(‡ decoration)JOHN BACH McMASTER.HISTORIAN OF THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES.JOHN BACH McMASTER is one of the few men who excel in widely different fields. To be a teacher of English grammar, a college instructor in civil engineering, to do the work of a specialist in the United States Coast Survey, to write a monumental history and to build up a great department in a leading university, surely this is a sufficiently long catalogue for a man forty-five years old. The father ofProf.McMaster was, at the beginning of the Civil War, a banker and planter at New Orleans. The son, however, grew up in the Northern metropolis, and was graduated at the College of the City of New York at the age of twenty, in 1872. After a year devoted to teaching grammar in that institution he took up the study of civil engineering, and began, in the autumn of 1873, the work of preparing his “History of the People of the United States from the Revolution to the Civil War.”He was appointed, in 1877, Instructor in Civil Engineering at Princeton, and became, in 1883, Professor of American History in the University of Pennsylvania. Besides the four volumes of his “History” already published, he has written a “Life of Benjamin Franklin” for the “Men of Letters Series,” and has been a frequent contributor upon historical topics to the leading periodicals. His “History” is not a story of political intrigue, of the petty jealousies of neighboring communities, of our quarrels with each other or with the Indians, but tells in a clear and strikingly pictorial manner the story of the people themselves, of how they lived and dressed, what they ate, what were their pleasures, their social customs, how they worshipped, how they grew to be a mighty nation and became the people that we are. It is a wonderful story, and not only is every page filled with living interest, but any chapter might well be a monument to the painstaking accuracy, the devoted labor, the historical insight, and the literary skill of the author. But ifProf.McMaster has been in love with his work as a historian he has none the less been devoted to his office as an instructor of youth. During the years in which he has filled a chair in the University of Pennsylvania, the department of history of the United States has assumed such proportions that it may fairly claim to outrank any similar department in any other institution in the country. In this way and as a lecturer before bodies of teachers,Prof.McMaster has held a foremost place in the movement which has demanded, and successfully demanded, that in the lower schools greater attention shall be paid to the history and institutions of ourown country, and which is bringing about a more intelligent patriotism and a widespread interest in the way in which we govern ourselves. The boy who applies for admission to the University of Pennsylvania, if he imagines that the history of his country consists of a list of dates of explorations, battles, and of presidents, and of the names of generals and politicians, will be astonished when he is asked to draw a map showing how the United States obtained the various portions of its territory, to tell what were the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions, and to outline the relations between the President and the two houses of Congress in our government. But the trembling applicant will find his blundering answers leniently judged, and when he looks back from the eminence of his graduation day upon this time of trial, he will agree that the view of history taken byProf.McMaster is the true one, and that no man has done more than he to bring the intelligent people of our time to that opinion.THE AMERICAN WORKMAN IN1784.¹(FROM “A HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES.”)¹Copyright, D. Appleton &Co.THERE can, however, be no doubt that a wonderful amelioration has taken place since that day in the condition of the poor. Their houses were meaner, their food was coarser, their clothing was of commoner stuff; their wages were, despite the depreciation that has gone on in the value of money, lower by one-half than at present. A man who performed what would be called unskilled labor, who sawed wood, dug ditches, who mended roads, who mixed mortar, who carried boards to the carpenter and bricks to the mason, or helped to cut hay in harvest-time, usually received as the fruit of his daily toil two shillings. Sometimes when the laborers were few he was paid more, and became the envy of his fellows if at the end of a week he took home to his family fifteen shillings, a sum now greatly exceeded by four dollars. Yet all authorities agree that in 1784 the hire of workmen was twice as great as in 1774.On such a pittance it was only by the strictest economy that a mechanic kept his children from starvation and himself from jail. In the low and dingy rooms which he called his home were wanting many articles of adornment and of use now to be found in the dwelling of the poorest of his class. Sand sprinkled on the floor did duty as a carpet. There was no glass on his table, there was no china in his cupboard, there were no prints on his wall. What a stove was he did not know, coal he had never seen, matches he had never heard of. Over a fire of fragments of barrels and boxes, which he lit with the sparks struck from a flint, or with live coals brought from a neighbor’s hearth, his wife cooked up a rude meal and served it in pewter dishes.He rarely tasted fresh meat as often as once in a week, and paid for it a much higher price than his posterity. Everything, indeed, which ranked as a staple of life was very costly. Corn stood at three shillings the bushel, wheat at eight and six pence, an assize of bread was four pence, a pound of salt pork was ten pence. Many other commodities now to be seen on the tables of the poor were either quite unknown or far beyond the reach of his scanty purse. Unenviable is the lot of that man who cannot, in the height of the season, when the wharfs and markets are heaped with baskets and crates of fruit, spare three cents for a pound of grapes, or five cents for as many peaches, or, when Sunday comes round, indulge his family with watermelons or cantaloupes. One hundred years ago the wretched fox-grape was the only kind that found its way to market, and was the luxury of the rich. Among the fruits and vegetables of which no one had then even heard are cantaloupes, many varieties of peaches and pears, tomatoes and rhubarb, sweet corn, the cauliflower, the eggplant, head lettuce, and okra. On the window benches of every tenement-house may be seen growing geraniums and verbenas, flowers not known a century ago. In truth, the best-kept gardens were then rank with hollyhocks and sunflowers, roses andsnowballs, lilacs, pinks, tulips, and, above all, the Jerusalem cherry, a plant once much admired, but now scarcely seen.If the food of an artisan would now be thought coarse, his clothes would be thought abominable. A pair of yellow buckskin or leathern breeches, a checked shirt, a red flannel jacket, a rusty felt hat cocked up at the corners, shoes of neats-skin set off with huge buckles of brass, and a leathern apron, comprised his scanty wardrobe. The leather he smeared with grease to keep it soft and flexible. His sons followed in his footsteps, and were apprenticed to neighboring tradesmen. His daughter went out to service. She performed, indeed, all the duties at present exacted from women of her class; but with them were coupled many others rendered useless by the great improvement that has taken place in the conveniences of life.She mended the clothes, she did up the ruffs, she ran on errands from one end of the town to the other, she milked the cows, made the butter, walked ten blocks for a pail of water, spun flax for the family linen, and, when the year was up, received ten pounds for her wages. Yet, small as was her pay, she had, before bestowing herself in marriage upon the footman or the gardener, laid away in her stocking enough guineas and joes to buy a few chairs, a table, and a bed.“THE MINISTER IN NEWENGLAND.”¹(FROM “A HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES.”)¹Copyright, D. Appleton &Co.HIGH as the doctors stood in the good graces of their fellow-men, the ministers formed a yet more respected class of New England society. In no other section of the country had religion so firm a hold on the affections of the people. Nowhere else were men so truly devout, and the ministers held in such high esteem. It had, indeed, from the days of the founders of the colony been the fashion among New Englanders to look to the pastor with profound reverence, not unmingled with awe. He was not to them as other men were. He was the just man made perfect; the oracle of divine will; the sure guide to truth. The heedless one who absented himself from the preaching on a Sabbath was hunted up by the tithing-man, was admonished severely, and, if he still persisted in his evil ways, was fined, exposed in the stocks, or imprisoned in the cage. To sit patiently on the rough board seats while the preacher turned his hour-glass for the third time, and with his voice husky from shouting, and the sweat pouring in streams down his face, went on for an hour more, was a delectable privilege. In such a community the authority of the reverend man was almost supreme. To speak disrespectfully concerning him, to jeer at his sermons, or to laugh at his odd ways, was sure to bring down on the offender a heavy fine. His advice was often sought on matters of State, nor did he hesitate to give, unasked, his opinion on what he considered the arbitrary acts of the high functionaries of the province. In the years immediately preceding the war the power of the minister in matters of government and politics had been greatly impaired by the rise of that class of laymen in the foremost ranks of which stood Otis and Hancock and Samuel Adams. Yet his♦spiritual influence was as great as ever. He was still a member of the most learned and respected class in a community by no means ignorant. He was a divine, and came of a family of divines. Not a few of the preachers who witnessed the Revolution could trace descent through an unbroken line of ministers, stretching back from son to father for three generations, to some canting, psalm-singing Puritan who bore arms with distinction on the great day at Naseby, or had prayed at the head of Oliver’s troops, and had, at the restoration, when the old soldiers of the protector were turning their swords into reaping-hooks and their pikes into pruning-knives, come over to New England to seek that liberty of worship not to be found at home. Such a man had usually received an education at Harvard or at Yale, and would in these days be thought a scholar of high attainments.♦‘spiritunl’ replaced with ‘spiritual’
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HISTORIAN OF THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES.
JOHN BACH McMASTER is one of the few men who excel in widely different fields. To be a teacher of English grammar, a college instructor in civil engineering, to do the work of a specialist in the United States Coast Survey, to write a monumental history and to build up a great department in a leading university, surely this is a sufficiently long catalogue for a man forty-five years old. The father ofProf.McMaster was, at the beginning of the Civil War, a banker and planter at New Orleans. The son, however, grew up in the Northern metropolis, and was graduated at the College of the City of New York at the age of twenty, in 1872. After a year devoted to teaching grammar in that institution he took up the study of civil engineering, and began, in the autumn of 1873, the work of preparing his “History of the People of the United States from the Revolution to the Civil War.”
