus hos moestus, triste ruminansque solamen, Inspicit hiccans, circumspittat terque cubantes; Funereisque his ritibus humidis inde solutis, Sternitur, invalidusque illis superincidit infans; Hos sepelit somnus et snorunt cornisonantes, Watchmanus inscios ast calybooso deinde reponit.



No. IX

[The Editors of the 'Atlantic' have received so many letters of inquiry concerning the literary remains of the late Mr. Wilbur, mentioned by his colleague and successor, Rev. Jeduthun Hitchcock, in a communication from which we made some extracts in our number for February, 1863, and have been so repeatedly urged to print some part of them for the gratification of the public, that they felt it their duty at least to make some effort to satisfy so urgent a demand. They have accordingly carefully examined the papers intrusted to them, but find most of the productions of Mr. Wilbur's pen so fragmentary, and even chaotic, written as they are on the backs of letters in an exceedingly cramped chirography,—here a memorandum for a sermon; there an observation of the weather; now the measurement of an extraordinary head of cabbage, and then of the cerebral capacity of some reverend brother deceased; a calm inquiry into the state of modern literature, ending in a method of detecting if milk be impoverished with water, and the amount thereof; one leaf beginning with a genealogy, to be interrupted halfway down with an entry that the brindle cow had calved,—that any attempts at selection seemed desperate. His only complete work, 'An Enquiry concerning the Tenth Horn of the Beast,' even in the abstract of it given by Mr. Hitchcock, would, by a rough computation of the printers, fill five entire numbers of our journal, and as he attempts, by a new application of decimal fractions, to identify it with the Emperor Julian, seems hardly of immediate concern to the general reader. Even the Table-Talk, though doubtless originally highly interesting in the domestic circle, is so largely made up of theological discussion and matters of local or preterite interest, that we have found it hard to extract anything that would at all satisfy expectation. But, in order to silence further inquiry, we subjoin a few passages as illustrations of its general character.]

I think I could go near to be a perfect Christian if I were always a visitor, as I have sometimes been, at the house of some hospitable friend. I can show a great deal of self-denial where the best of everything is urged upon me with kindly importunity. It is not so very hard to turn the other cheek for a kiss. And when I meditate upon the pains taken for our entertainment in this life, on the endless variety of seasons, of human character and fortune, on the costliness of the hangings and furniture of our dwelling here, I sometimes feel a singular joy in looking upon myself as God's guest, and cannot but believe that we should all be wiser and happier, because more grateful, if we were always mindful of our privilege in this regard. And should we not rate more cheaply any honor that men could pay us, if we remembered that every day we sat at the table of the Great King? Yet must we not forget that we are in strictest bonds His servants also; for there is no impiety so abject as that which expects to be deadheaded (ut ita dicam) through life, and which, calling itself trust in Providence, is in reality asking Providence to trust us and taking up all our goods on false pretences. It is a wise rule to take the world as we find it, not always to leave it so.

It has often set me thinking when I find that I can always pick up plenty of empty nuts under my shagbark-tree. The squirrels know them by their lightness, and I have seldom seen one with the marks of their teeth in it. What a school-house is the world, if our wits would only not play truant! For I observe that men set most store by forms and symbols in proportion as they are mere shells. It is the outside they want and not the kernel. What stores of such do not many, who in material things are as shrewd as the squirrels, lay up for the spiritual winter-supply of themselves and their children! I have seen churches that seemed to me garners of these withered nuts, for it is wonderful how prosaic is the apprehension of symbols by the minds of most men. It is not one sect nor another, but all, who, like the dog of the fable, have let drop the spiritual substance of symbols for their material shadow. If one attribute miraculous virtues to mere holy water, that beautiful emblem of inward purification at the door of God's house, another cannot comprehend the significance of baptism without being ducked over head and ears in the liquid vehicle thereof.

