This kind o' sogerin' aint a mite like our October trainin',A chap could clear right out from there ef't only looked like rainin',An' th' Cunnles, tu, could kiver up their shappoes with bandanners,An' send the insines skootin' to the bar-room with their banners,(Fear o' gittin' on 'em spotted,) an' a feller could cry quarterEf he fired away his ramrod arter tu much rum an' water.Recollect wut fun we hed, you'n' I an' Ezry Hollis,Up there to Waltham plain last fall, along o' the Cornwallis?[M]This sort o' thing aintjestlike thet,—I wish thet I wuz furder,[N]—Nimepunce a day fer killin' folks comes kind o' low fer murder,(Wy I've worked out to slarterin' some fer Deacon Cephas Billins,An' in the hardest times there wuz I ollers tetched ten shillins,)There's sutthin' gits into my throat thet makes it hard to swaller,It comes so nateral to think about a hempen collar;It's glory,—but, in spite o' all my tryin' to git callous,I feel a kind o' in a cart, aridin' to the gallus.But wen it comes tobein'killed,—I tell ye I felt streakèdThe fust time 't ever I found out wy baggonets wuz peaked;Here's how it wuz: I started out to go to a fandango,The sentinul he ups an' sez, "Thet's furder 'an you can go.""None o' your sarse," sez I; sez he, "Stan' back!" "Aint you a buster?"Sez I, "I'm up to all thet air, I guess I've ben to muster;I know wy sentinuls air sot; you aint agoin' to eat us;Caleb haint no monopoly to court the seenoreetas;My folks to hum air full ez good ez hisn be, by golly!"An' so ez I wuz goin' by, not thinkin' wut would folly,The everlastin' cus he stuck his one-pronged pitchfork in meAn' made a hole right thru my close ez ef I wuz an in'my.Wal, it beats all how big I felt hoorawin' in ole FunnelWen Mister Bolles he gin the sword to our Leftenant Cunnle,(It's Mister Secondary Bolles,[O]thet writ the prize peace essay;Thet's why he didn't list himself along o' us, I dessay,)An' Rantoul, tu, talked pooty loud, but don't puthisfoot in it,Coz human life's so sacred thet he's principled agin it,—Though I myself can't rightly see it's any wus achokin' on 'em,Than puttin' bullets thru their lights, or with a bagnet pokin' on 'em;How dreffle slick he reeled it off, (like Blitz at our lyceumAhaulin' ribbins from his chops so quick you skeercely see 'em,)About the Anglo-Saxon race (an' saxons would be handyTo du the buryin' down here upon the Rio Grandy),About our patriotic pas an' our star-spangled banner,Our country's bird alookin' on an' singin' out hosanner,An' how he (Mister B. himself) wuz happy fer Ameriky,—I felt, ez sister Patience sez, a leetle mite histericky.I felt, I swon, ez though it wuz a dreffle kind o' privilegeAtrampin' round thru Boston streets among the gutter's drivelage;I act'lly thought it wuz a treat to hear a little drummin',An' it did bonyfidy seem millanyum wuz acomin'Wen all on us got suits (darned like them wore in the state prison)An' every feller felt ez though all Mexico wuz hisn.[P]This 'ere's about the meanest place a skunk could wal diskiver(Saltillo's Mexican, I b'lieve, fer wut we call Salt-river);The sort o' trash a feller gits to eat doos beat all nater,I'd give a year's pay fer a smell o' one good blue-nose tater;The country here thet Mister Bolles declared to be so charmin'Throughout is swarmin' with the most alarmin' kind o' varmin.He talked about delishis froots, but then it wuz a wopper all,The holl on't 's mud an' prickly pears, with here an' there a chapparal;You see a feller peekin' out, an', fust you know, a lariatIs round your throat an' you a copse, 'fore you can say, "Wut air ye at?"[Q]You never see sech darned gret bugs (it may not be irrelevantTo say I've seen ascarabœus pilularius[R]big ez a year old elephant,)The rigiment come up one day in time to stop a red bugFrom runnin' off with Cunnle Wright,—'t wuz jest a commoncimex lectularius.One night I started up on eend an' thought I wuz to hum agin,I heern a horn, thinks I it's Sol the fisherman hez come agin,Hisbellowses is sound enough,—ez I'm a livin' creeter,I felt a thing go thru my leg,—'t wuz nothin' more 'n a skeeter!Then there's the yaller fever, tu, they call it here el vomito,—(Come, thet wun't du, you landcrab there, I tell ye to le'gomy toe!My gracious! it's a scorpion thet's took a shine to play with 'tI darsn't skeer the tarnal thing fer fear he'd run away with 't.)Afore I come away from hum I hed a strong persuasionThet Mexicans worn't human beans,[S]—an ourang outang nation,A sort o' folks a chap could kill an' never dream on't arter,No more 'n a feller 'd dream o' pigs thet he hed hed to slarter;I'd an idee thet