He was appointed, in 1877, Instructor in Civil Engineering at Princeton, and became, in 1883, Professor of American History in the University of Pennsylvania. Besides the four volumes of his “History” already published, he has written a “Life of Benjamin Franklin” for the “Men of Letters Series,” and has been a frequent contributor upon historical topics to the leading periodicals. His “History” is not a story of political intrigue, of the petty jealousies of neighboring communities, of our quarrels with each other or with the Indians, but tells in a clear and strikingly pictorial manner the story of the people themselves, of how they lived and dressed, what they ate, what were their pleasures, their social customs, how they worshipped, how they grew to be a mighty nation and became the people that we are. It is a wonderful story, and not only is every page filled with living interest, but any chapter might well be a monument to the painstaking accuracy, the devoted labor, the historical insight, and the literary skill of the author. But ifProf.McMaster has been in love with his work as a historian he has none the less been devoted to his office as an instructor of youth. During the years in which he has filled a chair in the University of Pennsylvania, the department of history of the United States has assumed such proportions that it may fairly claim to outrank any similar department in any other institution in the country. In this way and as a lecturer before bodies of teachers,Prof.McMaster has held a foremost place in the movement which has demanded, and successfully demanded, that in the lower schools greater attention shall be paid to the history and institutions of ourown country, and which is bringing about a more intelligent patriotism and a widespread interest in the way in which we govern ourselves. The boy who applies for admission to the University of Pennsylvania, if he imagines that the history of his country consists of a list of dates of explorations, battles, and of presidents, and of the names of generals and politicians, will be astonished when he is asked to draw a map showing how the United States obtained the various portions of its territory, to tell what were the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions, and to outline the relations between the President and the two houses of Congress in our government. But the trembling applicant will find his blundering answers leniently judged, and when he looks back from the eminence of his graduation day upon this time of trial, he will agree that the view of history taken byProf.McMaster is the true one, and that no man has done more than he to bring the intelligent people of our time to that opinion.
THE AMERICAN WORKMAN IN1784.¹
(FROM “A HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES.”)
¹Copyright, D. Appleton &Co.
THERE can, however, be no doubt that a wonderful amelioration has taken place since that day in the condition of the poor. Their houses were meaner, their food was coarser, their clothing was of commoner stuff; their wages were, despite the depreciation that has gone on in the value of money, lower by one-half than at present. A man who performed what would be called unskilled labor, who sawed wood, dug ditches, who mended roads, who mixed mortar, who carried boards to the carpenter and bricks to the mason, or helped to cut hay in harvest-time, usually received as the fruit of his daily toil two shillings. Sometimes when the laborers were few he was paid more, and became the envy of his fellows if at the end of a week he took home to his family fifteen shillings, a sum now greatly exceeded by four dollars. Yet all authorities agree that in 1784 the hire of workmen was twice as great as in 1774.On such a pittance it was only by the strictest economy that a mechanic kept his children from starvation and himself from jail. In the low and dingy rooms which he called his home were wanting many articles of adornment and of use now to be found in the dwelling of the poorest of his class. Sand sprinkled on the floor did duty as a carpet. There was no glass on his table, there was no china in his cupboard, there were no prints on his wall. What a stove was he did not know, coal he had never seen, matches he had never heard of. Over a fire of fragments of barrels and boxes, which he lit with the sparks struck from a flint, or with live coals brought from a neighbor’s hearth, his wife cooked up a rude meal and served it in pewter dishes.He rarely tasted fresh meat as often as once in a week, and paid for it a much higher price than his posterity. Everything, indeed, which ranked as a staple of life was very costly. Corn stood at three shillings the bushel, wheat at eight and six pence, an assize of bread was four pence, a pound of salt pork was ten pence. Many other commodities now to be seen on the tables of the poor were either quite unknown or far beyond the reach of his scanty purse. Unenviable is the lot of that man who cannot, in the height of the season, when the wharfs and markets are heaped with baskets and crates of fruit, spare three cents for a pound of grapes, or five cents for as many peaches, or, when Sunday comes round, indulge his family with watermelons or cantaloupes. One hundred years ago the wretched fox-grape was the only kind that found its way to market, and was the luxury of the rich. Among the fruits and vegetables of which no one had then even heard are cantaloupes, many varieties of peaches and pears, tomatoes and rhubarb, sweet corn, the cauliflower, the eggplant, head lettuce, and okra. On the window benches of every tenement-house may be seen growing geraniums and verbenas, flowers not known a century ago. In truth, the best-kept gardens were then rank with hollyhocks and sunflowers, roses andsnowballs, lilacs, pinks, tulips, and, above all, the Jerusalem cherry, a plant once much admired, but now scarcely seen.If the food of an artisan would now be thought coarse, his clothes would be thought abominable. A pair of yellow buckskin or leathern breeches, a checked shirt, a red flannel jacket, a rusty felt hat cocked up at the corners, shoes of neats-skin set off with huge buckles of brass, and a leathern apron, comprised his scanty wardrobe. The leather he smeared with grease to keep it soft and flexible. His sons followed in his footsteps, and were apprenticed to neighboring tradesmen. His daughter went out to service. She performed, indeed, all the duties at present exacted from women of her class; but with them were coupled many others rendered useless by the great improvement that has taken place in the conveniences of life.She mended the clothes, she did up the ruffs, she ran on errands from one end of the town to the other, she milked the cows, made the butter, walked ten blocks for a pail of water, spun flax for the family linen, and, when the year was up, received ten pounds for her wages. Yet, small as was her pay, she had, before bestowing herself in marriage upon the footman or the gardener, laid away in her stocking enough guineas and joes to buy a few chairs, a table, and a bed.
THERE can, however, be no doubt that a wonderful amelioration has taken place since that day in the condition of the poor. Their houses were meaner, their food was coarser, their clothing was of commoner stuff; their wages were, despite the depreciation that has gone on in the value of money, lower by one-half than at present. A man who performed what would be called unskilled labor, who sawed wood, dug ditches, who mended roads, who mixed mortar, who carried boards to the carpenter and bricks to the mason, or helped to cut hay in harvest-time, usually received as the fruit of his daily toil two shillings. Sometimes when the laborers were few he was paid more, and became the envy of his fellows if at the end of a week he took home to his family fifteen shillings, a sum now greatly exceeded by four dollars. Yet all authorities agree that in 1784 the hire of workmen was twice as great as in 1774.
On such a pittance it was only by the strictest economy that a mechanic kept his children from starvation and himself from jail. In the low and dingy rooms which he called his home were wanting many articles of adornment and of use now to be found in the dwelling of the poorest of his class. Sand sprinkled on the floor did duty as a carpet. There was no glass on his table, there was no china in his cupboard, there were no prints on his wall. What a stove was he did not know, coal he had never seen, matches he had never heard of. Over a fire of fragments of barrels and boxes, which he lit with the sparks struck from a flint, or with live coals brought from a neighbor’s hearth, his wife cooked up a rude meal and served it in pewter dishes.
He rarely tasted fresh meat as often as once in a week, and paid for it a much higher price than his posterity. Everything, indeed, which ranked as a staple of life was very costly. Corn stood at three shillings the bushel, wheat at eight and six pence, an assize of bread was four pence, a pound of salt pork was ten pence. Many other commodities now to be seen on the tables of the poor were either quite unknown or far beyond the reach of his scanty purse. Unenviable is the lot of that man who cannot, in the height of the season, when the wharfs and markets are heaped with baskets and crates of fruit, spare three cents for a pound of grapes, or five cents for as many peaches, or, when Sunday comes round, indulge his family with watermelons or cantaloupes. One hundred years ago the wretched fox-grape was the only kind that found its way to market, and was the luxury of the rich. Among the fruits and vegetables of which no one had then even heard are cantaloupes, many varieties of peaches and pears, tomatoes and rhubarb, sweet corn, the cauliflower, the eggplant, head lettuce, and okra. On the window benches of every tenement-house may be seen growing geraniums and verbenas, flowers not known a century ago. In truth, the best-kept gardens were then rank with hollyhocks and sunflowers, roses andsnowballs, lilacs, pinks, tulips, and, above all, the Jerusalem cherry, a plant once much admired, but now scarcely seen.
If the food of an artisan would now be thought coarse, his clothes would be thought abominable. A pair of yellow buckskin or leathern breeches, a checked shirt, a red flannel jacket, a rusty felt hat cocked up at the corners, shoes of neats-skin set off with huge buckles of brass, and a leathern apron, comprised his scanty wardrobe. The leather he smeared with grease to keep it soft and flexible. His sons followed in his footsteps, and were apprenticed to neighboring tradesmen. His daughter went out to service. She performed, indeed, all the duties at present exacted from women of her class; but with them were coupled many others rendered useless by the great improvement that has taken place in the conveniences of life.
She mended the clothes, she did up the ruffs, she ran on errands from one end of the town to the other, she milked the cows, made the butter, walked ten blocks for a pail of water, spun flax for the family linen, and, when the year was up, received ten pounds for her wages. Yet, small as was her pay, she had, before bestowing herself in marriage upon the footman or the gardener, laid away in her stocking enough guineas and joes to buy a few chairs, a table, and a bed.
“THE MINISTER IN NEWENGLAND.”¹
(FROM “A HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES.”)
¹Copyright, D. Appleton &Co.