[Perhaps a word of historical comment may be permitted here. My late reverend predecessor was, I would humbly affirm, as free from prejudice as falls to the lot of the most highly favored individuals of our species. To be sure, I have heard Him say that 'what were called strong prejudices were in fact only the repulsion of sensitive organizations from that moral and even physical effluvium through which some natures by providential appointment, like certain unsavory quadrupeds, gave warning of their neighborhood. Better ten mistaken suspicions of this kind than one close encounter.' This he said somewhat in heat, on being questioned as to his motives for always refusing his pulpit to those itinerant professors of vicarious benevolence who end their discourses by taking up a collection. But at another time I remember his saying, 'that there was one large thing which small minds always found room for, and that was great prejudices.' This, however, by the way. The statement which I purposed to make was simply this. Down to A.D. 1830, Jaalam had consisted of a single parish, with one house set apart for religions services. In that year the foundations of a Baptist Society were laid by the labors of Elder Joash Q. Balcom, 2d. As the members of the new body were drawn from the First Parish, Mr. Wilbur was for a time considerably exercised in mind. He even went so far as on one occasion to follow the reprehensible practice of the earlier Puritan divines in choosing a punning text, and preached from Hebrews xiii, 9: 'Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines.' He afterwards, in accordance with one of his own maxims,—'to get a dead injury out of the mind as soon as is decent, bury it, and then ventilate,'—in accordance with this maxim, I say, he lived on very friendly terms with Rev. Shearjashub Scrimgour, present pastor of the Baptist Society in Jaalam. Yet I think it was never unpleasing to him that the church edifice of that society (though otherwise a creditable specimen of architecture) remained without a bell, as indeed it does to this day. So much seemed necessary to do away with any appearance of acerbity toward a respectable community of professing Christians, which might be suspected in the conclusion of the above paragraph.—J.H.]

In lighter moods he was not averse from an innocent play upon words. Looking up from his newspaper one morning, as I entered his study, he said, 'When I read a debate in Congress, I feel as if I were sitting at the feet of Zeno in the shadow of the Portico.' On my expressing a natural surprise, he added, smiling, 'Why, at such times the only view which honorable members give me of what goes on in the world is through their intercalumniations.' I smiled at this after a moment's reflection, and he added gravely, 'The most punctilious refinement of manners is the only salt that will keep a democracy from stinking; and what are we to expect from the people, if their representatives set them such lessons? Mr. Everett's whole life has been a sermon from this text. There was, at least, this advantage in duelling, that it set a certain limit on the tongue. When Society laid by the rapier, it buckled on the more subtle blade of etiquette wherewith to keep obtrusive vulgarity at bay.' In this connection, I may be permitted to recall a playful remark of his upon another occasion. The painful divisions in the First Parish, A.D. 1844, occasioned by the wild notions in respect to the rights of (what Mr. Wilbur, so far as concerned the reasoning faculty, always called) the unfairer part of creation, put forth by Miss Parthenia Almira Fitz, are too well known to need more than a passing allusion. It was during these heats, long since happily allayed, that Mr. Wilbur remarked that 'the Church had more trouble in dealing with one sheresiarch than with twenty heresiarchs,' and that the men's conscia recti, or certainty of being right, was nothing to the women's.

