No? Hez he? He haint, though? Wut? Voted agin him?Ef the bird of our country could ketch him, she'd skin him;I seem's though I see her, with wrath in each quill,Like a chancery lawyer, afilin' her bill,An' grindin' her talents ez sharp ez all nater,To pounce like a writ on the back o' the traitor.Forgive me, my friends, ef I seem to be het,But a crisis like this must with vigor be met;Wen an Arnold the star-spangled banner bestains,Holl Fourth o' Julys seem to bile in my veins.Who ever'd ha' thought sech a pisonous rigWould be run by a chap thet wuz chose fer a Wig?"We knowed wut his principles wuz 'fore we sent him?'Wut wuz ther in them from this vote to pervent him?A marciful Providunce fashioned us hollerO' purpose thet we might our principles swaller;It can hold any quantity on 'em, the belly can,An' bring 'em up ready fer use like the pelican,Or more like the kangaroo, who (wich is stranger)Puts her family into her pouch wen there's danger.Aint principle precious? then, who's goin' to use itWen there's resk o' some chap's gittin' up to abuse it?I can't tell the wy on 't, but nothin' is so sureEz ther principle kind o' gits spiled by exposure;[T]A man thet lets all sorts o' folks git a sight on 'tOugh' to hev it all took right away, every mite on 't;Ef he can't keep it all to himself wen it's wise to,He aint one it's fit to trust nothin' so nice to.Besides, ther's a wonderful power in latitudeTo shift a man's morril relations an' attitude;Some flossifers think thet a fakkilty's grantedThe minnit it's proved to be thoroughly wanted,Thet a change o' demand makes a change o' condition,An' thet everythin' 's nothin' except by position,Ez, fer instance, thet rubber-trees fust begun bearin'Wen p'litikle conshunces come into wearin',—Thet the fears of a monkey, whose holt chanced to fail,Drawed the vertibry out to a prehensile tail;So, wen one's chose to Congriss, ez soon ez he's in it,A collar grows right round his neck in a minnit,An' sartin it is thet a man cannot be strictIn bein' himself, wen he gits to the Deestrict,Fer a coat thet sets wal here in ole Massachusetts,Wen it gits on to Washinton, somehow askew sets.Resolves, do you say, o' the Springfield Convention?Thet's percisely the pint I was goin' to mention;Resolves air a thing we most gen'ally keep ill,They're a cheap kind o' dust fer the eyes o' the people;A parcel o' delligits jest git togetherAn' chat fer a spell o' the crops an' the weather,Then, comin' to order, they squabble awileAn' let off the speeches they're ferful 'll spile;Then—Resolve,—Thet we wunt hev an inch o' slave territory;Thet President Polk's holl perceedins air very tory;Thet the war is a damned war, an' them thet enlist in itShould hev a cravat with a dreffle tight twist in it;Thet the war is a war fer the spreadin' o' slavery;Thet our army desarves our best thanks fer their bravery;Thet we're the original friends o' the nation,All the rest air a paltry an' base fabrication;Thet we highly respect Messrs. A, B, an' C,An' ez deeply despise Messrs. E, F, an' G.In this way they go to the eend o' the chapter,An' then they bust out in a kind of a rapturAbout their own vartoo, an' folks's stone-blindnessTo the men thet 'ould actilly do 'em a kindness,—The American eagle,—the Pilgrims thet landed,—Till on ole Plymouth Rock they git finally stranded.Wal, the people they listen and say, "Thet's the ticket;Ez fer Mexico, t'aint no great glory to lick it,But 't would be a darned shame to go pullin' o' triggersTo extend the aree of abusin' the niggers."So they march in percessions, an' git up hooraws,An' tramp thru the mud fer the good o' the cause,An' think they're a kind o' fulfillin' the prophecies,Wen they're on'y jest changin' the holders of offices;Ware A sot afore, B is comf'tably seated,One humbug's