HIGH as the doctors stood in the good graces of their fellow-men, the ministers formed a yet more respected class of New England society. In no other section of the country had religion so firm a hold on the affections of the people. Nowhere else were men so truly devout, and the ministers held in such high esteem. It had, indeed, from the days of the founders of the colony been the fashion among New Englanders to look to the pastor with profound reverence, not unmingled with awe. He was not to them as other men were. He was the just man made perfect; the oracle of divine will; the sure guide to truth. The heedless one who absented himself from the preaching on a Sabbath was hunted up by the tithing-man, was admonished severely, and, if he still persisted in his evil ways, was fined, exposed in the stocks, or imprisoned in the cage. To sit patiently on the rough board seats while the preacher turned his hour-glass for the third time, and with his voice husky from shouting, and the sweat pouring in streams down his face, went on for an hour more, was a delectable privilege. In such a community the authority of the reverend man was almost supreme. To speak disrespectfully concerning him, to jeer at his sermons, or to laugh at his odd ways, was sure to bring down on the offender a heavy fine. His advice was often sought on matters of State, nor did he hesitate to give, unasked, his opinion on what he considered the arbitrary acts of the high functionaries of the province. In the years immediately preceding the war the power of the minister in matters of government and politics had been greatly impaired by the rise of that class of laymen in the foremost ranks of which stood Otis and Hancock and Samuel Adams. Yet his♦spiritual influence was as great as ever. He was still a member of the most learned and respected class in a community by no means ignorant. He was a divine, and came of a family of divines. Not a few of the preachers who witnessed the Revolution could trace descent through an unbroken line of ministers, stretching back from son to father for three generations, to some canting, psalm-singing Puritan who bore arms with distinction on the great day at Naseby, or had prayed at the head of Oliver’s troops, and had, at the restoration, when the old soldiers of the protector were turning their swords into reaping-hooks and their pikes into pruning-knives, come over to New England to seek that liberty of worship not to be found at home. Such a man had usually received an education at Harvard or at Yale, and would in these days be thought a scholar of high attainments.♦‘spiritunl’ replaced with ‘spiritual’
HIGH as the doctors stood in the good graces of their fellow-men, the ministers formed a yet more respected class of New England society. In no other section of the country had religion so firm a hold on the affections of the people. Nowhere else were men so truly devout, and the ministers held in such high esteem. It had, indeed, from the days of the founders of the colony been the fashion among New Englanders to look to the pastor with profound reverence, not unmingled with awe. He was not to them as other men were. He was the just man made perfect; the oracle of divine will; the sure guide to truth. The heedless one who absented himself from the preaching on a Sabbath was hunted up by the tithing-man, was admonished severely, and, if he still persisted in his evil ways, was fined, exposed in the stocks, or imprisoned in the cage. To sit patiently on the rough board seats while the preacher turned his hour-glass for the third time, and with his voice husky from shouting, and the sweat pouring in streams down his face, went on for an hour more, was a delectable privilege. In such a community the authority of the reverend man was almost supreme. To speak disrespectfully concerning him, to jeer at his sermons, or to laugh at his odd ways, was sure to bring down on the offender a heavy fine. His advice was often sought on matters of State, nor did he hesitate to give, unasked, his opinion on what he considered the arbitrary acts of the high functionaries of the province. In the years immediately preceding the war the power of the minister in matters of government and politics had been greatly impaired by the rise of that class of laymen in the foremost ranks of which stood Otis and Hancock and Samuel Adams. Yet his♦spiritual influence was as great as ever. He was still a member of the most learned and respected class in a community by no means ignorant. He was a divine, and came of a family of divines. Not a few of the preachers who witnessed the Revolution could trace descent through an unbroken line of ministers, stretching back from son to father for three generations, to some canting, psalm-singing Puritan who bore arms with distinction on the great day at Naseby, or had prayed at the head of Oliver’s troops, and had, at the restoration, when the old soldiers of the protector were turning their swords into reaping-hooks and their pikes into pruning-knives, come over to New England to seek that liberty of worship not to be found at home. Such a man had usually received an education at Harvard or at Yale, and would in these days be thought a scholar of high attainments.
♦‘spiritunl’ replaced with ‘spiritual’
OUR NATIONAL HUMORISTSOUR NATIONAL HUMORISTSROBT.J. BURDETT • “JOSH BILLINGS”“MARK TWAIN”CHAS.FOLEN ADAMS • “BILL NYE”JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS(‡ decoration)FRANCES MIRIAM WHITCHER.THE “WIDOW BEDOTT” AND “WIDOW SPRIGGINS.”IT was back in the early forties in “Neal’s Gazette” that the “Widow Bedott Table Talk” series of articles began to attract attention, and the question arose, Who is the Widow Bedott? for no one knew at that time thatMrs.Whitcher was the real author behind thisnom-de-plume. James Neal himself—the well-known author of “Charcoal Sketches” and publisher of the magazine above referred to—was so struck with the originality and clearness of the first of the series when submitted that he sought a correspondence with the author, thinking it was a man, and addressed her as “My dear Bedott.”Mrs.Whitcher often insisted that she must cease to write, as her humorous sketches were not relished by some of her neighbors whom they touched, butMr.Neal would not hear to it. In a letter of September 10, 1846, he wrote: “It is a theory of mine that those gifted with truly humorous genius like yourself are more useful as moralists, philosophers and teachers than whole legions of the gravest preachers. They speak more effectually to the general ear and heart, even though they who hear are not aware of the fact that they are imbibing wisdom.” Further on he adds: ‘I would add thatMr.Godey called on me to inquire as to the authorship of the “Bedott Papers,” wishing evidently to obtain you for a correspondent to the “Ladies’ Book.”’For richness of humor and masterly handling of the Yankee dialect, certainly, the “Widow Bedott” and the “Widow Spriggins” occupy a unique space in humorous literature, and the influence she has exercised on modern humorists is more in evidence than most readers are aware of. Her husband, “Hezekiah Bedott,” is a character who will live alongside of “Josiah Allen” as one of the prominent heroes of the humorous literature of our country. In fact, no reader of both these authors will fail to suspect that Miss Marietta Holley used “Hezekiah” as a model for her “Josiah;” while the redoubtable widow herself was enough♦similar to “Samantha Allen” to have been her natural, as she, perhaps, was her literary, grandmother. Nor was Miss Holley alone in following her lead. Ever since the invention of “Hezekiah Bedott” byMrs.Whitcher, an imaginary person of some sort, behind whom the author might conceal his own identity, has seemed to be a necessity to our humorists, as witness thenoms-de-plumeof “Artemus Ward,” “Josh Billings,” “Mark Twain,”etc., under which our greatest American humorists have written.♦‘similiar’ replaced with ‘similar’Mrs.Whitcher was the daughter ofMr.Lewis Berry, and was born at Whitesboro,New York, 1811, and died there in 1852. As a child she was unusually precocious. Before she learned her letters, even before she was four years old, she was making little rhymes and funny stories, some of which are preserved by her relatives. Her education was obtained in the village school of Whitesboro, and she began to contribute at an early age stories and little poems to the papers. After she had won considerable literary fame she was married, in 1847, to theRev.Benjamin W. Whitcher, pastor of the Protestant Episcopal Church at Elmira, New York, where she resided with her husband for a period of three years, continuing to contribute her humorous papers to the magazine, and taking as her models her acquaintances at Elmira, as she had been accustomed to do at Whitesboro. The people of Elmira, however, were not so ready to be victimized, and turned against her such shafts of persecution and even insult for her ludicrous pictures of them as to destroy her happiness and her husband’s usefulness as a minister to an extent that they were compelled to leave Elmira, and they removed to Whitesboro in 1850, where, as stated above, she died two years later.Mrs.Whitcher was something of an artist as well as a writer and illustrated certain of her sketches with her own hands. During her life none of her works were published except in magazines and periodicals, but after her death these contributions were collected and published in book form; the first entitled “The Widow Bedott Papers,” appearing in 1855, with an introduction by Alice B. Neal. In 1857 came “The Widow Spriggins, Mary Allen and Other Sketches,” edited byMrs.M. L. Ward Whitcher with a memoir of the author. We publish in connection with this sketch the poem “Widow Bedott to Elder Sniffles” and also her own humorous comments on some of her poetry, about her husband Hezekiah, which she wrote to a friend, pausing as the various stanzas suggest, to throw in amusing side lights on neighborhood character and gossip.WIDOW BEDOTT TO ELDER SNIFFLES.(FROM THE “WIDOW BEDOTT PAPERS.”)OREVEREND sir, I do declareIt drives me most to frenzy,To think of you a lying thereDown sick with influenzy.A body’d thought it was enoughTo mourn your wife’s departer,Without sich trouble as this ereTo come a follerin’ arter.But sickness and affliction, areSent by a wise creation,And always ought to be underwentBy patience and resignation.O I could to your bedside fly,And wipe your weeping eyes,And do my best to cheer you up,If’t wouldn’t create surprise.It’s a world of trouble we tarry in,But, Elder, don’t despair;That you may soon be movin’ againIs constantly my prayer.Both sick and well, you may dependYou’ll never be forgotBy your faithful and affectionate friend,Priscilla Pool Bedott.THE WIDOW’S POETRY ABOUT HEZEKIAH AND HER COMMENTS ON THE SAME.