they were built arter the darkie fashion all,An' kickin' colored folks about, you know, 's a kind o' national;But wen I jined I worn't so wise ez thet air queen o' Sheby,Fer, come to look at 'em, they aint much diff'rent from wut we be,An' here we air ascrougin' 'em out o' thir own dominions,Ashelterin' 'em, ez Caleb sez, under our eagle's pinions,Wich means to take a feller up jest by the slack o' 's trowsisAn' walk him Spanish clean right out o' all his homes an' houses;Wal, it doos seem a curus way, but then hooraw fer Jackson!It must be right, fer Caleb sez it's reg'lar Anglosaxon.The Mex'cans don't fight fair, they say, they piz'n all the water,An' du amazin' lots o' things thet isn't wut they ough' to;Bein' they haint no lead, they make their bullets out o' copperAn' shoot the darned things at us, tu, wich Caleb sez aint proper;He sez they'd ough' to stan' right up an' let us pop 'em fairly,(Guess wen he ketches 'em at thet he'll hev to git up airly,)Thet our nation's bigger'n theirn an' so its rights air bigger,An' thet it's all to make 'em free thet we air pullin' trigger,Thet Anglo Saxondom's idee 's abreakin' 'em to pieces,An' thet idee's thet every man doos jest wut he damn pleases;Ef I don't make his meanin' clear, perhaps in some respex I can,I know thet "every man" don't mean a nigger or a Mexican;An' there's another thing I know, an' thet is, ef these creeturs,Thet stick an Anglosaxon mask onto State-prison feeturs,Should come to Jaalam Centre fer to argify an' spout on't,The gals 'ould count the silver spoons the minnit they cleared out on't.This goin' ware glory waits ye haint one agreeable feetur,An' ef it worn't fer wakin' snakes, I'd home agin short meter;O, wouldn't I be off, quick time, ef't worn't thet I wuz sartinThey'd let the daylight into me to pay me fer desartin'!I don't approve o' tellin' tales, but jest to you I may stateOur ossifers aint wut they wuz afore they left the Baystate;Then it wuz "Mister Sawin, sir, you're middlin' well now, be ye?Step up an' take a nipper, sir; I'm dreffle glad to see ye";But now it's "Ware's my eppylet? here, Sawin, step an' fetch it!An' mind your eye, be thund'rin' spry, or, damn ye, you shall ketch it!"Wal, ez the Doctor sez, some pork will bile so, but by mighty,Ef I hed some on 'em to hum, I 'd give 'em linkum vity,I'd play the rogue's march on their hides an' other music follerin'—But I must close my letter here, fer one on 'em 's ahollerin',These Anglosaxon ossifers,—wal, taint no use ajawin',I'm safe enlisted fer the war,
Yourn,
Birdofredom Sawin.
[Those have not been wanting (as, indeed, when hath Satan been to seek for attorneys?) who have maintained that our late inroad upon Mexico was undertaken, not so much for the avenging of any national quarrel, as for the spreading of free institutions and of Protestantism.Capita vix duabus Anticyris medenda!Verily I admire that no pious sergeant among these new Crusaders beheld Martin Luther riding at the front of the host upon a tamed pontifical bull, as, in that former invasion of Mexico, the zealous Gomara (spawn though he were of the Scarlet Woman) was favored with a vision of St. James of Compostella, skewering the infidels upon his apostolical lance. We read, also, that Richard of the lion heart, having gone to Palestine on a similar errandof mercy, was divinely encouraged to cut the throats of such Paynims as refused to swallow the bread of life (doubtless that they might be thereafter incapacitated for swallowing the filthy gobbets of Mahound) by angels of heaven, who cried to the king and his knights,—Seigneurs, tuez! tuez!providentially using the French tongue, as being the only one understood by their auditors. This would argue for the pantoglottism of these celestial intelligences, while, on the other hand, the Devil,testeCotton Mather, is unversed in certain of the Indian dialects. Yet must he be a semeiologist the most expert, making himself intelligible to every people and kindred by signs; no other discourse, indeed, being needful, than such as the mackerel-fisher holds with his finned quarry, who, if other bait be wanting, can by a bare bit of white rag at the end of a string captivate those foolish fishes. Such piscatorial oratory is Satan cunning in. Before one he trails a hat and feather, or a bare feather without a hat; before another, a Presidential chair, or a tidewaiter's stool, or a pulpit in the city, no matter what. To us, dangling there over our heads, they seem junkets dropped out of the seventh heaven, sops dipped in nectar, but, once in our mouths, they are all one, bits of fuzzy cotton.