victor'ous, an' t' other defeated,Each honnable doughface gits jest wut he axes,An' the people—their annool soft-sodder an' taxes.Now, to keep unimpared all these glorious feetursThet characterize morril an' reasonin' creeturs,Thet give every paytriot all he can cram,Thet oust the untrustworthy Presidunt Flam,And stick honest Presidunt Sham in his place,To the manifest gain o' the holl human race,An' to some indervidgewals on 't in partickler,Who love Public Opinion an' know now to tickle her,—I say thet a party with great aims like theseMust stick jest ez close ez a hive full o' bees.I'm willin' a man should go tollable strongAgin wrong in the abstract, fer thet kind o' wrongIs ollers unpop'lar an' never gits pitied,Because it's a crime no one never committed;But he mus'n't be hard on partickler sins,Coz then he'll be kickin' the people's own shins;On'y look at the Demmercrats, see wut they've doneJest simply by stickin' together like fun;They've sucked us right into a mis'able warThet no one on airth aint responsible for;They've run us a hundred cool millions in debt,(An' fer Demmercrat Horners ther's good plums left yet;)They talk agin tayriffs, but act fer a high one,An' so coax all parties to build up their Zion;To the people they're ollers ez slick ez molasses,An' butter their bread on both sides with The Masses,Half o' whom they've persuaded, by way of a joke,Thet Washinton's mantelpiece fell upon Polk.Now all o' these blessin's the Wigs might enjoy,Ef they'd gumption enough the right means to imploy;[U]Fer the silver spoon born in Dermocracy's mouthIs a kind of a scringe thet they hev to the South;Their masters can cuss 'em an' kick 'em an' wale 'em,An' they notice it less 'an the ass did to Balaam;In this way they screw into second-rate officesWich the slaveholder thinks 'ould substract too much off his ease;The file-leaders, I mean, du, fer they, by their wiles,Unlike the old viper, grow fat on their files.Wal, the Wigs hev been tryin' to grab all this prey frum 'emAn' to hook this nice spoon o' good fortin' away frum 'emAn' they might ha' succeeded, ez likely ez not,In lickin' the Demmercrats all round the lot,Ef it warn't thet, wile all faithful Wigs were their knees on,Some stuffy old codger would holler out,—"Treason!You must keep a sharp eye on a dog thet hez bit you once,An'Iaint agoin' to cheat my constitoounts,"—Wen every fool knows thet a man representsNot the fellers thet sent him, but them on the fence,—Impartially ready to jump either sideAn' make the fust use of a turn o' the tide,—The waiters on Providunce here in the city,Who compose wut they call a State Centerl Committy.Constitoounts air hendy to help a man in,But arterwards don't weigh the heft of a pin.Wy, the people can't all live on Uncle Sam's pus,So they've nothin' to du with 't fer better or wus;It's the folks thet air kind o' brought up to depend on 'tThet hev any consarn in 't, an' thet is the end on 't.Now here wuz New England ahevin' the honorOf a chance at the Speakership showered upon her;—Do you say,—"She don't want no more Speakers, but fewer;She's hed plenty o' them, wut she wants is adoer"?Fer the matter o' thet it's notorous in townThet her own representatives du her quite brown.But thet's nothin' to du with it; wut right hed PalfreyTo mix himself up with fanatical small fry?Warn't we gittin' on prime with our hot an' cold blowin',Acondemnin' the war wilst we kep' it agoin'?We'd assumed with gret skill a commandin' position,On this side or thet, no one couldn't tell wich one,So, wutever side wipped, we'd a chance at the plunderAn' could sue fer infringin' our paytented thunder;We were ready to vote fer whoever wuz eligible,Ef on all pints at issoo he'd stay unintelligible.Wal, sposin' we hed to gulp down our perfessions,We