(FROM “WIDOW BEDOTT PAPERS.”)YES,—he was one o’ the best men that ever trod shoe-leather, husband was, though Miss Jenkins says (she ’twas Poll Bingham),shesays, I never found it out till after he died, but that’s the consarndest lie that ever was told, though it’s jest a piece with everything else she says about me. I guess if everybody could see the poitry I writ to his mem’ry, nobody wouldn’t think I dident set store by him. Want to hear it? Well, I’ll see if I can say it; it ginerally affects me wonderfully, seems to harrer up my feelin’s; but I’ll try. It begins as follers:—He never jawed in all his life,He never was onkind,—And (tho’ I say it that was his wife)Such men you seldom find.(That’s as true as the Scripturs; I never knowed him to say a harsh word.)I never changed my single lot,—I thought ’twould be a sin—(Though widder Jinkins says it’s because I never had a chance.) Now ’tain’t for me to say whether I ever had a numerous number o’ chances or not, but there’s them livin’ thatmighttell if they wos a mind to; why, this poitry was writ on account of being joked about Major Coon, three years after husband died. I guess the ginerality o’ folks knows what was the nature o’ Majors Coon’s feelin’s towards me, tho’ his wife and Miss Jinkinsdoessay I tried to ketch him. The fact is, Miss Coon feels wonderfully cut up ’cause she knows the Major took her “Jack at a pinch,”—seein’ he couldent get such as he wanted, he took such as he could get,—but I goes on to say—I never changed my single lot,I thought ’twould be a sin,—For I thought so much o’ Deacon Bedott,I never got married agin.If ever a hasty word he spoke,His anger dident last,But vanished like tobacker smokeAfore the wintry blast.And since it was my lot to beThe wife of such a man,Tell the men that’s after meTo ketch me if they can.If I was sick a single jot,He called the doctor in—That’s a fact,—he used to be scairt to death if anything ailed me. Now only jest think,—widder Jinkins told Sam Pendergrasses wife (she ’twas Sally Smith) that she guessed the deacon dident set no great store by me, or he wouldent went off to confrence meetin’, when I was down with the fever. The truth is, they couldent git along without him no way. Parson Potter seldom went to confrence meetin’, and whenhewa’n’t there, who was ther’, pray tell, that knowed enough to take the lead if husband dident do it? Deacon Kenipe hadent no gift, and Deacon Crosby hadent no inclination, and so it all come onto Deacon Bedott,—and he was always ready and willin’ to do his duty, you know; as long as he was able to stand on his legs he continued to go to confrence meetin’; why, I’ve knowed that man to go when he couldent scarcely crawl on account o’ the pain in the spine of his back.He had a wonderful gift, and he wa’n’t a man to keep his talents hid up in a napkin,—so you see ’twas from a sense o’ duty he went when I was sick, whatever Miss Jinkins may say to the contrary. But where was I? Oh!—If I was sick a single jot,He called the doctor in—I sot so much store by Deacon BedottI never got married agin.A wonderful tender heart he had,That felt for all mankind,—It made him feel amazin’ badTo see the world so blind.Whiskey and rum he tasted not—That’s as true as the Scripturs,—but if you’ll believe it, Betsy, Ann Kenipe told my Melissy that Miss Jinkins said one day to their house how’t she’d seen Deacon Bedott high, time and agin! did you ever! Well, I’m glad nobody don’t pretend to mind anythingshesays. I’ve knowed Poll Bingham from a gal, andshe never knowed how to speak the truth—besides she always had a partikkeler spite against husband and me, and between us tew I’ll tell you why if you won’t mention it, for I make it a pint never to say nothin’ to injure nobody. Well, she was a ravin’-distracted after my husband herself, but it’s a long story, I’ll tell you about it some other time, and then you’ll know why widder Jinkins is etarnally runnin’ me down. See,—where had I got to? Oh, I remember now,—Whisky and rum he tasted not,—He thought it was a sin,—I thought so much o’ Deacon BedottI never got married agin.But now he’s dead! the thought is killin’,My grief I can’t control—He never left a single shillin’His widder to console.But that wa’n’t his fault—he was so out o’ health for a number o’ year afore he died, it ain’t to be wondered at he dident lay up nothin’—however, it dident give him no great oneasiness,—he never cared much for airthly riches, though Miss Pendergrass says she heard Miss Jinkins say Deacon Bedott was as tight as the skin on his back,—begrudged folks their vittals when they come to his house! did you ever! why, he was the hull-souldest man I ever see in all my born days. If I’d such a husband as Bill Jinkins was, I’d hold my tongue about my neighbors’ husbands. He was a dretful mean man, used to git drunk every day of his life, and he had an awful high temper,—used to swear like all possest when he got mad,—and I’ve heard my husband say (and he wa’n’t a man that ever said anything that wa’n’t true),—I’ve heardhimsay Bill Jinkins would cheat his own father out of his eye teeth if he had a chance. Where was I? Oh! “His widder to console,”—ther ain’t but one more verse, ’tain’t a very lengthy poim. When Parson Potter read it, he says to me, says he,—“What did you stop so soon for?”—but Miss Jinkins told the Crosby’sshethought I’d better a’ stopt afore I’d begun,—she’s a purty critter to talk so, I must say. I’d like to see some poitry o’ hern,—I guess it would be astonishin’ stuff; and mor’n all that, she said there wa’n’t a word o’ truth in the hull on’t,—said I never cared tuppence for the deacon. What an everlastin’ lie! Why, when he died, I took it so hard I went deranged, and took on so for a spell they was afraid they should have to send me to a Lunatic Arsenal. But that’s a painful subject, I won’t dwell on’t.I conclude as follers:—I’ll never change my single lot,—I think ’twould be a sin,—The inconsolable widder o’ Deacon BedottDon’t intend to git married agin.Excuse my cryin’—my feelin’s always overcomes me so when I say that poitry—O-o-o-o-o-o!(‡ decoration)
OUR NATIONAL HUMORISTSROBT.J. BURDETT • “JOSH BILLINGS”“MARK TWAIN”CHAS.FOLEN ADAMS • “BILL NYE”JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS
OUR NATIONAL HUMORISTS
ROBT.J. BURDETT • “JOSH BILLINGS”“MARK TWAIN”CHAS.FOLEN ADAMS • “BILL NYE”JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS
(‡ decoration)
THE “WIDOW BEDOTT” AND “WIDOW SPRIGGINS.”
IT was back in the early forties in “Neal’s Gazette” that the “Widow Bedott Table Talk” series of articles began to attract attention, and the question arose, Who is the Widow Bedott? for no one knew at that time thatMrs.Whitcher was the real author behind thisnom-de-plume. James Neal himself—the well-known author of “Charcoal Sketches” and publisher of the magazine above referred to—was so struck with the originality and clearness of the first of the series when submitted that he sought a correspondence with the author, thinking it was a man, and addressed her as “My dear Bedott.”Mrs.Whitcher often insisted that she must cease to write, as her humorous sketches were not relished by some of her neighbors whom they touched, butMr.Neal would not hear to it. In a letter of September 10, 1846, he wrote: “It is a theory of mine that those gifted with truly humorous genius like yourself are more useful as moralists, philosophers and teachers than whole legions of the gravest preachers. They speak more effectually to the general ear and heart, even though they who hear are not aware of the fact that they are imbibing wisdom.” Further on he adds: ‘I would add thatMr.Godey called on me to inquire as to the authorship of the “Bedott Papers,” wishing evidently to obtain you for a correspondent to the “Ladies’ Book.”’
For richness of humor and masterly handling of the Yankee dialect, certainly, the “Widow Bedott” and the “Widow Spriggins” occupy a unique space in humorous literature, and the influence she has exercised on modern humorists is more in evidence than most readers are aware of. Her husband, “Hezekiah Bedott,” is a character who will live alongside of “Josiah Allen” as one of the prominent heroes of the humorous literature of our country. In fact, no reader of both these authors will fail to suspect that Miss Marietta Holley used “Hezekiah” as a model for her “Josiah;” while the redoubtable widow herself was enough♦similar to “Samantha Allen” to have been her natural, as she, perhaps, was her literary, grandmother. Nor was Miss Holley alone in following her lead. Ever since the invention of “Hezekiah Bedott” byMrs.Whitcher, an imaginary person of some sort, behind whom the author might conceal his own identity, has seemed to be a necessity to our humorists, as witness thenoms-de-plumeof “Artemus Ward,” “Josh Billings,” “Mark Twain,”etc., under which our greatest American humorists have written.
♦‘similiar’ replaced with ‘similar’
Mrs.Whitcher was the daughter ofMr.Lewis Berry, and was born at Whitesboro,New York, 1811, and died there in 1852. As a child she was unusually precocious. Before she learned her letters, even before she was four years old, she was making little rhymes and funny stories, some of which are preserved by her relatives. Her education was obtained in the village school of Whitesboro, and she began to contribute at an early age stories and little poems to the papers. After she had won considerable literary fame she was married, in 1847, to theRev.Benjamin W. Whitcher, pastor of the Protestant Episcopal Church at Elmira, New York, where she resided with her husband for a period of three years, continuing to contribute her humorous papers to the magazine, and taking as her models her acquaintances at Elmira, as she had been accustomed to do at Whitesboro. The people of Elmira, however, were not so ready to be victimized, and turned against her such shafts of persecution and even insult for her ludicrous pictures of them as to destroy her happiness and her husband’s usefulness as a minister to an extent that they were compelled to leave Elmira, and they removed to Whitesboro in 1850, where, as stated above, she died two years later.
Mrs.Whitcher was something of an artist as well as a writer and illustrated certain of her sketches with her own hands. During her life none of her works were published except in magazines and periodicals, but after her death these contributions were collected and published in book form; the first entitled “The Widow Bedott Papers,” appearing in 1855, with an introduction by Alice B. Neal. In 1857 came “The Widow Spriggins, Mary Allen and Other Sketches,” edited byMrs.M. L. Ward Whitcher with a memoir of the author. We publish in connection with this sketch the poem “Widow Bedott to Elder Sniffles” and also her own humorous comments on some of her poetry, about her husband Hezekiah, which she wrote to a friend, pausing as the various stanzas suggest, to throw in amusing side lights on neighborhood character and gossip.