This, however, by the way. It is time nowrevocare gradum. While so many miracles of this sort, vouched by eyewitnesses, have encouraged the arms of Papists, not to speak of Echetlæus at Marathon and thoseDioscuri(whom we must conclude imps of the pit) who sundry times captained the pagan Roman soldiery, it is strange that our first American crusade was not in some such wise also signalized. Yet it is said that the Lord hath manifestly prospered our armies. This opens the question, whether, when our hands are strengthened to make great slaughter of our enemies, it be absolutely and demonstratively certain that this might is added to us from above, or whether some Potentate from an opposite quarter may not have a finger in it, as there are few pies into which his meddling digits are not thrust. Would the Sanctifier and Setter-apart of the seventh day have assisted in a victory gained on the Sabbath, as was one in the late war? Or has that day become less an object of his especial care since the year 1697, when so manifest a providence occurred to Mr. William Trowbridge, in answer to whose prayers, when he and all on shipboard with him were starving, a dolphin was sent daily, "which was enough to serve 'em; only onSaturdaysthey still catched a couple, and on theLord's Daysthey could catch none at all"? Haply they might have been permitted, by way of mortification, to take some few sculpins (those banes of the salt-water angler), which unseemly fish would, moreover, have conveyed to them a symbolical reproof for their breach of the day, being known in the rude dialect of our mariners asCape Cod Clergymen.
It has been a refreshment to many nice consciences to know that our Chief Magistrate would not regard with eyes of approval the (by many esteemed) sinful pastime of dancing, and I own myself to be so far of that mind, that I could not but set my face against this Mexican Polka, though danced to the Presidential piping with a Gubernatorial second. If ever the country should be seized with another such maniade propagandâ fide, I think it would be wise to fill our bombshells with alternate copies of the Cambridge Platform and the Thirty-nine Articles, which would produce a mixture of the highest explosive power, and to wrap every one of our cannon-balls in a leaf of the New Testament, the reading of which is denied to those who sit in the darkness of Popery. Those iron evangelists would thus be able to disseminate vital religion and Gospel truth in quarters inaccessible to the ordinary missionary. I have seen lads, unimpregnate with the more sublimated punctiliousness of Walton, secure pickerel, taking their unwarysiestabeneath the lily-pads too nigh the surface, with a gun and small shot. Why not, then, since gunpowder was unknown in the time of the Apostles (not to enter here upon the question whether it were discovered before that period by the Chinese), suit our metaphor to the age in which we live, and sayshootersas well asfishersof men?
I do much fear that we shall be seized now and then with a Protestant fervor, as long as we have neighbor Naboths whose wallowings in Papistical mire excite our horror in exact proportion to the size and desirableness of their vineyards. Yet I rejoice that some earnest Protestants have been made by this war,—I mean those who protested against it. Fewer they were than I could wish, for one might imagineAmerica to have been colonized by a tribe of those nondescript African animals the Aye-Ayes, so difficult a word is No to us all. There is some malformation or defect of the vocal organs, which either prevents our uttering it at all, or gives it so thick a pronunciation as to be unintelligible. A mouth filled with the national pudding, or watering in expectation thereof, is wholly incompetent to this refractory monosyllable. An abject and herpetic Public Opinion is the Pope, the Anti-Christ, for us to protest againste corde cordium. And by what College of Cardinals is this our God's-vicar, our binder and looser, elected? Very like, by the sacred conclave of Tag, Rag, and Bobtail, in the gracious atmosphere of the grog-shop. Yet it is of this that we must all be puppets. This thumps the pulpit-cushion, this guides the editor's pen, this wags the senator's tongue. This decides what Scriptures are canonical, and shuffles Christ away into the Apocrypha. According to that sentence fathered upon Solon,Οὕτω δημόσιον κακὸν ἔρχεται οἴκαδ᾽ ἑκάστῳ.This unclean spirit is skilful to assume various shapes. I have known it to enter my own study and nudge my elbow of a Saturday, under the semblance of a wealthy member of my congregation. It were a great blessing, if every particular of what in the sum we call popular sentiment could carry about the name of its manufacturer stamped legibly upon it. I gave a stab under the fifth rib to that pestilent fallacy,—"Our country, right or wrong,"—by tracing its original to a speech of Ensign Cilley at a dinner of the Bungtown Fencibles. H. W.]