were ready to come out next mornin' with fresh ones;Besides, ef we did, 'twas our business alone,Fer couldn't we du wut we would with our own?An' ef a man can, wen pervisions hev riz so,Eat up his own words, it's a marcy it is so.Wy, these chaps frum the North, with back-bones to 'em, darn 'em,'Ould be wuth more 'an Gennle Tom Thumb is to Barnum;Ther's enough thet to office on this very plan grow,By exhibitin' how very small a man can grow;But an M. C. frum here ollers hastens to state heBelongs to the order called invertebraty,Wence some gret filologists judge primy fashyThet M. C. is M. T. by paronomashy;An' these few exceptions airloosus nayturyFolks 'ould put down their quarters to stare at, like fury.It's no use to open the door o' success,Ef a member can bolt so fer nothin' or less;Wy, all o' them grand constitootional pillersOur fore-fathers fetched with 'em over the billers,Them pillers the people so soundly hev slep' on,Wile to slav'ry, invasion, an' debt they were swep' on,Wile our Destiny higher an' higher kep' mountin',(Though I guess folks'll stare wen she hends her account in,)Ef members in this way go kickin' agin 'em,They wunt hev so much ez a feather left in 'em.An', ez fer this Palfrey,[V]we thought wen we'd gut him in,He'd go kindly in wutever harness we put him in;Supposin' wedidknow thet he wuz a peace man?Doos he think he can be Uncle Sammle's policeman,An' wen Sam gits tipsy an' kicks up a riot,Lead him off to the lockup to snooze till he's quiet?Wy, the war is a war thet true paytriots can bear, efIt leads to the fat promised land of a tayriff;We don't go an' fight it, nor aint to be driv on,Nor Demmercrats nuther, thet hev wut to live on;Ef it aint jest the thing thet's well pleasin' to God,It makes us thought highly on elsewhere abroad;The Rooshian black eagle looks blue in his eerieAn' shakes both his heads wen he hears o' Monteery;In the Tower Victory sets, all of a fluster,An' reads, with locked doors, how we won Cherry Buster;An' old Philip Lewis—thet come an' kep' school hereFer the mere sake o' scorin' his ryalist rulerOn the tenderest part of our kingsin futuro—Hides his crown underneath an old shut in his bureau,Breaks off in his brags to a suckle o' merry kings,How he often hed hided young native Amerrikins,An', turnin' quite faint in the midst of his fooleries,Sneaks down stairs to bolt the front door o' the Tooleries.[W]You say,—"We'd ha' scared 'em by growin' in peace,A plaguy sight more then by bobberies like these"?Who is it dares say thet "our naytional eagleWun't much longer be classed with the birds thet air regal,Coz theirn be hooked beaks, an' she, arter this slaughter,'ll bring back a bill ten times longer 'n she ough' to"?Wut's your name? Come, I see ye, you up-country feller,You've put me out severil times with your beller;Out with it! Wut? Biglow? I say nothin' furder,Thet feller would like nothin' better 'n a murder;He's a traiter, blasphemer, an' wut ruther worse is,He puts all his ath'ism in dreffle bad verses;Socity aint safe till sech monsters air out on it,Refer to the Post, ef you hev the least doubt on it;Wy, he goes agin war, agin indirect taxes,Agin sellin' wild lands 'cept to settlers with axes,Agin holdin' o' slaves, though he knows it's the cornerOur libbaty rests on, the mis'able scorner!In short, he would wholly upset with his ravagesAll thet keeps us above the brute critters an' savages,An' pitch into all kinds o' briles an' confusionsThe holl of our civilized, free institutions;He writes fer thet ruther unsafe print, the Courier,An' likely ez not hez a squintin' to Foorier;I'll be——, thet is, I mean I'll be blest,Ef I hark to a word frum so noted a pest;I shan't talk withhim, my religion's too fervent.—Good mornin', my friends, I'm your most humble servant.