When I once asked his opinion of a poetical composition on which I had expended no little pains, he read it attentively, and then remarked 'Unless one's thought pack more neatly in verse than in prose, it is wiser to refrain. Commonplace gains nothing by being translated into rhyme, for it is something which no hocus-pocus can transubstantiate with the real presence of living thought. You entitle your piece, "My Mother's Grave," and expend four pages of useful paper in detailing your emotions there. But, my dear sir, watering does not improve the quality of ink, even though you should do it with tears. To publish a sorrow to Tom, Dick, and Harry is in some sort to advertise its unreality, for I have observed in my intercourse with the afflicted that the deepest grief instinctively hides its face with its hands and is silent. If your piece were printed, I have no doubt it would be popular, for people like to fancy that they feel much better than the trouble of feeling. I would put all poets on oath whether they have striven to say everything they possibly could think of, or to leave out all they could not help saying. In your own case, my worthy young friend, what you have written is merely a deliberate exercise, the gymnastic of sentiment. For your excellent maternal relative is still alive, and is to take tea with me this evening, D.V. Beware of simulated feeling; it is hypocrisy's first cousin; it is especially dangerous to a preacher; for he who says one day, "Go to, let me seem to be pathetic," may be nearer than he thinks to saying, "Go to, let me seem to be virtuous, or earnest, or under sorrow for sin." Depend upon it, Sappho loved her verses more sincerely than she did Phaon, and Petrarch his sonnets better than Laura, who was indeed but his poetical stalking-horse. After you shall have once heard that muffled rattle of clods on the coffin-lid of an irreparable loss, you will grow acquainted with a pathos that will make all elegies hateful. When I was of your age, I also for a time mistook my desire to write verses for an authentic call of my nature in that direction. But one day as I was going forth for a walk, with my head full of an "Elegy on the Death of Flirtilla," and vainly groping after a rhyme for lily that should not be silly or chilly, I saw my eldest boy Homer busy over the rain-water hogshead, in that childish experiment at parthenogenesis, the changing a horse-hair into a water-snake. All immersion of six weeks showed no change in the obstinate filament. Here was a stroke of unintended sarcasm. Had I not been doing in my study precisely what my boy was doing out of doors? Had my thoughts any more chance of coming to life by being submerged in rhyme than his hair by soaking in water? I burned my elegy and took a course of Edwards on the Will. People do not make poetry; it is made out of them by a process for which I do not find myself fitted. Nevertheless, the writing of verses is a good rhetorical exercitation, as teaching us what to shun most carefully in prose. For prose bewitched is like window-glass with bubbles in it, distorting what it should show with pellucid veracity.'

It is unwise to insist on doctrinal points as vital to religion. The Bread of Life is wholesome and sufficing in itself, but gulped down with these kickshaws cooked up by theologians, it is apt to produce an indigestion, nay, eyen at last an incurable dyspepsia of scepticism.

One of the most inexcusable weaknesses of Americans is in signing their names to what are called credentials. But for my interposition, a person who shall be nameless would have taken from this town a recommendation for an office of trust subscribed by the selectmen and all the voters of both parties, ascribing to him as many good qualities as if it had been his tombstone. The excuse was that it would be well for the town to be rid of him, as it would erelong be obliged to maintain him. I would not refuse my name to modest merit, but I would be as cautious as in signing a bond. [I trust I shall be subjected to no imputation of unbecoming vanity, if I mention the fact that Mr. W. indorsed my own qualifications as teacher of the high-school at Pequash Junction. J.H.] When I see a certificate of character with everybody's name to it, I regard it as a letter of introduction from the Devil. Never give a man your name unless you are willing to trust him with your reputation.

There seem nowadays to be two sources of literary inspiration,—fulness of mind and emptiness of pocket.

I am often struck, especially in reading Montaigne, with the obviousness and familiarity of a great writer's thoughts, and the freshness they gain because said by him. The truth is, we mix their greatness with all they say and give it our best attention. Johannes Faber sic cogitavit would be no enticing preface to a book, but an accredited name gives credit like the signature to a note of hand. It is the advantage of fame that it is always privileged to take the world by the button, and a thing is weightier for Shakespeare's uttering it by the whole amount of his personality.

It is singular how impatient men are with overpraise of others, how patient with overpraise of themselves; and yet the one does them no injury while the other may he their ruin.

People are apt to confound mere alertness of mind with attention. The one is but the flying abroad of all the faculties to the open doors and windows at every passing rumor; the other is the concentration of every one of them in a single focus, as in the alchemist over his alembic at the moment of expected projection. Attention is the stuff that memory is made of, and memory is accumulated genius.

Do not look for the Millennium as imminent. One generation is apt to get all the wear it can out of the cast clothes of the last, and is always sure to use up every paling of the old fence that will hold a nail in building the new.

You suspect a kind of vanity in my genealogical enthusiasm. Perhaps you are right; but it is a universal foible. Where it does not show itself in a personal and private way, it becomes public and gregarious. We flatter ourselves in the Pilgrim Fathers, and the Virginian offshoot of a transported convict swells with the fancy ef a cavalier ancestry. Pride of birth, I have noticed, takes two forms. One complacently traces himself up to a coronet; another, defiantly, to a lapstone. The sentiment is precisely the same in both cases, only that one is the positive and the other the negative pole of it.