[L]In relation to this expression, I cannot but think that Mr. Biglow has been too hasty in attributing it to me. Though Time be a comparatively innocent personage to swear by, and though Longinus in his discourseΠερὶ ῞Υψουςhas commended timely oaths as not only a useful but sublime figure of speech, yet I have always kept my lips free from that abomination.Odi profanum vulgus, I hate your swearing and hectoring fellows.—H. W.
[M]i hait the Site of a feller with a muskit as I du pizn But theirisfun to a cornwallis I aint agoin' to deny it.—H. B.
[N]he means Not quite so fur I guess.—H. B.
[O]the ignerant creeter means Sekketary; but he ollers stuck to his books like cobbler's wax to an ile-stone.—H. B.
[P]it must be aloud that thare's a streak o' nater in lovin' sho, but it sartinly is 1 of the curusest things in nater to see a rispecktable dri goods dealer (deekon off a chutch mayby) ariggin' himself out in the Weigh they du and struttin' round in the Reign aspilin' his trowsis and makin' wet goods of himself. Ef any thin's foolisher and moor dicklus than militerry gloary it is milishy gloary.—H. B.
[Q]these fellers are verry proppilly called Rank Heroes, and the more tha kill the ranker and more Herowick tha bekum.—H. B.
[R]it wuz "tumblebug" as he Writ it, but the parson put the Latten instid. i sed tother maid better meeter, but he said tha was eddykated peepl to Boston and tha wouldn't stan' it no how. idnow as thawoodand idnowastha wood.—H. B.
[S]he means human beins, that's wut he means, i spose he kinder thought tha wuz human beans ware the Xisle Poles comes from.—H. B.
WHAT MR. ROBINSON THINKS.
[A few remarks on the following verses will not be out of place. The satire in them was not meant to have any personal, but only a general, application. Of the gentleman upon whose letter they were intended as a commentary Mr. Biglow had never heard, till he saw the letter itself. The position of the satirist is oftentimes one which he would not have chosen, had the election been left to himself. In attacking bad principles, he is obliged to select some individual who has made himself their exponent, and in whom they are impersonate, to the end that what he says may not, through ambiguity, be dissipatedtenues in auras. For what says Seneca?Longum iter per præcepta, breve et efficace per exempla.A bad principle is comparatively harmless while it continues to be an abstraction, nor can the general mind comprehend it fully till it is printed in that large type which all men can read at sight, namely, the life and character, the sayings and doings, of particularpersons. It is one of the cunningest fetches of Satan, that he never exposes himself directly to our arrows, but, still dodging behind this neighbor or that acquaintance, compels us to wound him through them, if at all. He holds our affections as hostages, the while he patches up a truce with our conscience.
Meanwhile, let us not forget that the aim of the true satirist is not to be severe upon persons, but only upon falsehood, and, as Truth and Falsehood start from the same point, and sometimes even go along together for a little way, his business is to follow the path of the latter after it diverges, and to show her floundering in the bog at the end of it. Truth is quite beyond the reach of satire. There is so brave a simplicity in her, that she can no more be made ridiculous than an oak or a pine. The danger of the satirist is, that continual use may deaden his sensibility to the force of language. He becomes more and more liable to strike harder than he knows or intends. He may be careful to put on his boxing-gloves, and yet forget, that, the older they grow, the more plainly may the knuckles inside be felt. Moreover, in the heat of contest, the eye is insensibly drawn to the crown of victory, whose tawdry tinsel glitters through that dust of the ring which obscures Truth's wreath of simple leaves. I have sometimes thought that my young friend, Mr. Biglow, needed a monitory hand laid on his arm,—aliquid sufflaminandus erat. I have never thought it good husbandry to water the tender plants of reform withaqua fortis, yet, where so much is to do in the beds, he were a sorry gardener who should wage a whole day's war with an iron scuffle on those ill weeds that make the garden-walks of life unsightly, when a sprinkle of Attic salt will wither them up.Est ars etiam maledicendi, says Scaliger, and truly it is a hard thing to say where the graceful gentleness of the lamb merges in downright sheepishness. We may conclude with worthy and wise Dr. Fuller, that "one may be a lamb in private wrongs, but in hearing general affronts to goodness they are asses which are not lions."—H. W.]