[Into the question, whether the ability to express ourselves in articulate language has been productive of more good or evil, I shall not here enter at large. The two faculties of speech and of speech-making are wholly diverse in their natures. By the first we make ourselves intelligible, by the last unintelligible, to our fellows. It has not seldom occurred to me (noting how in our national legislature every thing runs to talk, as lettuces, if the season or the soil be unpropitious, shoot up lankly to seed, instead of forming handsome heads) that Babel was the first Congress, the earliest mill erected for the manufacture of gabble. In these days, what with Town Meetings, School Committees, Boards (lumber) of one kind and another, Congresses, Parliaments, Diets, Indian Councils, Palavers, and the like, there is scarce a village which has not its factories of this description driven by (milk-and-) water power. I cannot conceive the confusion of tongues to have been the curse of Babel, since I esteem my ignorance of other languages as a kind of Martello-tower, in which I am safe from the furious bombardments of foreign garrulity. For this reason I have ever preferred the study of the dead languages, those primitive formations being Ararats upon whose silent peaks I sit secure and watch this new deluge without fear, though it rain figures (simulacra, semblances) of speech forty days and nights together, as it not uncommonly happens. Thus is my coat, as it were, without buttons by which any but a vernacular wild bore can seize me. Is it not possible that the Shakers may intend to convey a quiet reproof and hint, in fastening their outer garments with hooks and eyes?
This reflection concerning Babel, which I find in no Commentary, was first thrown upon my mind when an excellent deacon of my congregation (being infected with the Second Advent delusion) assured me that he had received a first instalment of the gift of tongues as a small earnest of larger possessions in the like kind to follow. For, of a truth, I could not reconcile it with my ideas of the Divine justice and mercy that the single wall which protected people, of other languagesfrom the incursions of this otherwise well-meaning propagandist should be broken down.
In reading Congressional debates, I have fancied, that, after the subsidence of those painful buzzings in the brain which result from such exercises, I detected a slender residuum of valuable information. I made the discovery thatnothingtakes longer in the saying than any thing else, for, asex nihilo nihil fit, so from one polypusnothingany number of similar ones may be produced. I would recommend to the attention ofvivâ vocedebaters and controversialists the admirable example of the monk Copres, who, in the fourth century, stood for half an hour in the midst of a great fire, and thereby silenced a Manichæan antagonist who had less of the salamander in him. As for those who quarrel in print, I have no concern with them here, since the eyelids are a divinely-granted shield against all such. Moreover, I have observed in many modern books that the printed portion is becoming gradually smaller, and the number of blank or fly-leaves (as they are called) greater. Should this fortunate tendency of literature continue, books will grow more valuable from year to year, and the whole Serbonian bog yield to the advances of firm arable land.
The sagacious Lacedæmonians hearing that Tesephone had bragged that he could talk all day long on any given subject, made no more ado, but forthwith banished him, whereby they supplied him a topic and at the same time took care that his experiment upon it should be tried out of ear-shot.
I have wondered, in the Representatives' Chamber of our own Commonwealth, to mark how little impression seemed to be produced by that emblematic fish suspended over the heads of the members. Our wiser ancestors, no doubt, hung it there as being the animal which the Pythagoreans reverenced for its silence, and which certainly in that particular does not so well merit the epithetcold-blooded, by which naturalists distinguish it, as certain bipeds, afflicted with ditch-water on the brain, who take occasion to tap themselves in Fanueil Halls, meeting-houses, and other places of public resort.—H. W.]
[T]The speaker is of a different mind from Tully, who, in his recently discovered tractateDe Republicâ, tells us,—Nec vero habere virtutem satis est, quasi artem aliquam, nisi utare, and from our Milton, who says,—"I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race where that immortal garland is to be run for,not without dust and heat."—Areop.He had taken the words out of the Roman's mouth, without knowing it, and might well exclaim with Austin (if a saint's name may stand sponsor for a curse.)Pereant qui ante nos nostra dixerint!—H. W.
[U]That was a pithy saying of Persius, and fits our politicians without a wrinkle,-Magister artis, ingeniique largitor venter.—H. W.