Seeing a goat the other day kneeling in order to graze with less trouble, it seemed to me a type of the common notion of prayer. Most people are ready enough to go down on their knees for material blessings, but how few for those spiritual gifts which alone are an answer to our orisons, if we but knew it!

Some people, nowadays, seem to have hit upon a new moralization of the moth and the candle. They would lock up the light of Truth, lest poor Psyche should put it out in her effort to draw nigh, to it.



No. X

MR. HOSEA BIGLOW TO THE EDITOR OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY

DEAR SIR,—Your letter come to han' Requestin' me to please be funny; But I ain't made upon a plan Thet knows wut's comin', gall or honey: Ther' 's times the world does look so queer, Odd fancies come afore I call 'em; An' then agin, for half a year, No preacher 'thout a call's more solemn.

You're 'n want o' sunthin' light an' cute, Rattlin' an' shrewd an' kin' o' jingleish, 10 An' wish, pervidin' it 'ould suit, I'd take an' citify my English. I ken write long-tailed, ef I please,— But when I'm jokin', no, I thankee; Then, fore I know it, my idees Run helter-skelter into Yankee.

Sence I begun to scribble rhyme, I tell ye wut, I hain't ben foolin'; The parson's books, life, death, an' time Hev took some trouble with my schoolin'; 20 Nor th' airth don't git put out with me, Thet love her 'z though she wuz a woman; Why, th' ain't a bird upon the tree But half forgives my bein' human.

An' yit I love th' unhighschooled way Ol' farmers hed when I wuz younger; Their talk wuz meatier, an' 'ould stay, While book-froth seems to whet your hunger; For puttin' in a downright lick 'twixt Humbug's eyes, ther' 's few can metch it, 30 An' then it helves my thoughts ez slick Ez stret-grained hickory does a hetchet.

But when I can't, I can't, thet's all, For Natur' won't put up with gullin'; Idees you hev to shove an' haul Like a druv pig ain't wuth a mullein: Live thoughts ain't sent for; thru all rifts O' sense they pour an' resh ye onwards, Like rivers when south-lyin' drifts Feel thet th' old arth's a-wheelin' sunwards. 40

Time wuz, the rhymes come crowdin' thick Ez office-seekers arter 'lection, An' into ary place 'ould stick Without no bother nor objection; But sence the war my thoughts hang back Ez though I wanted to enlist 'em, An' subs'tutes,—they don't never lack, But then they'll slope afore you've mist 'em.

Nothin' don't seem like wut it wuz; I can't see wut there is to hender, 50 An' yit my brains jes' go buzz, buzz, Like bumblebees agin a winder; 'fore these times come, in all airth's row, Ther' wuz one quiet place, my head in, Where I could hide an' think,—but now It's all one teeter, hopin', dreadin'.

Where's Peace? I start, some clear-blown night, When gaunt stone walls grow numb an' number, An' creakin' 'cross the snow-crus' white, Walk the col' starlight into summer; 60 Up grows the moon, an' swell by swell Thru the pale pasturs silvers dimmer Than the last smile thet strives to tell O' love gone heavenward in its shimmer.

I hev been gladder o' sech things Than cocks o' spring or bees o' clover, They filled my heart with livin' springs, But now they seem to freeze 'em over; Sights innercent ez babes on knee, Peaceful ez eyes o' pastur'd cattle, 70 Jes' coz they be so, seem to me To rile me more with thoughts o' battle.

Indoors an' out by spells I try; Ma'am Natur' keeps her spin-wheel goin', But leaves my natur' stiff and dry Ez fiel's o' clover arter mowin'; An' her jes' keepin' on the same, Calmer 'n a clock, an' never carin' An' findin' nary thing to blame, Is wus than ef she took to swearin'. 80

Snow-flakes come whisperin' on the pane The charm makes blazin' logs so pleasant, But I can't hark to wut they're say'n', With Grant or Sherman ollers present; The chimbleys shudder in the gale, Thet lulls, then suddin takes to flappin' Like a shot hawk, but all's ez stale To me ez so much sperit-rappin'.