WIDOW BEDOTT TO ELDER SNIFFLES.
(FROM THE “WIDOW BEDOTT PAPERS.”)
OREVEREND sir, I do declareIt drives me most to frenzy,To think of you a lying thereDown sick with influenzy.A body’d thought it was enoughTo mourn your wife’s departer,Without sich trouble as this ereTo come a follerin’ arter.But sickness and affliction, areSent by a wise creation,And always ought to be underwentBy patience and resignation.O I could to your bedside fly,And wipe your weeping eyes,And do my best to cheer you up,If’t wouldn’t create surprise.It’s a world of trouble we tarry in,But, Elder, don’t despair;That you may soon be movin’ againIs constantly my prayer.Both sick and well, you may dependYou’ll never be forgotBy your faithful and affectionate friend,Priscilla Pool Bedott.
OREVEREND sir, I do declareIt drives me most to frenzy,To think of you a lying thereDown sick with influenzy.A body’d thought it was enoughTo mourn your wife’s departer,Without sich trouble as this ereTo come a follerin’ arter.But sickness and affliction, areSent by a wise creation,And always ought to be underwentBy patience and resignation.O I could to your bedside fly,And wipe your weeping eyes,And do my best to cheer you up,If’t wouldn’t create surprise.It’s a world of trouble we tarry in,But, Elder, don’t despair;That you may soon be movin’ againIs constantly my prayer.Both sick and well, you may dependYou’ll never be forgotBy your faithful and affectionate friend,Priscilla Pool Bedott.
REVEREND sir, I do declare
It drives me most to frenzy,
To think of you a lying there
Down sick with influenzy.
A body’d thought it was enough
To mourn your wife’s departer,
Without sich trouble as this ere
To come a follerin’ arter.
But sickness and affliction, are
Sent by a wise creation,
And always ought to be underwent
By patience and resignation.
O I could to your bedside fly,
And wipe your weeping eyes,
And do my best to cheer you up,
If’t wouldn’t create surprise.
It’s a world of trouble we tarry in,
But, Elder, don’t despair;
That you may soon be movin’ again
Is constantly my prayer.
Both sick and well, you may depend
You’ll never be forgot
By your faithful and affectionate friend,
Priscilla Pool Bedott.
THE WIDOW’S POETRY ABOUT HEZEKIAH AND HER COMMENTS ON THE SAME.
(FROM “WIDOW BEDOTT PAPERS.”)
YES,—he was one o’ the best men that ever trod shoe-leather, husband was, though Miss Jenkins says (she ’twas Poll Bingham),shesays, I never found it out till after he died, but that’s the consarndest lie that ever was told, though it’s jest a piece with everything else she says about me. I guess if everybody could see the poitry I writ to his mem’ry, nobody wouldn’t think I dident set store by him. Want to hear it? Well, I’ll see if I can say it; it ginerally affects me wonderfully, seems to harrer up my feelin’s; but I’ll try. It begins as follers:—He never jawed in all his life,He never was onkind,—And (tho’ I say it that was his wife)Such men you seldom find.(That’s as true as the Scripturs; I never knowed him to say a harsh word.)I never changed my single lot,—I thought ’twould be a sin—(Though widder Jinkins says it’s because I never had a chance.) Now ’tain’t for me to say whether I ever had a numerous number o’ chances or not, but there’s them livin’ thatmighttell if they wos a mind to; why, this poitry was writ on account of being joked about Major Coon, three years after husband died. I guess the ginerality o’ folks knows what was the nature o’ Majors Coon’s feelin’s towards me, tho’ his wife and Miss Jinkinsdoessay I tried to ketch him. The fact is, Miss Coon feels wonderfully cut up ’cause she knows the Major took her “Jack at a pinch,”—seein’ he couldent get such as he wanted, he took such as he could get,—but I goes on to say—I never changed my single lot,I thought ’twould be a sin,—For I thought so much o’ Deacon Bedott,I never got married agin.If ever a hasty word he spoke,His anger dident last,But vanished like tobacker smokeAfore the wintry blast.And since it was my lot to beThe wife of such a man,Tell the men that’s after meTo ketch me if they can.If I was sick a single jot,He called the doctor in—That’s a fact,—he used to be scairt to death if anything ailed me. Now only jest think,—widder Jinkins told Sam Pendergrasses wife (she ’twas Sally Smith) that she guessed the deacon dident set no great store by me, or he wouldent went off to confrence meetin’, when I was down with the fever. The truth is, they couldent git along without him no way. Parson Potter seldom went to confrence meetin’, and whenhewa’n’t there, who was ther’, pray tell, that knowed enough to take the lead if husband dident do it? Deacon Kenipe hadent no gift, and Deacon Crosby hadent no inclination, and so it all come onto Deacon Bedott,—and he was always ready and willin’ to do his duty, you know; as long as he was able to stand on his legs he continued to go to confrence meetin’; why, I’ve knowed that man to go when he couldent scarcely crawl on account o’ the pain in the spine of his back.He had a wonderful gift, and he wa’n’t a man to keep his talents hid up in a napkin,—so you see ’twas from a sense o’ duty he went when I was sick, whatever Miss Jinkins may say to the contrary. But where was I? Oh!—If I was sick a single jot,He called the doctor in—I sot so much store by Deacon BedottI never got married agin.A wonderful tender heart he had,That felt for all mankind,—It made him feel amazin’ badTo see the world so blind.Whiskey and rum he tasted not—That’s as true as the Scripturs,—but if you’ll believe it, Betsy, Ann Kenipe told my Melissy that Miss Jinkins said one day to their house how’t she’d seen Deacon Bedott high, time and agin! did you ever! Well, I’m glad nobody don’t pretend to mind anythingshesays. I’ve knowed Poll Bingham from a gal, andshe never knowed how to speak the truth—besides she always had a partikkeler spite against husband and me, and between us tew I’ll tell you why if you won’t mention it, for I make it a pint never to say nothin’ to injure nobody. Well, she was a ravin’-distracted after my husband herself, but it’s a long story, I’ll tell you about it some other time, and then you’ll know why widder Jinkins is etarnally runnin’ me down. See,—where had I got to? Oh, I remember now,—Whisky and rum he tasted not,—He thought it was a sin,—I thought so much o’ Deacon BedottI never got married agin.But now he’s dead! the thought is killin’,My grief I can’t control—He never left a single shillin’His widder to console.But that wa’n’t his fault—he was so out o’ health for a number o’ year afore he died, it ain’t to be wondered at he dident lay up nothin’—however, it dident give him no great oneasiness,—he never cared much for airthly riches, though Miss Pendergrass says she heard Miss Jinkins say Deacon Bedott was as tight as the skin on his back,—begrudged folks their vittals when they come to his house! did you ever! why, he was the hull-souldest man I ever see in all my born days. If I’d such a husband as Bill Jinkins was, I’d hold my tongue about my neighbors’ husbands. He was a dretful mean man, used to git drunk every day of his life, and he had an awful high temper,—used to swear like all possest when he got mad,—and I’ve heard my husband say (and he wa’n’t a man that ever said anything that wa’n’t true),—I’ve heardhimsay Bill Jinkins would cheat his own father out of his eye teeth if he had a chance. Where was I? Oh! “His widder to console,”—ther ain’t but one more verse, ’tain’t a very lengthy poim. When Parson Potter read it, he says to me, says he,—“What did you stop so soon for?”—but Miss Jinkins told the Crosby’sshethought I’d better a’ stopt afore I’d begun,—she’s a purty critter to talk so, I must say. I’d like to see some poitry o’ hern,—I guess it would be astonishin’ stuff; and mor’n all that, she said there wa’n’t a word o’ truth in the hull on’t,—said I never cared tuppence for the deacon. What an everlastin’ lie! Why, when he died, I took it so hard I went deranged, and took on so for a spell they was afraid they should have to send me to a Lunatic Arsenal. But that’s a painful subject, I won’t dwell on’t.I conclude as follers:—I’ll never change my single lot,—I think ’twould be a sin,—The inconsolable widder o’ Deacon BedottDon’t intend to git married agin.Excuse my cryin’—my feelin’s always overcomes me so when I say that poitry—O-o-o-o-o-o!
YES,—he was one o’ the best men that ever trod shoe-leather, husband was, though Miss Jenkins says (she ’twas Poll Bingham),shesays, I never found it out till after he died, but that’s the consarndest lie that ever was told, though it’s jest a piece with everything else she says about me. I guess if everybody could see the poitry I writ to his mem’ry, nobody wouldn’t think I dident set store by him. Want to hear it? Well, I’ll see if I can say it; it ginerally affects me wonderfully, seems to harrer up my feelin’s; but I’ll try. It begins as follers:—
He never jawed in all his life,He never was onkind,—And (tho’ I say it that was his wife)Such men you seldom find.
He never jawed in all his life,He never was onkind,—And (tho’ I say it that was his wife)Such men you seldom find.
He never jawed in all his life,
He never was onkind,—
And (tho’ I say it that was his wife)
Such men you seldom find.
(That’s as true as the Scripturs; I never knowed him to say a harsh word.)