[V]There is truth yet in this of Juvenal,—
"Dat veniam corvis, vexat censura columbas."H. W.
[W]Jortin is willing to allow of other miracles besides those recorded in Holy Writ, and why not of other prophecies? It is granting too much to Satan to suppose him, as divers of the learned have done, the inspirer of the ancient oracles. Wiser, I esteem it, to give chance the credit of the successful ones. What is said here of Louis Philippe was verified in some of its minute particulars within a few months' time. Enough to have made the fortune of Delphi or Hammon, and no thanks to Beelzebub neither! That of Seneca in Medea will suit here:—
"Rapida fortuna ac levisPræcepsque regno eripuit, exsilio dedit."
Let us allow, even to richly deserved misfortune, our commiseration, and be not over-hasty meanwhile in our censure of the French people, left for the first time to govern themselves, remembering that wise sentence of Æschylus,—
Ἅπας δὲ τραχὺς ὅστις ἂν νέον κρατᾖ.H. W.
THE DEBATE IN THE SENNIT.
[The incident which gave rise to the debate satirized in the following verses was the unsuccessful attempt of Drayton and Sayres to give freedom to seventy men and women, fellow-beings and fellow-Christians. Had Tripoli, instead of Washington, been the scene of this undertaking, the unhappy leaders in it would have been as secure of the theoretic as they now are of the practical part of martyrdom. I question whether the Dey of Tripoli is blessed with a District Attorney so benighted as ours at the seat of government. Very fitly is he named Key, who would allow himself to be made the instrument of locking the door of hope against sufferers in such a cause. Not all the waters of the ocean can cleanse the vile smutch of the jailer's fingers from off that little Key.Ahenea clavis, a brazen Key indeed!
Mr. Calhoun, who is made the chief speaker in this burlesque, seems to think that the light of the nineteenth century is to be put out as soon as he tinkles his little cow-bell curfew. Whenever slavery istouched, he sets up his scarecrow of dissolving the Union. This may do for the North, but I should conjecture that something more than a pumpkin-lantern is required to scare manifest and irretrievable Destiny out of her path. Mr. Calhoun cannot let go the apron-string of the Past. The Past is a good nurse, but we must be weaned from her sooner or later, even though, like Plotinus, we should run home from school to ask the breast, after we are tolerably well-grown youths. It will not do for us to hide our faces in her lap, whenever the strange Future holds out her arms and asks us to come to her.
But we are all alike. We have all heard it said, often enough, that little boys must not play with fire; and yet, if the matches be taken away from us and put out of reach upon the shelf, we must needs get into our little corner, and scowl and stamp and threaten the dire revenge of going to bed without our supper. The world shall stop till we get our dangerous plaything again. Dame Earth, meanwhile, who has more than enough household matters to mind, goes bustling hither and thither as a hiss or a sputter tells her that this or that kettle of hers is boiling over and before bedtime we are glad to eat our porridge cold, and gulp down our dignity along with it.
Mr. Calhoun has somehow acquired the name of a great statesman, and, if it be great statesmanship to put lance in rest and run a tilt at the Spirit of the Age with the certainty of being next moment hurled neck and heels into the dust amid universal laughter, he deserves the title. He is the Sir Kay of our modern chivalry. He should remember the old Scandinavian mythus. Thor was the strongest of gods, but he could not wrestle with Time, nor so much as lift up a fold of the great snake which knit the universe together; and when he smote the Earth, though with his terrible mallet, it was but as if a leaf had fallen. Yet all the while it seemed to Thor that he had only been wrestling with an old woman, striving to lift a cat, and striking a stupid giant on the head.