Guvener B. is a sensible man;He stays to his home an' looks arter his folks;He draws his furrer ez straight ez he can,An' into nobody's tater-patch pokes;—But John P.Robinson heSez he wunt vote fer Guvener B.My! aint it terrible? Wut shall we du?We can't never choose him, o' course,—thet's flat;Guess we shall hev to come round, (don't you?)An' go in fer thunder an' guns, an' all that;Fer John P.Robinson heSez he wunt vote fer Guvener B.Gineral C. is a dreffle smart man:He's ben on all sides thet give places or pelf;But consistency still wuz a part of his plan,—He's been true tooneparty and thet is himself;—So John P.Robinson heSez he shall vote fer Gineral C.Gineral C. he goes in fer the war;He don't vally principle more 'n an old cud;Wut did God make us raytional creeturs fer,But glory an' gunpowder, plunder an' blood?So John P.Robinson heSez he shall vote fer Gineral G.We were gittin' on nicely up here to our village,With good old idees o' wut's right an' wut aint,We kind o' thought Christ went agin war an' pillage,An' thet eppyletts worn't the best mark of a saintBut John P.Robinson heSez this kind o' thing's an exploded idee.The side of our country must ollers be took,An' Presidunt Polk, you know,heis our country.An' the angel thet writes all our sins in a bookPuts thedebitto him, an' to us theper contry;An' John P.Robinson heSez this is his view o' the thing to a T.Parson Wilbur he calls all these argimunts lies;Sez they're nothin' on airth but jestfee, faw, fum:An' thet all this big talk of our destiniesIs half on it ignorance, an' t' other half rum,But John P.Robinson heSez it aint no sech thing; an', of course, so must we.Parson Wilbur sezhenever heerd in his lifeThet th' Apostles rigged out in their swaller-tail coats,An' marched round in front of a drum an' a fife,To git some on 'em office, an' some on 'em votes,But John P.Robinson heSez they didn't know everythin' down in Judee.Wal, it's a marcy we've gut folks to tell usThe rights an' the wrongs o' these matters, I vow,—God sends country lawyers, an' other wise fellers,To start the world's team wen it gits in a slough;Fer John P.Robinson heSez the world'll go right, ef he hollers out Gee!
[The attentive reader will doubtless have perceived in the foregoing poem an allusion to that pernicious sentiment,—"Our country, right or wrong." It is an abuse of language to call a certain portion of land, much more, certain personages, elevated for the time being to high station, our country. I would not sever nor loosen a single one of those ties by which we are united to the spot of our birth, nor minish by a tittle the respect due to the Magistrate. I love our own Bay State too well to do the one, and as for the other, I have myself for nigh forty years exercised, however unworthily, the function of Justice of the Peace, having been called thereto by the unsolicited kindness of that most excellent man and upright patriot, Caleb Strong.Patriæ fumus igne alieno luculentioris best qualified with this,—Ubi libertas, ibi patria. We are inhabitants of two worlds, and owe a double but not a divided, allegiance. In virtue of our clay, this little ball of earth exacts a certain loyalty of us, while, in our capacity as spirits, we are admitted citizens of an invisible and holier fatherland. There is a patriotism of the soul whose claim absolves us from our other and terrene fealty. Our true country is that ideal realm which we represent to ourselves under the names of religion, duty, and the like. Our terrestrial organizations are but far-off approaches to so fair a model, and all they are verily traitors who resist not any attempt to divert them from this their original intendment. When, therefore, one would have us to fling up our caps and shout with the multitude,—"Our country, however bounded!" he demands of us that we sacrifice the larger to the less, the higher to the lower, and that we yield to the imaginary claims of a few acres of soil our duty and privilege as liegemen of Truth. Our true country is bounded on the north and the south, on the east and the west, by Justice, and when she oversteps that invisible boundary-line by so much as a hair's-breadth, she ceases to be our mother, and chooses rather to be looked uponquasi noverca. That is a hard choice, when our earthly love of country calls upon us to tread one path and our duty points us to another. We must make as noble and becoming an election as did Penelope between Icarius and Ulysses. Veiling our faces, we must take silently the hand of Duty to follow her.