I never changed my single lot,—I thought ’twould be a sin—
I never changed my single lot,—I thought ’twould be a sin—
I never changed my single lot,—
I thought ’twould be a sin—
(Though widder Jinkins says it’s because I never had a chance.) Now ’tain’t for me to say whether I ever had a numerous number o’ chances or not, but there’s them livin’ thatmighttell if they wos a mind to; why, this poitry was writ on account of being joked about Major Coon, three years after husband died. I guess the ginerality o’ folks knows what was the nature o’ Majors Coon’s feelin’s towards me, tho’ his wife and Miss Jinkinsdoessay I tried to ketch him. The fact is, Miss Coon feels wonderfully cut up ’cause she knows the Major took her “Jack at a pinch,”—seein’ he couldent get such as he wanted, he took such as he could get,—but I goes on to say—
I never changed my single lot,I thought ’twould be a sin,—For I thought so much o’ Deacon Bedott,I never got married agin.If ever a hasty word he spoke,His anger dident last,But vanished like tobacker smokeAfore the wintry blast.And since it was my lot to beThe wife of such a man,Tell the men that’s after meTo ketch me if they can.If I was sick a single jot,He called the doctor in—
I never changed my single lot,I thought ’twould be a sin,—For I thought so much o’ Deacon Bedott,I never got married agin.If ever a hasty word he spoke,His anger dident last,But vanished like tobacker smokeAfore the wintry blast.And since it was my lot to beThe wife of such a man,Tell the men that’s after meTo ketch me if they can.If I was sick a single jot,He called the doctor in—
I never changed my single lot,
I thought ’twould be a sin,—
For I thought so much o’ Deacon Bedott,
I never got married agin.
If ever a hasty word he spoke,
His anger dident last,
But vanished like tobacker smoke
Afore the wintry blast.
And since it was my lot to be
The wife of such a man,
Tell the men that’s after me
To ketch me if they can.
If I was sick a single jot,
He called the doctor in—
That’s a fact,—he used to be scairt to death if anything ailed me. Now only jest think,—widder Jinkins told Sam Pendergrasses wife (she ’twas Sally Smith) that she guessed the deacon dident set no great store by me, or he wouldent went off to confrence meetin’, when I was down with the fever. The truth is, they couldent git along without him no way. Parson Potter seldom went to confrence meetin’, and whenhewa’n’t there, who was ther’, pray tell, that knowed enough to take the lead if husband dident do it? Deacon Kenipe hadent no gift, and Deacon Crosby hadent no inclination, and so it all come onto Deacon Bedott,—and he was always ready and willin’ to do his duty, you know; as long as he was able to stand on his legs he continued to go to confrence meetin’; why, I’ve knowed that man to go when he couldent scarcely crawl on account o’ the pain in the spine of his back.
He had a wonderful gift, and he wa’n’t a man to keep his talents hid up in a napkin,—so you see ’twas from a sense o’ duty he went when I was sick, whatever Miss Jinkins may say to the contrary. But where was I? Oh!—
If I was sick a single jot,He called the doctor in—I sot so much store by Deacon BedottI never got married agin.A wonderful tender heart he had,That felt for all mankind,—It made him feel amazin’ badTo see the world so blind.Whiskey and rum he tasted not—
If I was sick a single jot,He called the doctor in—I sot so much store by Deacon BedottI never got married agin.A wonderful tender heart he had,That felt for all mankind,—It made him feel amazin’ badTo see the world so blind.Whiskey and rum he tasted not—
If I was sick a single jot,
He called the doctor in—
I sot so much store by Deacon Bedott
I never got married agin.
A wonderful tender heart he had,
That felt for all mankind,—
It made him feel amazin’ bad
To see the world so blind.
Whiskey and rum he tasted not—
That’s as true as the Scripturs,—but if you’ll believe it, Betsy, Ann Kenipe told my Melissy that Miss Jinkins said one day to their house how’t she’d seen Deacon Bedott high, time and agin! did you ever! Well, I’m glad nobody don’t pretend to mind anythingshesays. I’ve knowed Poll Bingham from a gal, andshe never knowed how to speak the truth—besides she always had a partikkeler spite against husband and me, and between us tew I’ll tell you why if you won’t mention it, for I make it a pint never to say nothin’ to injure nobody. Well, she was a ravin’-distracted after my husband herself, but it’s a long story, I’ll tell you about it some other time, and then you’ll know why widder Jinkins is etarnally runnin’ me down. See,—where had I got to? Oh, I remember now,—
Whisky and rum he tasted not,—He thought it was a sin,—I thought so much o’ Deacon BedottI never got married agin.But now he’s dead! the thought is killin’,My grief I can’t control—He never left a single shillin’His widder to console.
Whisky and rum he tasted not,—He thought it was a sin,—I thought so much o’ Deacon BedottI never got married agin.But now he’s dead! the thought is killin’,My grief I can’t control—He never left a single shillin’His widder to console.
Whisky and rum he tasted not,—
He thought it was a sin,—
I thought so much o’ Deacon Bedott
I never got married agin.
But now he’s dead! the thought is killin’,
My grief I can’t control—
He never left a single shillin’
His widder to console.
But that wa’n’t his fault—he was so out o’ health for a number o’ year afore he died, it ain’t to be wondered at he dident lay up nothin’—however, it dident give him no great oneasiness,—he never cared much for airthly riches, though Miss Pendergrass says she heard Miss Jinkins say Deacon Bedott was as tight as the skin on his back,—begrudged folks their vittals when they come to his house! did you ever! why, he was the hull-souldest man I ever see in all my born days. If I’d such a husband as Bill Jinkins was, I’d hold my tongue about my neighbors’ husbands. He was a dretful mean man, used to git drunk every day of his life, and he had an awful high temper,—used to swear like all possest when he got mad,—and I’ve heard my husband say (and he wa’n’t a man that ever said anything that wa’n’t true),—I’ve heardhimsay Bill Jinkins would cheat his own father out of his eye teeth if he had a chance. Where was I? Oh! “His widder to console,”—ther ain’t but one more verse, ’tain’t a very lengthy poim. When Parson Potter read it, he says to me, says he,—“What did you stop so soon for?”—but Miss Jinkins told the Crosby’sshethought I’d better a’ stopt afore I’d begun,—she’s a purty critter to talk so, I must say. I’d like to see some poitry o’ hern,—I guess it would be astonishin’ stuff; and mor’n all that, she said there wa’n’t a word o’ truth in the hull on’t,—said I never cared tuppence for the deacon. What an everlastin’ lie! Why, when he died, I took it so hard I went deranged, and took on so for a spell they was afraid they should have to send me to a Lunatic Arsenal. But that’s a painful subject, I won’t dwell on’t.
I conclude as follers:—
I’ll never change my single lot,—I think ’twould be a sin,—The inconsolable widder o’ Deacon BedottDon’t intend to git married agin.
I’ll never change my single lot,—I think ’twould be a sin,—The inconsolable widder o’ Deacon BedottDon’t intend to git married agin.
I’ll never change my single lot,—
I think ’twould be a sin,—
The inconsolable widder o’ Deacon Bedott
Don’t intend to git married agin.
Excuse my cryin’—my feelin’s always overcomes me so when I say that poitry—O-o-o-o-o-o!