And in old times, doubtless, the giantswerestupid, and there was no better sport for the Sir Launcelots and Sir Gawains than to go about cutting off their great blundering heads with enchanted swords. But things have wonderfully changed. It is the giants, now-a-days, that have the science and the intelligence, while the chivalrous Don Quixotes of Conservatism still cumber themselves with the clumsy armor of a by-gone age. On whirls the restless globe through unsounded time, with its cities and its silences, its births and funerals, half light, half shade, but never wholly dark, and sure to swing round into the happy morning at last. With an involuntary smile, one sees Mr. Calhoun letting slip his pack-thread cable with a crooked pin at the end of it to anchor South Carolina upon the bank and shoal of the Past.—H. W.]
TO MR. BUCKENAM.
Mr. Editer, As i wuz kinder prunin round, in a little nussry sot out a year or 2 a go, the Dbait in the sennit cum inter my mine An so i took & Sot it to wut I call a nussry rime. I hev made sum onnable Gentlemun speak that dident speak in a Kind uv Poetikul lie sense the seeson is dreffle backerd up This way
ewers as ushul
Hosea Biglow.
"Here we stan' on the Constitution, by thunder!It's a fact o' wich ther's bushils o' proofs;Fer how could we trample on't so, I wonder,Ef 't worn't thet it's ollers under our hoofs?"Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;"Human rights haint no moreRight to come on this floor,No more'n the man in the moon," sez he."The North haint no kind o' bisness with nothin',An' you've no idee how much bother it saves;We aint none riled by their frettin' an' frothin',We'reusedto layin' the string on our slaves,"Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;—Sez Mister Foote,"I should like to shootThe holl gang, by the great horn spoon," sez he."Freedom's Keystone is Slavery, thet ther's no doubt on,It's sutthin' thet's—wha' d' ye call it?—divine,—An' the slaves thet we allersmakethe most out onAir them north o' Mason an' Dixon's line,"Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;—"Fer all thet," sez Mangum,"'T would be better to hang 'em,An' so git red on 'em soon," sez he."The mass ough' to labor an' we lay on soffies,Thet's the reason I want to spread Freedom's aree;It puts all the cunninest on us in office,An' reelises our Maker's orig'nal idee,"Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;—"Thet's ez plain," sez Cass,"Ez thet some one's an ass,It's ez clear ez the sun is at noon," sez he."Now don't go to say I'm the friend of oppression,But keep all your spare breath fer coolin' your broth,Fer I ollers hev strove (at least thet's my impression)To make cussed free with the rights o' the North,"Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;—"Yes," sez Davis o' Miss.,"The perfection o' blissIs in skinnin' thet same old coon," sez he."Slavery's a thing thet depends on complexion,It's God's law thet fetters on black skins don't chafe;Ef brains wuz to settle it (horrid reflection!)Wich of our onnable body'd be safe?"Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;—Sez Mister Hannegan,Afore he began agin,"Thet exception is quite oppertoon," sez he."Gen'nle Cass, Sir, you needn't be twitchin' your collar,Yourmerit's quite clear by the dut on your knees,At the North we don't make no distinctions o' color,You can all take a lick at our shoes wen you please,"Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;—Sez Mister Jarnagin,"They wunt hev to larn agin,They all on 'em know the old toon," sez he."The slavery question aint no ways bewilderin',North an' South hev one int'rest, it's plain to a glance;No'thern men, like us patriarchs, don't sell their childrin,But theydusell themselves, ef they git a good chance,"Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;—Sez Atherton here,"This is gittin' severe,I wish I could dive like a loon," sez he."It'll break up the Union, this talk about freedom,An' your fact'ry gals (soon ez we split) 'll make head,An' gittin' some Miss chief or other to lead 'em,'ll go to work raisin' pr'miscoous Ned,"Sez John O. Calhoun, sez he;—"Yes, the North," sez Colquitt,"Ef we Southeners all quit,Would go down like a busted balloon," sez he."Jest look wut is doin', wut annyky's brewin'In the beautiful clime o' the olive an' vine,All the wise aristoxy is tumblin' to ruin,An' the sankylots drorin' an' drinkin' their wine,"Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;—"Yes," sez Johnson, "in FranceThey're beginnin' to danceBeelzebub's own rigadoon," sez he."The South's safe enough, it don't feel a mite skeery,Our slaves in their darkness an' dut air tu blestNot to welcome with proud hallylugers the eryWen our eagle kicks yourn from the naytional nest,"Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;—"O," sez Westcott o' Florida,"Wut treason is horriderThen our priv'leges tryin' to proon?" sez he."It's 'coz they're so happy, thet, wen crazy sarpintsStick their nose in our bizness, we git so darned riled;We think it's our dooty to give pooty sharp hints,Thet the last crumb of Edin on airth shan't be spiled,"Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;—"Ah," sez Dixon H. Lewis,"It perfectly true isThet slavery 's airth's grettest boon," sez he.