Under the yaller-pines I house, When sunshine makes 'em all sweet-scented, 90 An' hear among their furry boughs The baskin' west-wind purr contented, While 'way o'erhead, ez sweet an' low Ez distant bells thet ring for meetin', The wedged wil' geese their bugles blow, Further an' further South retreatin'.

Or up the slippery knob I strain An' see a hundred hills like islan's Lift their blue woods in broken chain Out o' the sea o' snowy silence; 100 The farm-smokes, sweetes' sight on airth, Slow thru the winter air a-shrinkin' Seem kin' o' sad, an' roun' the hearth Of empty places set me thinkin'.

Beaver roars hoarse with meltin' snows, An' rattles di'mon's from his granite; Time wuz, he snatched away my prose, An' into psalms or satires ran it; But he, nor all the rest thet once Started my blood to country-dances, 110 Can't set me goin' more 'n a dunce Thet hain't no use for dreams an' fancies.

Rat-tat-tat-tattle thru the street I hear the drummers makin' riot, An' I set thinkin' o' the feet Thet follered once an' now are quiet,— White feet ez snowdrops innercent, Thet never knowed the paths o' Satan, Whose comin' step ther' 's ears thet won't, No, not lifelong, leave off awaitin', 120

Why, hain't I held 'em on my knee? Didn't I love to see 'em growin', Three likely lads ez wal could be, Hahnsome an' brave an' not tu knowin'? I set an' look into the blaze Whose natur', jes' like theirn, keeps climbin', Ez long 'z it lives, in shinin' ways, An' half despise myself for rhymin'.

Wut's words to them whose faith an' truth On War's red techstone rang true metal, 130 Who ventered life an' love an' youth For the gret prize o' death in battle? To him who, deadly hurt, agen Flashed on afore the charge's thunder, Tippin' with fire the bolt of men Thet rived the Rebel line asunder?

'Tain't right to hev the young go fust, All throbbin' full o' gifts an' graces, Leavin' life's paupers dry ez dust To try an' make b'lieve fill their places: 140 Nothin' but tells us wut we miss, Ther' 's gaps our lives can't never fay in, An' thet world seems so fur from this Lef' for us loafers to grow gray in!

My eyes cloud up for rain; my mouth Will take to twitchin' roun' the corners; I pity mothers, tu, down South, For all they sot among the scorners: I'd sooner take my chance to stan' At Jedgment where your meanest slave is, 150 Than at God's bar hol' up a han' Ez drippin' red ez yourn, Jeff Davis!

Come, Peace! not like a mourner bowed For honor lost an' dear ones wasted, But proud, to meet a people proud, With eyes thet tell o' triumph tasted! Come, with han' grippin' on the hilt, An' step thet proves ye Victory's daughter! Longin' for you, our sperits wilt Like shipwrecked men's on raf's for water. 160

Come, while our country feels the lift Of a gret instinct shoutin' 'Forwards!' An' knows thet freedom ain't a gift Thet tarries long in han's o' cowards! Come, sech ez mothers prayed for, when They kissed their cross with lips thet quivered, An' bring fair wages for brave men, A nation saved, a race delivered!



No. XI

MR. HOSEA BIGLOW'S SPEECH IN MARCH MEETING

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY

JAALAM, April 5, 1866.