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(‡ decoration)CHARLES F. BROWNE.(ARTEMUS WARD).ARTEMUS WARD first revealed to the world that humor is a characteristic trait of the Yankee, and he was the first to succeed in producing a type of comic literature distinctively American, purely the product of his original genius.It is impossible to analyze his jokes or to tell why they are irresistibly funny, but it would be generally admitted that his best things are as much creations of genius as masterpieces of art are.He was one of the kindest and most generous of men; he used his keen wit to smite evil customs and to satirize immoral deeds, and he went through his short life enjoying above everything to make people laugh and to laugh himself, but with all his play of wit there was a tinge of melancholy in his nature and a tendency to do the most unexpected things, a tendency which he never tried to control. He was born in Waterford, Maine, in 1834, and he came honestly by a view of humor from his father’s side. He had only a most meagre school education, and at fourteen he set himself to learn the printer’s trade, becoming one of the best typesetters in the country.He drifted from place to place and finally became one of the staff of the “Commercial” at Toledo, Ohio, where he first displayed his peculiar richness of humor in his news reports. In 1857 he became local editor of the “Plain-Dealer” in Cleveland, and it was here his sketches were first signed Artemus Ward, a name which he took from a peculiar character who called on him once in his Cleveland office. He is described at this time as being in striking degree gawky and slouchy, with yellowish, straight hair, a loose swaggering gait, and strangely ill-fitting clothes, though as his popularity and position rose he took on more cultivated manners and grew very particular regarding his dress.His first attempts at lecturing were not marked with success and he was forced to explain his jokes to his audiences to make the desired laugh come, but he soon attracted attention and multitudes flocked to hear the “grate showman,” with his “moral wax figgers.” In 1863 he crossed the continent and on this trip he collected material for his most humorous lectures and for the best of his chapters.The Mormons furnished him with the material for his most telling lecture, and it was a mark of his genius that he was irresistibly drawn to Utah to study this peculiar type of American society.He went to England in 1866, where, though in failing health, ending in premature death, he created almost a sensation and had flattering successes. The “Mormons” never failed to fill a hall and always carried his audiences by storm.Some of his most brilliant articles were written for “Punch,” and the American humorist was recognized as a typical genius; but he was a dying man while he was making his London audiences laugh at his spontaneous wit, and his life came to an end at Southampton, January 23, 1867.He provided in his will for the establishment of an asylum for printers and for the education of their orphan children, an action which revealed, as many acts of his life had done, the kindly human spirit of the humorist.His published books, which owe much of their charm to his characteristic spelling, are as follows: “Artemus Ward, His Book,” and “Artemus Ward, His Travels” (1865), “Artemus Ward in London” (1867), “Artemus Ward’s Lecture, as delivered in Egyptian Hall, London,” edited by T. W. Robertson and E. P. Hingston (1869), and “Artemus Ward, His Works Complete,” with biographical sketch by Melville D. Landon (1875).ARTEMUS WARD VISITS THE SHAKERS.MR. SHAKER,” sed I, “you see before you a Babe in the Woods, so to speak, and he axes a shelter of you.”“Yay,” said the Shaker, and he led the way into the house, another bein’ sent to put my horse and wagon under kiver.A solum female, lookin’ somewhat like a last year’s bean-pole stuck into a long meal-bag, cum in and axed me was I athirst and did I hunger? To which I asserted, “A few.” She went orf, and I endeavored to open a conversation with the old man.“Elder, I spect,” sed I.“Yay,” he said.“Health’s good, I reckon?”“Yay.”“What’s the wages of a Elder, when he understands his bizness—or do you devote your sarvices gratooitous?”“Yay.”“Storm nigh, sir?”“Yay.”“If the storm continues there’ll be a mess underfoot, hay?”“Yay.”“If I may be so bold, kind sir, what’s the price of that pecooler kind of wesket you wear, includin’ trimmin’s?”“Yay.”I pawsed a minit, and, thinkin’ I’d be faseshus with him and see how that would go, I slapt him on the shoulder, burst into a hearty larf, and told him that as a yayer he had no livin’ ekel.He jumped up as if bilin’ water had been squirted into his ears, groaned, rolled his eyes up tords the sealin’ and sed:“You’re a man of sin!”He then walked out of the room.Directly thar cum in two young Shakeresses, as putty and slick lookin’ galls as I ever met. It is troo they was drest in meal-bags like the old one I’d met previsly, and their shiny, silky hair was hid from sight by long, white caps, such as I spose female gosts wear; but their eyes sparkled like diamonds, their cheeks was like roses, and they was charmin’ enuff to make a man throw stuns at his grandmother, if they axed him to. They commenst clearing away the dishes, casting shy glances at me all the time. I got excited. I forget Betsey Jane in my rapter, and sez I:“My pretty dears, how air you?”“We air well,” they solumly sed.“Where is the old man?” said I, in a soft voice.“Of whom dost thou speak—Brother Uriah?”“I mean that gay and festive cuss who calls me a man of sin. Shouldn’t wonder if his name wasn’t Uriah.”“He has retired.”“Wall, my pretty dears,” sez I, “let’s have some fun. Let’s play puss in the corner. What say?”“Air you a♦Shaker, sir?” they asked.♦‘Skaker’ replaced with ‘Shaker’“Wall, my pretty dears, I haven’t arrayed my proud form in a long weskit yet, but if they wus all like you perhaps I’d jine ’em. As it is, I am willing to be Shaker protemporary.”They was full of fun. I seed that at fust, only they was a little skeery. I tawt ’em puss in the corner, and sich like plase, and we had a nice time, keepin’ quiet of course, so that the old man shouldn’t hear. When we broke up, sez I:“My pretty dears, ear I go, you have no objections have you? to a innersent kiss at partin’?”“Yay,” they said, and I—yayed.ARTEMUS WARD AT THE TOMB OF SHAKESPEARE.I’VE been lingerin’ by the tomb of the lamented Shakespeare.It is a success.I do not hes’tate to pronounce it as such.You may make any use of this opinion that you see fit. If you think its publication will subswerve the cause of literatoor, you may publicate.I told my wife Betsey, when I left home, that I should go to the birthplace of the orthur ofOthellerand other Plays. She said that as long as I kept out of Newgate she didn’t care where I went. “But,” I said, “don’t you know he was the greatest Poit that ever lived? Not one of these common poits, like that young idyit who writes verses to our daughter, about the roses as groses, and the breezes as blowses—but a Boss poit—also a philosopher, also a man who knew a great deal about everything.”Yes. I’ve been to Stratford onto the Avon, the Birth-place of Shakespeare.Mr.S. is now no more. He’s been dead over three hundred (300) years. The peple of his native town are justly proud of him. They cherish his mem’ry, and them as sell picturs of his birth-place,&c., make it prof’tible cherishin’ it. Almost everybody buys a pictur to put into their Albiom.“And this,” I said, as I stood in the old churchyard at Stratford, beside a Tombstone, “this marks the spot where lies William W. Shakespeare. Alars! and this is the spot where—”“You’ve got the wrong grave,” said a man—a worthy villager; “Shakespeare is buried inside the church.”“Oh,” I said, “a boy told me this was it.” The boy larfed and put the shillin’ I’d given him into his left eye in a inglorious manner, and commenced moving backwards towards the street.I pursood and captered him, and, after talking to him a spell in a sarkastic stile, I let him went.William Shakespeare was born in Stratford in 1564. All the commentators, Shakesperian scholars, etsetry, are agreed on this, which is about the only thing they are agreed on in regard to him, except that his mantle hasn’t fallen onto any poet or dramatist hard enough to hurt said poet or dramatistmuch. And there is no doubt if these commentators and persons continner investigatin’ Shakespeare’s career, we shall not in doo time, know anything about it at all. When a mere lad little William attended the Grammar School, because, as he said, the Grammar School wouldn’t attend him. This remarkable remark coming from one so young and inexperunced, set peple to thinkin’ there might be something in this lad. He subsequently wroteHamletandGeorge Barnwell. When his kind teacher went to London to accept a position in the offices of the Metropolitan Railway, little William was chosen by his fellow-pupils to deliver a farewell address. “Go on, sir,” he said, “in a glorous career. Be like a eagle, and soar, and the soarer you get the more we shall be gratified! That’s so.”
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(ARTEMUS WARD).
ARTEMUS WARD first revealed to the world that humor is a characteristic trait of the Yankee, and he was the first to succeed in producing a type of comic literature distinctively American, purely the product of his original genius.
It is impossible to analyze his jokes or to tell why they are irresistibly funny, but it would be generally admitted that his best things are as much creations of genius as masterpieces of art are.
He was one of the kindest and most generous of men; he used his keen wit to smite evil customs and to satirize immoral deeds, and he went through his short life enjoying above everything to make people laugh and to laugh himself, but with all his play of wit there was a tinge of melancholy in his nature and a tendency to do the most unexpected things, a tendency which he never tried to control. He was born in Waterford, Maine, in 1834, and he came honestly by a view of humor from his father’s side. He had only a most meagre school education, and at fourteen he set himself to learn the printer’s trade, becoming one of the best typesetters in the country.
He drifted from place to place and finally became one of the staff of the “Commercial” at Toledo, Ohio, where he first displayed his peculiar richness of humor in his news reports. In 1857 he became local editor of the “Plain-Dealer” in Cleveland, and it was here his sketches were first signed Artemus Ward, a name which he took from a peculiar character who called on him once in his Cleveland office. He is described at this time as being in striking degree gawky and slouchy, with yellowish, straight hair, a loose swaggering gait, and strangely ill-fitting clothes, though as his popularity and position rose he took on more cultivated manners and grew very particular regarding his dress.
His first attempts at lecturing were not marked with success and he was forced to explain his jokes to his audiences to make the desired laugh come, but he soon attracted attention and multitudes flocked to hear the “grate showman,” with his “moral wax figgers.” In 1863 he crossed the continent and on this trip he collected material for his most humorous lectures and for the best of his chapters.
The Mormons furnished him with the material for his most telling lecture, and it was a mark of his genius that he was irresistibly drawn to Utah to study this peculiar type of American society.
He went to England in 1866, where, though in failing health, ending in premature death, he created almost a sensation and had flattering successes. The “Mormons” never failed to fill a hall and always carried his audiences by storm.
Some of his most brilliant articles were written for “Punch,” and the American humorist was recognized as a typical genius; but he was a dying man while he was making his London audiences laugh at his spontaneous wit, and his life came to an end at Southampton, January 23, 1867.
He provided in his will for the establishment of an asylum for printers and for the education of their orphan children, an action which revealed, as many acts of his life had done, the kindly human spirit of the humorist.
His published books, which owe much of their charm to his characteristic spelling, are as follows: “Artemus Ward, His Book,” and “Artemus Ward, His Travels” (1865), “Artemus Ward in London” (1867), “Artemus Ward’s Lecture, as delivered in Egyptian Hall, London,” edited by T. W. Robertson and E. P. Hingston (1869), and “Artemus Ward, His Works Complete,” with biographical sketch by Melville D. Landon (1875).
ARTEMUS WARD VISITS THE SHAKERS.