[It was said of old time, that riches have wings; and, though this be not applicable in a literal strictness to the wealth of our patriarchal brethren of the South, yet it is clear that their possessions have legs, and an unaccountable propensity for using them in a northerly direction. I marvel that the grand jury of Washington did not find a true bill against the North Star for aiding and abetting Drayton and Sayres. It would have been quite of a piece with the intelligence displayed by the South on other questions connected with slavery. I think that no ship of state was ever freighted with a more veritable Jonah than this same domestic institution of ours. Mephistopheles himself could not feign so bitterly, so satirically sad a sight as this of three millions of human beings crushed beyond help or hope by this one mighty argument,—Our fathers knew no better!Nevertheless, it is the unavoidable destiny of Jonahs to be cast overboard sooner or later. Or shall we try the experiment of hiding our Jonah in a safe place, that none may lay hands on him to make jetsam of him? Let us, then, with equal forethought and wisdom, lash ourselves to the anchor, and await, in pious confidence, the certain result. Perhaps our suspicious passenger is no Jonah after all, being black. For it is well known that a superintending Providence made a kind of sandwich of Ham and his descendants, to be devoured by the Caucasian race.
In God's name, let all, who hear nearer and nearer the hungry moan of the storm and the growl of the breakers, speak out! But, alas! we have no right to interfere. If a man pluck an apple of mine, he shall be in danger of the justice; but if he steal my brother, I must be silent. Who says this? Our Constitution, consecrated by the callous consuetude of sixty years, and grasped in triumphant argument by the left hand of him whose right hand clutches the clotted slave-whip. Justice, venerable with the undethronable majesty of countless æons, says,—Speak! The Past, wise with the sorrows and desolations of ages, from amid her shattered fanes and wolf-housing palaces, echoes,—Speak! Nature, through her thousand trumpets of freedom, her stars, her sunrises, her seas, her winds, her cataracts, her mountains blue with cloudy pines, blows jubilant encouragement, and cries,—Speak!From the soul's trembling abysses the still, small voice not vaguely murmurs,—Speak! But, alas! the Constitution and the Honorable Mr. Bagowind, M. C., say,—Be dumb!
It occurs to me to suggest, as a topic of inquiry in this connection, whether, on that momentous occasion when the goats and the sheep shall be parted, the Constitution and the Honorable Mr. Bagowind, M. C., will be expected to take their places on the left as our hircine vicars.
Quid sum miser tunc dicturus?Quem patronum rogaturus?
There is a point where toleration sinks into sheer baseness and poltroonery. The toleration of the worst leads us to look on what is barely better as good enough, and to worship what is only moderately good. Woe to that man, or that nation, to whom mediocrity has become an ideal!
Has our experiment of self-government succeeded, if it barely manage torub and go? Here, now, is a piece of barbarism which Christ and the nineteenth century say shall cease, and which Messrs. Smith, Brown, and others say shallnotcease. I would by no means deny the eminent respectability of these gentlemen, but I confess, that, in such a wrestling-match, I cannot help having my fears for them.
Discite justitiam, moniti, et non temnere divos.
H. W.]
THE PIOUS EDITOR'S CREED.
