HENRY W. SHAW.
“Josh Billings,†the far-famed writer of Yankee proverbs, is over sixty years of age, yet hale and rather hearty. He was born in western Massachusetts, and after having a hard time of it in life, working at various times, in various places, in various states, at various occupations, he finally settled down to the peace and quiet of an author, with an occasional lecturing tour. This has been the life history of Henry W. Shaw, whose eccentric mode of spelling has made him famous. His eccentricities are not assumed and artificial, but a part of the man, and in his daily conversations he uses the same apt and peculiar similies that are characteristic of his pen productions.
In 1872, when asked by a friend to give some facts relative to his life, Josh wrote the following biography, which is very characteristic of the man:
“I was born in Berkshire county, Massachusetts, during the nineteenth century, of highly respectable parents, and owe what little success I have obtained to the wisdom of my father and thepiety of my mother. At the fragrant age of fifteen I set my face westward and followed it until I stood on the banks of the wide Missouri, without any plans for life, and but little better in feelings than a cheerful vagrant. For twenty-five years the various wanderings of a border life made me acquainted with scenes and experiences better calculated to cut the character sharp, than to refine it, and if I escaped without scars, it was simply because the susceptibility of my nature looked upon most things in this life as simply a joke.“In common with most all Americans who have to push early, to test their own wings, I engaged in all the usual enterprises of a frontiersman, having been at times a land hunter, farmer, drover, steamboat captain, auctioneer, politician, and even pioneer, for I partially organized an enterprise, as early as 1835, to cross the Rocky mountains. This last named enterprise was a profound failure, but its inception and preliminary arrangements afforded me one of the choicest relics of my early adventures, and that inthree letters, now in my possession, written to me personally by Henry Clay, John Quincy Adams, and Martin Van Buren, recommending me and the undertaking to the kind care and patronage of all people and all nations.“If I may be said to ever have commenced a literary career it certainly was much later in life than most men commit the folly, for I had passed forty-five years before I ever wrote a line for the publick eye. What little reputation I may have made, has been accomplished within the last nine years, and I consider that I owe all this little to the kindness of the world at large, who, while they have discovered but little wit, or even humor, in what I have written, have done me the credit to acknowledge that my productions have been free from malice. I pin all my faith, hope, and charity upon this one impulse of my nature, and that is, if I could have my way, there would be a smile continually on the face of every human being on God’s footstool, and this smile should ever and anon widen into a broad grin.“I have not the inclination to go into an extended account of the trials and failures that I have met with since I first put on the cap and bells, but I can assure you that I would not contend with them again for what little glory and stamps they have won for me. I have written two books, but my pet is Josh Billings’ Farmer’s Almanac, which has been issued for the last three years, the annual sale of which has exceeded one hundred thousand copies. This little waif will soon make itsappearance for 1873, and I hope to make it a welcome guest for many years to come.“My lectures, if they can be called lectures, are three in number, rejoicing under the very familiar titles of Milk, What I Know About Hotels, and the Pensive Cockroach. In this last discourse, a large invoice of reptiles, beasts, and fishes are handled, without mercy, commencing with the dreamy cockroach and touching lightly at times the cunning of the fox, the strange uncertainty of the flea, and the wondrous hypocracy of the cat.“Please excuse, my dear sirs, in this hasty sketch what may appear not to be true, for he who writes about himself is in great danger of telling too much, or too little. My only apology for this monograph is, that it has been written at your request.“Yours calmly,Josh Billings.â€
“I was born in Berkshire county, Massachusetts, during the nineteenth century, of highly respectable parents, and owe what little success I have obtained to the wisdom of my father and thepiety of my mother. At the fragrant age of fifteen I set my face westward and followed it until I stood on the banks of the wide Missouri, without any plans for life, and but little better in feelings than a cheerful vagrant. For twenty-five years the various wanderings of a border life made me acquainted with scenes and experiences better calculated to cut the character sharp, than to refine it, and if I escaped without scars, it was simply because the susceptibility of my nature looked upon most things in this life as simply a joke.
“In common with most all Americans who have to push early, to test their own wings, I engaged in all the usual enterprises of a frontiersman, having been at times a land hunter, farmer, drover, steamboat captain, auctioneer, politician, and even pioneer, for I partially organized an enterprise, as early as 1835, to cross the Rocky mountains. This last named enterprise was a profound failure, but its inception and preliminary arrangements afforded me one of the choicest relics of my early adventures, and that inthree letters, now in my possession, written to me personally by Henry Clay, John Quincy Adams, and Martin Van Buren, recommending me and the undertaking to the kind care and patronage of all people and all nations.