MY DEAR SIR,—

(an' noticin' by your kiver thet you're some dearer than wut you wuz, I enclose the deffrence) I dunno ez I know Jest how to interdoose this las' perduction of my mews, ez Parson Wilber allus called 'em, which is goin' to be the last an' stay the last onless sunthin' pertikler sh'd interfear which I don't expec' ner I wun't yield tu ef it wuz ez pressin' ez a deppity Shiriff. Sence Mr. Wilbur's disease I hevn't hed no one thet could dror out my talons. He ust to kind o' wine me up an' set the penderlum agoin' an' then somehow I seemed to go on tick as it wear tell I run down, but the noo minister ain't of the same brewin' nor I can't seem to git ahold of no kine of huming nater in him but sort of slide rite off as you du on the eedge of a mow. Minnysteeril natur is wal enough an' a site better'n most other kines I know on, but the other sort sech as Welbor hed wuz of the Lord's makin' an' naterally more wonderfle an' sweet tastin' leastways to me so fur as heerd from. He used to interdooce 'em smooth ez ile athout sayin' nothin' in pertickler an' I misdoubt he didn't set so much by the sec'nd Ceres as wut he done by the Fust, fact, he let on onct thet his mine misgive him of a sort of fallin' off in spots. He wuz as outspoken as a norwester he wuz, but I tole him I hoped the fall wuz from so high up thet a feller could ketch a good many times fust afore comin' bunt onto the ground as I see Jethro C. Swett from the meetin' house steeple up to th' old perrish, an' took up for dead but he's alive now an' spry as wut you be. Turnin' of it over I recelected how they ust to put wut they called Argymunce onto the frunts of poymns, like poorches afore housen whare you could rest ye a spell whilst you wuz concludin' whether you'd go in or nut espeshully ware tha wuz darters, though I most allus found it the best plen to go in fust an' think afterwards an' the gals likes it best tu. I dno as speechis ever hez any argimunts to 'em, I never see none thet hed an' I guess they never du but tha must allus be a B'ginnin' to everythin' athout it is Etarnity so I'll begin rite away an' anybody may put it afore any of his speeches ef it soots an' welcome. I don't claim no paytent.

THE ARGYMUNT

Interducshin, w'ich may be skipt. Begins by talkin' about himself: thet's jest natur an' most gin'ally allus pleasin', I b'leeve I've notist, to one of the cumpany, an' thet's more than wut you can say of most speshes of talkin'. Nex' comes the gittin' the goodwill of the orjunce by lettin' 'em gether from wut you kind of ex'dentally let drop thet they air about East, A one, an' no mistaik, skare 'em up an' take 'em as they rise. Spring interdooced with a fiew approput flours. Speach finally begins witch nobuddy needn't feel obolygated to read as I never read 'em an' never shell this one ag'in. Subjick staited; expanded; delayted; extended. Pump lively. Subjick staited ag'in so's to avide all mistaiks. Ginnle remarks; continooed; kerried on; pushed furder; kind o' gin out. Subjick restaited; dielooted; stirred up permiscoous. Pump ag'in. Gits back to where he sot out. Can't seem to stay thair. Ketches into Mr. Seaward's hair. Breaks loose ag'in an' staits his subjick; stretches it; turns it; folds it; onfolds it; folds it ag'in so's't, no one can't find it. Argoos with an imedginary bean thet ain't aloud to say nothin' in replye. Gives him a real good dressin' an' is settysfide he's rite. Gits into Johnson's hair. No use tryin' to git into his head. Gives it up. Hez to stait his subjick ag'in; doos it back'ards, sideways, eendways, criss-cross, bevellin', noways. Gits finally red on it. Concloods. Concloods more. Reads some xtrax. Sees his subjick a-nosin' round arter him ag'in. Tries to avide it. Wun't du. Misstates it. Can't conjectur' no other plawsable way of staytin' on it. Tries pump. No fx. Finely concloods to conclood. Yeels the flore.

You kin spall an' punctooate thet as you please. I allus do, it kind of puts a noo soot of close onto a word, thisere funattick spellin' doos an' takes 'em out of the prissen dress they wair in the Dixonary. Ef I squeeze the cents out of 'em it's the main thing, an' wut they wuz made for: wut's left's jest pummis.

Mistur Wilbur sez he to me onct, sez he, 'Hosee,' sez he, 'in litterytoor the only good thing is Natur. It's amazin' hard to come at,' sez he, 'but onct git it an' you've gut everythin'. Wut's the sweetest small on airth?' sez he. 'Noomone hay,' sez I, pooty bresk, for he wuz allus hankerin' round in hayin'. 'Nawthin' of the kine,' sez he. 'My leetle Huldy's breath,' sez I ag'in. 'You're a good lad,' sez he, his eyes sort of ripplin' like, for he lost a babe onct nigh about her age,—'you're a good lad; but 'tain't thet nuther,' sez he. 'Ef you want to know,' sez he, 'open your winder of a mornin' et ary season, and you'll larn thet the best of perfooms is jest fresh air, fresh air,' sez he, emphysizin', 'athout no mixtur. Thet's wut I call natur in writin', and it bathes my lungs and washes 'em sweet whenever I git a whiff on 't.' sez he. I often think o' thet when I set down to write but the winders air so ept to git stuck, an' breakin' a pane costs sunthin'.