Shortly after the publication of the foregoing poem, there appeared some comments upon it in one of the public prints which seemed to call for animadversion. I accordingly addressed to Mr. Buckingham, of the Boston Courier, the following letter.
Jaalam, November 4, 1847.
'To the Editor of the Courier:
"Respected Sir,—Calling at the post-office this morning, our worthy and efficient postmaster offered for my perusal a paragraph inthe Boston Morning Post of the 3d instant, wherein certain effusions of the pastoral muse are attributed to the pen of Mr. James Russell Lowell. For aught I know or can affirm to the contrary, this Mr. Lowell may be a very deserving person and a youth of parts (though I have seen verses of his which I could never rightly understand); and if he be such, he, I am certain, as well as I, would be free from any proclivity to appropriate to himself whatever of credit (or discredit) may honestly belong to another. I am confident, that, in penning these few lines, I am only forestalling a disclaimer from that young gentleman, whose silence hitherto, when rumor pointed to himward, has excited in my bosom mingled emotions of sorrow and surprise. Well may my young parishioner, Mr. Biglow, exclaim with the poet,
'Sic vos non vobis,' &c.;
though, in saying this, I would not convey the impression that he is a proficient in the Latin tongue,—the tongue, I might add, of a Horace and a Tully.
"Mr. B. does not employ his pen, I can safely say, for any lucre of worldly gain, or to be exalted by the carnal plaudits of mendigito monstrari, &c. He does not wait upon Providence for mercies, and in his heart meanmerces. But I should esteem myself as verily deficient in my duty (who am his friend and in some unworthy sort his spiritualfidus Achates, &c.), if I did not step forward to claim for him whatever measure of applause might be assigned to him by the judicious.
"If this were a fitting occasion, I might venture here a brief dissertation touching the manner and kind of my young friend's poetry. But I dubitate whether this abstruser sort of speculation (though enlivened by some apposite instances from Aristophanes) would sufficiently interest your oppidan readers. As regards their satirical tone, and their plainness of speech, I will only say, that, in my pastoral experience, I have found that the Arch-Enemy loves nothing better than to be treated as a religious, moral, and intellectual being, and that there is noapage Sathanas! so potent as ridicule. But it is a kind of weapon that must have a button of good-nature on the point of it.
"The productions of Mr. B. have been stigmatized in some quarters as unpatriotic; but I can vouch that he loves his native soil with that hearty, though discriminating, attachment which springs from an intimate social intercourse of many years' standing. In the ploughing season, no one has a deeper share in the well-being of the country than he. If Dean Swift were right in saying that he who makes two blades of grass grow where one grew before confers a greater benefit on the state than he who taketh a city, Mr. B. might exhibit a fairer claim to the Presidency than General Scott himself. I think that some of those disinterested lovers of the hard-handed democracy, whose fingers have never touched anything rougher than the dollars of our common country, would hesitate to compare palms with him. It would do your heart good, respected Sir, to see that young man mow. He cuts a cleaner and wider swarth than any in this town.
"But it is time for me to be at my Post. It is very clear that my young friend's shot has struck the lintel, for the Post is shaken (Amos ix. 1). The editor of that paper is a strenuous advocate of the Mexican war, and a colonel, as I am given to understand. I presume, that, being necessarily absent in Mexico, he has left his journal in some less judicious hands. At any rate, the Post has been too swift on this occasion. It could hardly have cited a more incontrovertible line from any poem than that which it has selected for animadversion, namely,—
'We kind o' thought Christ went agin war an' pillage.'