“If I may be said to ever have commenced a literary career it certainly was much later in life than most men commit the folly, for I had passed forty-five years before I ever wrote a line for the publick eye. What little reputation I may have made, has been accomplished within the last nine years, and I consider that I owe all this little to the kindness of the world at large, who, while they have discovered but little wit, or even humor, in what I have written, have done me the credit to acknowledge that my productions have been free from malice. I pin all my faith, hope, and charity upon this one impulse of my nature, and that is, if I could have my way, there would be a smile continually on the face of every human being on God’s footstool, and this smile should ever and anon widen into a broad grin.
“I have not the inclination to go into an extended account of the trials and failures that I have met with since I first put on the cap and bells, but I can assure you that I would not contend with them again for what little glory and stamps they have won for me. I have written two books, but my pet is Josh Billings’ Farmer’s Almanac, which has been issued for the last three years, the annual sale of which has exceeded one hundred thousand copies. This little waif will soon make itsappearance for 1873, and I hope to make it a welcome guest for many years to come.
“My lectures, if they can be called lectures, are three in number, rejoicing under the very familiar titles of Milk, What I Know About Hotels, and the Pensive Cockroach. In this last discourse, a large invoice of reptiles, beasts, and fishes are handled, without mercy, commencing with the dreamy cockroach and touching lightly at times the cunning of the fox, the strange uncertainty of the flea, and the wondrous hypocracy of the cat.
“Please excuse, my dear sirs, in this hasty sketch what may appear not to be true, for he who writes about himself is in great danger of telling too much, or too little. My only apology for this monograph is, that it has been written at your request.
“Yours calmly,
Josh Billings.â€
Mr. Shaw began writing for the literary weeklies, and even now writes a half column or so of his quaint paragraphs for the New York Weekly. His almanac and other books have been published through the house of George W. Carleton, New York, and have had a wonderful sale. It is said that Josh has made at least $100,000 by his writings.It has been stated that his uncouth manner of spelling was adopted, in the first instance, quite as much through fear of his ability to spell correctly, as through the wish to be odd. He avoided criticism by intentional and habitual misspelling. He is by nature a philosopher, and the experiences of his whole life are classified in his mind, as illustrations of this or that quality of human nature.
Soon after he became famous in the walks of literature, Shaw entered the lecture field. He became at once very popular, and drew large and cultured audiences in the East and West. His last lecturing tour of any length proved very profitable to him. He lectured on The Probabilities of Life, which was divided, as he says, into twenty-four chapters. The hand-bills announcing this lecture read as follows:
“Josh Billings will deliver his new, and as he calls it, serio-comic lecture, on ‘The Probabilities of Life’ (perhaps rain, perhaps not). Divided into twenty-four cantos, as follows: A Genial Overture of Remarks; the Long Branch Letter; Human Happiness as an Alternative; the Live Man, a Busy Disciple; a Second Wife, a Good Risk to Take; the Poodle with Azure Eyes; the Handsome Man, a Failure; Short Sentences, Sharp at Both Ends; the Fastidious Person, Fuss and Feathers; Patience, Slow Poison; What I Knowabout Hotels, a Sad History; the Flea, a Brisk Package; the Domestic Man, a Necessary Evil; Answers to Correspondents; Jonah and his Whale; Marriage, a Draw Game; Mary Ann, a Modest Maiden; the Mother-in-law, one of the Luxuries; Proverbs, Truth on the Half Shell; the Mouse, a Household Hord; the Life Insurance Agent; the Caterpillar, a Slow Bug; the First Baby, too Sweet for Anything; Sayings of a promiscuous nature. And much other things.â€
Shaw’s advertising dodges have all been of a funny and striking character. The following lines appeared on a postal card that was sent broadcast during the winter of 1877:
‘Josh Billings and the Young Man. Young man, don’t kry for spilt milk, but pik up yure pail and milking stool, and go for the next cow. Yures affekshionately, Josh Billings. For sale or To Let. Price Neat, But Not Gaudy. Contemplating a trip to California during the winter of 1877, I will read my old and venerable lecture, ‘MILK,’ before any association who may desire to hear it. The ‘Milk’ in this lecture is condensed, and will keep sweet in any climate.“Your cheerful friend,Josh Billings.â€
‘Josh Billings and the Young Man. Young man, don’t kry for spilt milk, but pik up yure pail and milking stool, and go for the next cow. Yures affekshionately, Josh Billings. For sale or To Let. Price Neat, But Not Gaudy. Contemplating a trip to California during the winter of 1877, I will read my old and venerable lecture, ‘MILK,’ before any association who may desire to hear it. The ‘Milk’ in this lecture is condensed, and will keep sweet in any climate.
“Your cheerful friend,
Josh Billings.â€
Josh is getting old, and each succeeding year his literary productions are fewer and shorter.Out of the fortune he has made by his pen, only $50,000 is retained in his possession. He is an odd-looking genius, tall, stoop-shouldered, with a large head, massive face, deep-set eyes, and grizzly beard. His hair, which was formerly brown, is now an iron gray, and his stiff, drooping moustache is fast changing to the same color. He parts his hair in the middle, combs it smoothly behind his ears, allowing it to fall loosely on his neck like the locks of a school-girl.