Yourn for the last time,

Nut to be continooed,

HOSEA BIGLOW.

I don't much s'pose, hows'ever I should plen it, I could git boosted into th' House or Sennit,— Nut while the twolegged gab-machine's so plenty, 'nablin' one man to du the talk o' twenty; I'm one o' them thet finds it ruther hard To mannyfactur' wisdom by the yard, An' maysure off, accordin' to demand, The piece-goods el'kence that I keep on hand, The same ole pattern runnin' thru an' thru, An' nothin' but the customer thet's new. 10 I sometimes think, the furder on I go, Thet it gits harder to feel sure I know, An' when I've settled my idees, I find 'twarn't I sheered most in makin' up my mind; 'twuz this an' thet an' t'other thing thet done it, Sunthin' in th' air, I couldn' seek nor shun it. Mos' folks go off so quick now in discussion, All th' ole flint-locks seems altered to percussion, Whilst I in agin' sometimes git a hint, Thet I'm percussion changin' back to flint; 20 Wal, ef it's so, I ain't agoin' to werrit, For th' ole Queen's-arm hez this pertickler merit,— It gives the mind a hahnsome wedth o' margin To kin' o make its will afore dischargin': I can't make out but jest one ginnle rule,— No man need go an' make himself a fool, Nor jedgment ain't like mutton, thet can't bear Cookin' tu long, nor be took up tu rare.

Ez I wuz say'n', I hain't no chance to speak So's't all the country dreads me onct a week, 30 But I've consid'ble o' thet sort o' head Thet sets to home an' thinks wut might be said, The sense thet grows an' werrits underneath, Comin' belated like your wisdom-teeth, An' git so el'kent, sometimes, to my gardin Thet I don' vally public life a fardin'. Our Parson Wilbur (blessin's on his head!) 'mongst other stories of ole times he hed, Talked of a feller thet rehearsed his spreads Beforehan' to his rows o' kebbige-heads, 40 (Ef 'twarn't Demossenes, I guess 'twuz Sisro,) Appealin' fust to thet an' then to this row, Accordin' ez he thought thet his idees Their diff'runt ev'riges o' brains 'ould please; 'An',' sez the Parson, 'to hit right, you must Git used to maysurin' your hearers fust; For, take my word for 't, when all's come an' past, The kebbige-heads'll cair the day et last; Th' ain't ben a meetin' sence the worl' begun But they made (raw or biled ones) ten to one.' 50

I've allus foun' 'em, I allow, sence then About ez good for talkin' tu ez men; They'll take edvice, like other folks, to keep, (To use it 'ould be holdin' on 't tu cheap,) They listen wal, don' kick up when you scold 'em, An' ef they've tongues, hev sense enough to hold 'em; Though th' ain't no denger we shall lose the breed, I gin'lly keep a score or so for seed, An' when my sappiness gits spry in spring, So's't my tongue itches to run on full swing, 60 I fin' 'em ready-planted in March-meetin', Warm ez a lyceum-audience in their greetin', An' pleased to hear my spoutin' frum the fence,— Comin', ez 't doos, entirely free 'f expense. This year I made the follerin' observations Extrump'ry, like most other tri'ls o' patience, An', no reporters bein' sent express To work their abstrac's up into a mess Ez like th' oridg'nal ez a woodcut pictur' Thet chokes the life out like a boy-constrictor, 70 I've writ 'em out, an' so avide all jeal'sies 'twixt nonsense o' my own an' some one's else's.

(N.B. Reporters gin'lly git a hint To make dull orjunces seem 'live in print, An', ez I hev t' report myself, I vum, I'll put th' applauses where they'd ough' to come!)