"If the Post maintains the converse of this proposition, it can hardly be considered as a safe guide-post for the moral and religious portions of its party, however many other excellent qualities of a post it may be blessed with. There is a sign in London on which is painted,—'The Green Man.' It would do very well as a portrait of any individual who would support so unscriptural a thesis. As regards the language of the line in question, I am bold to say that He who readeth the hearts of men will not account any dialect unseemly which conveys a sound and pious sentiment. I could wish that such sentiments were more common, however uncouthly expressed. Saint Ambrose affirms, thatveritas a quocunque(why not, then,quomodocunque?)dicatur, a spiritu sancto est. Digest also this of Baxter:—'The plainest words are the most profitable oratory in the weightiest matters.'
"When the paragraph in question was shown to Mr. Biglow, the only part of it which seemed to give him any dissatisfaction was that which classed him with the Whig party. He says, that, if resolutions are a nourishing kind of diet, that party must be in a very hearty and flourishing condition; for that they have quietly eaten more good ones of their own baking than he could have conceived to be possible without repletion. He has been for some years past (I regret to say) an ardent opponent of those sound doctrines of protective policy which form so prominent a portion of the creed of that party. I confess, that, in some discussions which I have had with him on this point in my study, he has displayed a vein of obstinacy which I had not hitherto detected in his composition. He is also (horresco referens) infected in no small measure with the peculiar notions of a print called the Liberator, whose heresies I take every proper opportunity of combating, and of which, I thank God, I have never read a single line.
"I did not see Mr. B.'s verses until they appeared in print, and there is certainly one thing in them which I consider highly improper. I allude to the personal references to myself by name. To confer notoriety on an humble individual who is laboring quietly in his vocation, and who keeps his cloth as free as he can from the dust of the political arena (thoughvæ mihi si non evangelizavero), is no doubt an indecorum. The sentiments which he attributes to me I will not deny to be mine. They were embodied, though in a different form, in a discourse preached upon the last day of public fasting, and were acceptable to my entire people (of whatever political views), except the postmaster, who dissentedex officio. I observe that you sometimes devote a portion of your paper to a religious summary. I should be well pleased to furnish a copy of my discourse for insertion in this department of your instructive journal. By omitting the advertisements, it might easily be got within the limits of a single number, and I venture to insure you the sale of some scores of copies in this town. I will cheerfully render myself responsible for ten. It might possibly be advantageous to issue it as anextra. But perhaps you will not esteem it an object, and I will not press it. My offer does not spring from any weak desire of seeing my name in print; for I can enjoy this satisfaction at any time by turning to the Triennial Catalogue of the University, where it also possesses that added emphasis of Italics with which those of my calling are distinguished.
"I would simply add, that I continue to fit ingenuous youth for college, and that I have two spacious and airy sleeping apartments at this moment unoccupied.Ingenuas didicisse, &c. Terms, which vary according to the circumstances of the parents, may be known on application to me by letter, post paid. In all cases the lad will be expected to fetch his own towels. This rule, Mrs. W. desires me to add, has no exceptions.
"Respectfully, your obedient servant,
"Homer Wilbur, A.M.
"P.S. Perhaps the last paragraph may look like an attempt to obtain the insertion of my circular gratuitously. If it should appear to you in that light, I desire that you would erase it, or charge for it at the usual rates, and deduct the amount from the proceeds in your hands from the sale of my discourse, when it shall be printed. My circular is much longer and more explicit, and will be forwarded without charge to any who may desire it. It has been very neatly executed on a letter sheet, by a very deserving printer, who attends upon my ministry, and is a creditable specimen of the typographic art. I have one hung over my mantelpiece in a neat frame, where it makes a beautiful and appropriate ornament, and balances the profile of Mrs. W., cut with her toes by the young lady born without arms. H. W."