A newspaper writer, in speaking of Josh not long since, said: “As he grows older, he seems to become more and more supremely regardless of persons, surroundings, or opinions. As he greets one with the machine like ‘How do ye do,’ or an inanimate ‘Good day,’ the impression is conveyed that he has arrived at the state of life and prosperity where he deems fate powerless to work any alteration for the worse. Billings is essentially a man to himself, taciturn and unobtrusive everywhere. He is now a willing but unattractive lecturer. He and his wife pass a quiet, relegated, but doubtless contented life, in an unpretentious dwelling in Sixty-third street, New York city, the garret of which is made to answer the combined purpose of literary sanctum and storehouse.â€
Shaw has written many witty things besides hisquaint “Proverbs,†which made him famous. The following is an example:
THE HEIGHT OF SUBLIMITY.AN ADVERTISEMENT BY JOSH BILLINGS.I kan sell for eighteen hundred and thirty-nine dollars, a pallas, a sweet and pensive retirement, located on the virgin banks of the Hudson, kontaining 85 acres. The land is luxuriously divided by the hand of natur and art, into pastor and tillage, into plain and deklivity, into stern abruptness and the dallianse ov moss-tufted medder; streams of sparkling gladness (thick with trout) danse through this wilderness of buty, tow the low musik of the kricket and grasshopper. The evergreen sighs az the evening zephir flits through its shadowy buzzum, and the aspen trembles like the love-smitten hart of a damsell. Fruits of the tropicks, in golden buty, melt on the bows, and the bees go heavy and sweet from the fields to their garnering hives. The stables are worthy of the steeds of Nimrod or the studs of Akilles, and its henery was bilt expressly for the birds of paradice; while somber in the distance, like the cave of a hermit, glimpses are caught ov the dog-house. Here poets have come and warbled their laze, here sculpters have cut, here painters hav robbed the scene of dreamy landskapes, and here the philosopher diskovered the stun which made him thealkimist ov natur. As the young moon hangs like a curting ov silver from the blue breast of the ski, an angel may be seen each night dansing with golden tip-toes on the grass. (N. B.—The angel goes with the place.)
THE HEIGHT OF SUBLIMITY.
AN ADVERTISEMENT BY JOSH BILLINGS.
I kan sell for eighteen hundred and thirty-nine dollars, a pallas, a sweet and pensive retirement, located on the virgin banks of the Hudson, kontaining 85 acres. The land is luxuriously divided by the hand of natur and art, into pastor and tillage, into plain and deklivity, into stern abruptness and the dallianse ov moss-tufted medder; streams of sparkling gladness (thick with trout) danse through this wilderness of buty, tow the low musik of the kricket and grasshopper. The evergreen sighs az the evening zephir flits through its shadowy buzzum, and the aspen trembles like the love-smitten hart of a damsell. Fruits of the tropicks, in golden buty, melt on the bows, and the bees go heavy and sweet from the fields to their garnering hives. The stables are worthy of the steeds of Nimrod or the studs of Akilles, and its henery was bilt expressly for the birds of paradice; while somber in the distance, like the cave of a hermit, glimpses are caught ov the dog-house. Here poets have come and warbled their laze, here sculpters have cut, here painters hav robbed the scene of dreamy landskapes, and here the philosopher diskovered the stun which made him thealkimist ov natur. As the young moon hangs like a curting ov silver from the blue breast of the ski, an angel may be seen each night dansing with golden tip-toes on the grass. (N. B.—The angel goes with the place.)
To show what Josh’s Proverbs are like, I annex a few as a finale to this sketch:
PROVERBS.Thare haz been menny a hero born, lived and died unknown, just for the want ov an opportunity.Thare ain’t nothing that will sho the virtues and vices of a man in so vivid a light as profuse prosperity.It is a good deal ov a bore to have others luv us more than we luv them.Mi dear boy, allwuss keep sumthing in reserve. The man who can jump six inches further than he ever haz jumpt, iz a hard customer to beat.Thare ain’t nothing on arth that will take the starch so klean out ov us, as to git kaught bi the phellow we are trying to ketch.
PROVERBS.
Thare haz been menny a hero born, lived and died unknown, just for the want ov an opportunity.
Thare ain’t nothing that will sho the virtues and vices of a man in so vivid a light as profuse prosperity.
It is a good deal ov a bore to have others luv us more than we luv them.
Mi dear boy, allwuss keep sumthing in reserve. The man who can jump six inches further than he ever haz jumpt, iz a hard customer to beat.
Thare ain’t nothing on arth that will take the starch so klean out ov us, as to git kaught bi the phellow we are trying to ketch.