MY FELLER KEBBIGE-HEADS, who look so green, I vow to gracious thet ef I could dreen The world of all its hearers but jest you, 'twould leave 'bout all tha' is wuth talkin' to, 80 An' you, my ven'able ol' frien's, thet show Upon your crowns a sprinklin' o' March snow, Ez ef mild Time had christened every sense For wisdom's church o' second innocence. Nut Age's winter, no, no sech a thing, But jest a kin' o' slippin'-back o' spring,— [Sev'ril noses blowed.] We've gathered here, ez ushle, to decide Which is the Lord's an' which is Satan's side, Coz all the good or evil thet can heppen Is 'long o' which on 'em you choose for Cappen. [Cries o' 'Thet's so.']

Aprul's come back; the swellin' buds of oak 91 Dim the fur hillsides with a purplish smoke; The brooks are loose an', singing to be seen, (Like gals,) make all the hollers soft an' green; The birds are here, for all the season's late; They take the sun's height an' don' never wait; Soon 'z he officially declares it's spring Their light hearts lift 'em on a north'ard wing, An' th' ain't an acre, fur ez you can hear, Can't by the music tell the time o' year; 100 But thet white dove Carliny seared away, Five year ago, jes' sech an Aprul day; Peace, that we hoped 'ould come an' build last year An' coo by every housedoor, isn't here,— No, nor wun't never be, for all our jaw, Till we're ez brave in pol'tics ez in war! O Lord, ef folks wuz made so's't they could see The begnet-pint there is to an idee! [Sensation.] Ten times the danger in 'em th' is in steel; They run your soul thru an' you never feel, 110 But crawl about an' seem to think you're livin', Poor shells o' men, nut wuth the Lord's forgivin', Tell you come bunt ag'in a real live feet, An' go to pieces when you'd ough' to ect! Thet kin' o' begnet's wut we're crossin' now, An' no man, fit to nevvigate a scow, 'ould stan' expectin' help from Kingdom Come, While t'other side druv their cold iron home.

My frien's, you never gethered from my mouth, No, nut one word ag'in the South ez South, 120 Nor th' ain't a livin' man, white, brown, nor black, Gladder 'n wut I should be to take 'em back; But all I ask of Uncle Sam is fust To write up on his door, 'No goods on trust'; [Cries o' 'Thet's the ticket!'] Give us cash down in ekle laws for all, An' they'll be snug inside afore nex' fall. Give wut they ask, an' we shell hev Jamaker, Wuth minus some consid'able an acre; Give wut they need, an' we shell git 'fore long A nation all one piece, rich, peacefle, strong; 130 Make 'em Amerikin, an' they'll begin To love their country ez they loved their sin; Let 'em stay Southun, an' you've kep' a sore Ready to fester ez it done afore. No mortle man can boast of perfic' vision, But the one moleblin' thing is Indecision, An' th' ain't no futur' for the man nor state Thet out of j-u-s-t can't spell great. Some folks 'ould call thet reddikle, do you? 'Twas commonsense afore the war wuz thru; 140 Thet loaded all our guns an' made 'em speak So's't Europe heared 'em clearn acrost the creek; 'They're drivin' o' their spiles down now,' sez she, 'To the hard grennit o' God's fust idee; Ef they reach thet, Democ'cy needn't fear The tallest airthquakes we can git up here.' Some call 't insultin' to ask ary pledge, An' say 'twill only set their teeth on edge, But folks you've jest licked, fur 'z I ever see, Are 'bout ez mad 'z they wal know how to be; 150 It's better than the Rebs themselves expected 'fore they see Uncle Sam wilt down henpected; Be kind 'z you please, but fustly make things fast, For plain Truth's all the kindness thet'll last; Ef treason is a crime, ez some folks say, How could we punish it in a milder way Than sayin' to 'em, 'Brethren, lookee here, We'll jes' divide things with ye, sheer an' sheer, An' sence both come o' pooty strong-backed daddies, You take the Darkies, ez we've took the Paddies; 160 Ign'ant an' poor we took 'em by the hand, An' they're the bones an' sinners o' the land,' I ain't o' them thet fancy there's a loss on Every inves'ment thet don't start from Bos'on; But I know this: our money's safest trusted In sunthin', come wut will, thet can't be busted, An' thet's the old Amerikin idee, To make a man a Man an' let him be. [Gret applause.]