I have in the foregoing letter mentioned General Scott in connection with the Presidency, because I have been given to understand that he has blown to pieces and otherwise caused to be destroyed more Mexicans than any other commander. His claim would therefore be deservedly considered the strongest. Until accurate returns of the Mexicans killed, wounded, and maimed be obtained, it will be difficult to settle these nice points of precedence. Should it prove that any other officer has been more meritorious and destructive than General S., and has thereby rendered himself more worthy of the confidence and support of the conservative portion of our community, I shall cheerfully insert his name, instead of that of General S., in a future edition. It may be thought, likewise, that General S. has invalidated his claims by too much attention to the decencies of apparel, and the habits belonging to a gentleman. These abstruser points of statesmanship are beyond my scope. I wonder not that successful military achievement should attract the admiration of the multitude. Rather do I rejoice with wonder to behold how rapidly this sentiment is losing its hold upon the popular mind. It is related of Thomas Warton, the second of that honored name who held the office of Poetry Professor at Oxford, that, when one wished to find him, being absconded, as was his wont, in some obscure alehouse, he was counselled to traverse the city with a drum and fife, the sound of which inspiring music would be sure to draw the Doctor from his retirement into the street. We are all more or less bitten with this martial insanity.Nescio quâ dulcedine ... cunctos ducit.I confess to some infection of that itch myself. When I see a Brigadier-General maintaining his insecure elevation in the saddle under the severe fire of the training-field, and when I remember that some military enthusiasts, through haste, inexperience, or an over-desire to lend reality to those fictitious combats, will sometimes discharge their ramrods, I cannot but admire, while I deplore, the mistaken devotion of those heroic officers.Semel insanivimus omnes.I was myself, during the late war with Great Britain, chaplain of a regiment, which was fortunately never called to active military duty. I mention this circumstance with regret rather than pride. Had I been summoned to actual warfare, I trust that I might have been strengthened to bear myself after the manner of that reverend father in our New England Israel, Dr. Benjamin Colman, who, as we are told in Turell's life of him, when the vessel in which he had taken passage for England was attacked by a French privateer, "fought like a philosopher and a Christian,... and prayed all the while he charged and fired." As this note is already long, I shall not here enter upon a discussion of the question, whether Christians may lawfully be soldiers. I think it sufficiently evident, that, during the first two centuries of the Christian era, at least, two professions were esteemed incompatible. Consult Jortin on this head.—H. W.]
REMARKS OF INCREASE D. O'PHACE, ESQUIRE, AT AN EXTRUMPERY CAUCUS IN STATE STREET, REPORTED BY MR. H. BIGLOW.
[The ingenious reader will at once understand that no such speech as the following was evertotidem verbispronounced. But there are simpler and less guarded wits, for the satisfying of which such an explanation may be needful. For there are certain invisible lines, which as Truth successively overpasses, she becomes Untruth to one and another of us, as a large river, flowing from one kingdom into another, sometimes takes a new name, albeit the waters undergo no change, how small soever. There is, moreover, a truth of fiction more veracious than the truth of fact, as that of the Poet, which represents to us things and events as they ought to be, rather than servilely copies them as they are imperfectly imaged in the crooked and smoky glass of our mundane affairs. It is this which makes the speech of Antonius, though originally spoken in no wider a forum than the brain of Shakspeare, more historically valuable than that other which Appian has reported, by as much as the understanding of the Englishman was more comprehensive than that of the Alexandrian. Mr. Biglow, in the present instance, has only made use of a license assumed by all the historians of antiquity, who put into the mouths of various characters such words as seem to them most fitting to the occasion and to the speaker. If it be objected that no such oration could ever have been delivered, I answer, that there are few assemblages for speech-making which do not better deserve the title ofParliamentum Indoctorumthan did the sixth Parliament of Henry the Fourth, and that men still continue to have as much faith in the Oracle of Fools as ever Pantagruel had. Howell, in his letters, recounts a merry tale of a certain ambassador of Queen Elizabeth, who, having written two letters, one to her Majesty and the other to his wife, directed them at cross-purposes, so that the Queen was beducked and bedeared and requested to send a change of hose, and the wife was beprincessed and otherwise unwontedly besuperlatived, till the one feared for the wits of her ambassador, and the other for those of her husband. In like manner it may be presumed that our speaker has misdirected some of his thoughts, and given to the whole theatre what he would have wished to confide only to a select auditory at the back of the curtain. For it is seldom that we can get any frank utterance from men, who address, for the most part, a Buncombe either in this world or the next. As for their audiences, it may be truly said of our people, that they enjoy one political institution in common with the ancient Athenians: I mean a certain profitless kind ofostracism, wherewith, nevertheless, they seem hitherto well enough content. For in Presidential elections, and other affairs of the sort, whereas I observe that theoystersfall to the lot of comparatively few, theshells(such as the privileges of voting as they are told to do by theostrivoriaforesaid, and of huzzaing at public meetings) are very liberally distributed among the people, as being their prescriptive and quite sufficient portion.
The occasion of the speech is supposed to be Mr. Palfrey's refusal to vote for the Whig candidate for the Speakership.—H. W.]