MR. SHAKER,” sed I, “you see before you a Babe in the Woods, so to speak, and he axes a shelter of you.”“Yay,” said the Shaker, and he led the way into the house, another bein’ sent to put my horse and wagon under kiver.A solum female, lookin’ somewhat like a last year’s bean-pole stuck into a long meal-bag, cum in and axed me was I athirst and did I hunger? To which I asserted, “A few.” She went orf, and I endeavored to open a conversation with the old man.“Elder, I spect,” sed I.“Yay,” he said.“Health’s good, I reckon?”“Yay.”“What’s the wages of a Elder, when he understands his bizness—or do you devote your sarvices gratooitous?”“Yay.”“Storm nigh, sir?”“Yay.”“If the storm continues there’ll be a mess underfoot, hay?”“Yay.”“If I may be so bold, kind sir, what’s the price of that pecooler kind of wesket you wear, includin’ trimmin’s?”“Yay.”I pawsed a minit, and, thinkin’ I’d be faseshus with him and see how that would go, I slapt him on the shoulder, burst into a hearty larf, and told him that as a yayer he had no livin’ ekel.He jumped up as if bilin’ water had been squirted into his ears, groaned, rolled his eyes up tords the sealin’ and sed:“You’re a man of sin!”He then walked out of the room.Directly thar cum in two young Shakeresses, as putty and slick lookin’ galls as I ever met. It is troo they was drest in meal-bags like the old one I’d met previsly, and their shiny, silky hair was hid from sight by long, white caps, such as I spose female gosts wear; but their eyes sparkled like diamonds, their cheeks was like roses, and they was charmin’ enuff to make a man throw stuns at his grandmother, if they axed him to. They commenst clearing away the dishes, casting shy glances at me all the time. I got excited. I forget Betsey Jane in my rapter, and sez I:“My pretty dears, how air you?”“We air well,” they solumly sed.“Where is the old man?” said I, in a soft voice.“Of whom dost thou speak—Brother Uriah?”“I mean that gay and festive cuss who calls me a man of sin. Shouldn’t wonder if his name wasn’t Uriah.”“He has retired.”“Wall, my pretty dears,” sez I, “let’s have some fun. Let’s play puss in the corner. What say?”“Air you a♦Shaker, sir?” they asked.♦‘Skaker’ replaced with ‘Shaker’“Wall, my pretty dears, I haven’t arrayed my proud form in a long weskit yet, but if they wus all like you perhaps I’d jine ’em. As it is, I am willing to be Shaker protemporary.”They was full of fun. I seed that at fust, only they was a little skeery. I tawt ’em puss in the corner, and sich like plase, and we had a nice time, keepin’ quiet of course, so that the old man shouldn’t hear. When we broke up, sez I:“My pretty dears, ear I go, you have no objections have you? to a innersent kiss at partin’?”“Yay,” they said, and I—yayed.
MR. SHAKER,” sed I, “you see before you a Babe in the Woods, so to speak, and he axes a shelter of you.”
“Yay,” said the Shaker, and he led the way into the house, another bein’ sent to put my horse and wagon under kiver.
A solum female, lookin’ somewhat like a last year’s bean-pole stuck into a long meal-bag, cum in and axed me was I athirst and did I hunger? To which I asserted, “A few.” She went orf, and I endeavored to open a conversation with the old man.
“Elder, I spect,” sed I.
“Yay,” he said.
“Health’s good, I reckon?”
“Yay.”
“What’s the wages of a Elder, when he understands his bizness—or do you devote your sarvices gratooitous?”
“Yay.”
“Storm nigh, sir?”
“Yay.”
“If the storm continues there’ll be a mess underfoot, hay?”
“Yay.”
“If I may be so bold, kind sir, what’s the price of that pecooler kind of wesket you wear, includin’ trimmin’s?”
“Yay.”
I pawsed a minit, and, thinkin’ I’d be faseshus with him and see how that would go, I slapt him on the shoulder, burst into a hearty larf, and told him that as a yayer he had no livin’ ekel.
He jumped up as if bilin’ water had been squirted into his ears, groaned, rolled his eyes up tords the sealin’ and sed:
“You’re a man of sin!”
He then walked out of the room.
Directly thar cum in two young Shakeresses, as putty and slick lookin’ galls as I ever met. It is troo they was drest in meal-bags like the old one I’d met previsly, and their shiny, silky hair was hid from sight by long, white caps, such as I spose female gosts wear; but their eyes sparkled like diamonds, their cheeks was like roses, and they was charmin’ enuff to make a man throw stuns at his grandmother, if they axed him to. They commenst clearing away the dishes, casting shy glances at me all the time. I got excited. I forget Betsey Jane in my rapter, and sez I:
“My pretty dears, how air you?”
“We air well,” they solumly sed.
“Where is the old man?” said I, in a soft voice.
“Of whom dost thou speak—Brother Uriah?”
“I mean that gay and festive cuss who calls me a man of sin. Shouldn’t wonder if his name wasn’t Uriah.”
“He has retired.”
“Wall, my pretty dears,” sez I, “let’s have some fun. Let’s play puss in the corner. What say?”
“Air you a♦Shaker, sir?” they asked.
♦‘Skaker’ replaced with ‘Shaker’
“Wall, my pretty dears, I haven’t arrayed my proud form in a long weskit yet, but if they wus all like you perhaps I’d jine ’em. As it is, I am willing to be Shaker protemporary.”
They was full of fun. I seed that at fust, only they was a little skeery. I tawt ’em puss in the corner, and sich like plase, and we had a nice time, keepin’ quiet of course, so that the old man shouldn’t hear. When we broke up, sez I:
“My pretty dears, ear I go, you have no objections have you? to a innersent kiss at partin’?”
“Yay,” they said, and I—yayed.
ARTEMUS WARD AT THE TOMB OF SHAKESPEARE.
I’VE been lingerin’ by the tomb of the lamented Shakespeare.It is a success.I do not hes’tate to pronounce it as such.You may make any use of this opinion that you see fit. If you think its publication will subswerve the cause of literatoor, you may publicate.I told my wife Betsey, when I left home, that I should go to the birthplace of the orthur ofOthellerand other Plays. She said that as long as I kept out of Newgate she didn’t care where I went. “But,” I said, “don’t you know he was the greatest Poit that ever lived? Not one of these common poits, like that young idyit who writes verses to our daughter, about the roses as groses, and the breezes as blowses—but a Boss poit—also a philosopher, also a man who knew a great deal about everything.”Yes. I’ve been to Stratford onto the Avon, the Birth-place of Shakespeare.Mr.S. is now no more. He’s been dead over three hundred (300) years. The peple of his native town are justly proud of him. They cherish his mem’ry, and them as sell picturs of his birth-place,&c., make it prof’tible cherishin’ it. Almost everybody buys a pictur to put into their Albiom.“And this,” I said, as I stood in the old churchyard at Stratford, beside a Tombstone, “this marks the spot where lies William W. Shakespeare. Alars! and this is the spot where—”“You’ve got the wrong grave,” said a man—a worthy villager; “Shakespeare is buried inside the church.”“Oh,” I said, “a boy told me this was it.” The boy larfed and put the shillin’ I’d given him into his left eye in a inglorious manner, and commenced moving backwards towards the street.I pursood and captered him, and, after talking to him a spell in a sarkastic stile, I let him went.William Shakespeare was born in Stratford in 1564. All the commentators, Shakesperian scholars, etsetry, are agreed on this, which is about the only thing they are agreed on in regard to him, except that his mantle hasn’t fallen onto any poet or dramatist hard enough to hurt said poet or dramatistmuch. And there is no doubt if these commentators and persons continner investigatin’ Shakespeare’s career, we shall not in doo time, know anything about it at all. When a mere lad little William attended the Grammar School, because, as he said, the Grammar School wouldn’t attend him. This remarkable remark coming from one so young and inexperunced, set peple to thinkin’ there might be something in this lad. He subsequently wroteHamletandGeorge Barnwell. When his kind teacher went to London to accept a position in the offices of the Metropolitan Railway, little William was chosen by his fellow-pupils to deliver a farewell address. “Go on, sir,” he said, “in a glorous career. Be like a eagle, and soar, and the soarer you get the more we shall be gratified! That’s so.”
I’VE been lingerin’ by the tomb of the lamented Shakespeare.
It is a success.
I do not hes’tate to pronounce it as such.
You may make any use of this opinion that you see fit. If you think its publication will subswerve the cause of literatoor, you may publicate.
I told my wife Betsey, when I left home, that I should go to the birthplace of the orthur ofOthellerand other Plays. She said that as long as I kept out of Newgate she didn’t care where I went. “But,” I said, “don’t you know he was the greatest Poit that ever lived? Not one of these common poits, like that young idyit who writes verses to our daughter, about the roses as groses, and the breezes as blowses—but a Boss poit—also a philosopher, also a man who knew a great deal about everything.”
Yes. I’ve been to Stratford onto the Avon, the Birth-place of Shakespeare.Mr.S. is now no more. He’s been dead over three hundred (300) years. The peple of his native town are justly proud of him. They cherish his mem’ry, and them as sell picturs of his birth-place,&c., make it prof’tible cherishin’ it. Almost everybody buys a pictur to put into their Albiom.
“And this,” I said, as I stood in the old churchyard at Stratford, beside a Tombstone, “this marks the spot where lies William W. Shakespeare. Alars! and this is the spot where—”
“You’ve got the wrong grave,” said a man—a worthy villager; “Shakespeare is buried inside the church.”
“Oh,” I said, “a boy told me this was it.” The boy larfed and put the shillin’ I’d given him into his left eye in a inglorious manner, and commenced moving backwards towards the street.
I pursood and captered him, and, after talking to him a spell in a sarkastic stile, I let him went.
William Shakespeare was born in Stratford in 1564. All the commentators, Shakesperian scholars, etsetry, are agreed on this, which is about the only thing they are agreed on in regard to him, except that his mantle hasn’t fallen onto any poet or dramatist hard enough to hurt said poet or dramatistmuch. And there is no doubt if these commentators and persons continner investigatin’ Shakespeare’s career, we shall not in doo time, know anything about it at all. When a mere lad little William attended the Grammar School, because, as he said, the Grammar School wouldn’t attend him. This remarkable remark coming from one so young and inexperunced, set peple to thinkin’ there might be something in this lad. He subsequently wroteHamletandGeorge Barnwell. When his kind teacher went to London to accept a position in the offices of the Metropolitan Railway, little William was chosen by his fellow-pupils to deliver a farewell address. “Go on, sir,” he said, “in a glorous career. Be like a eagle, and soar, and the soarer you get the more we shall be gratified! That’s so.”