[At the special instance of Mr. Biglow, I preface the following satire with an extract from a sermon preached during the past summer, from Ezekiel xxxiv. 2:—"Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds Israel." Since the Sabbath on which this discourse was delivered, the editor of the "Jaalam Independent Blunderbuss" has unaccountably absented himself from our house of worship.
"I know of no so responsible position as that of the public journalist. The editor of our day bears the same relation to his time that the clerk bore to the age before the invention of printing. Indeed, the position which he holds is that which the clergyman should hold even now.But the clergyman chooses to walk off to the extreme edge of the world, and to throw such seed as he has clear over into that darkness which he calls the Next Life. As ifnextdid not meannearest, and as if any life were nearer than that immediately present one which boils and eddies all around him at the caucus, the ratification meeting, and the polls! Who taught him to exhort men to prepare for eternity, as for some future era of which the present forms no integral part? The furrow which Time is even now turning runs through the Everlasting, and in that must he plant, or nowhere. Yet he would fain believe and teach that we aregoingto have more of eternity than we have now. Thisgoingof his is like that of the auctioneer, on whichgonefollows before we have made up our minds to bid,—in which manner, not three months back, I lost an excellent copy of Chappelow on Job. So it has come to pass that the preacher, instead of being a living force, has faded into an emblematic figure at christenings, weddings, andfunerals. Or, if he exercise any other function, it is as keeper and feeder of certain theologic dogmas, which, when occasion offers, he unkennels with astaboy! 'to bark and bite as 'tis their nature to,' whence that reproach ofodium theologicumhas arisen.
"Meanwhile, see what a pulpit the editor mounts daily, sometimes with a congregation of fifty thousand within reach of his voice, and never so much as a nodder, even, among them! And from what a Bible can he choose his text,—a Bible which needs no translation, and which no priestcraft can shut and clasp from the laity,—the open volume of the world, upon which, with a pen of sunshine or destroying fire, the inspired Present is even now writing the annals of God! Methinks the editor who should understand his calling, and be equal thereto, would truly deserve that title ofποιμὴν λαῶν, which Homer bestows upon princes. He would be the Moses of our nineteenth century; and whereas the old Sinai, silent now, is but a common mountain stared at by the elegant tourist and crawled over by the hammering geologist, he must find his tables of the new law here among factories and cities in this Wilderness of Sin (Numbers xxxiii. 12) called Progress of Civilization, and be the captain of our Exodus into the Canaan of a truer social order.
"Nevertheless, our editor will not come so far within even the shadow of Sinai as Mahomet did, but chooses rather to construe Moses by Joe Smith. He takes up the crook, not that the sheep may be fed, but that he may never want a warm woollen suit and a joint of mutton.
Immemor, O, fidei, pecorumque oblite tuorum!
For which reason I would derive the nameeditornot so much fromedo, to publish, as fromedo, to eat, that being the peculiar profession to which he esteems himself called. He blows up the flames of political discord for no other occasion than that he may thereby handily boil his own pot. I believe there are two thousand of these mutton-loving shepherds in the United States, and of these, how many have even the dimmest perception of their immense power, and the duties consequent thereon? Here and there, haply, one. Nine hundred and ninety-nine labor to impress upon the people the great principles ofTweedledum, and other nine hundred and ninety-nine preach with equal earnestness the gospel according toTweedledee."—H. W.]
I du believe in Freedom's cause,Ez fur away ez Payris is;I love to see her stick her clawsIn them infarnal Phayrisees;It's wal enough agin a kingTo dror resolves an' triggers,—But libbaty's a kind o' thingThet don't agree with niggers.I du believe the people wantA tax on teas, an' coffees,Thet nothin' aint extravygunt,—Purvidin' I'm in office;Fer I hev loved my country senceMy eye-teeth filled their sockets,An' Uncle Sam I reverence,Partic'larly his pockets.I du believe inanyplanO' levyin' the taxes,Ez long ez, like a lumberman,I git jest wut I axes:I go free-trade thru thick an' thin,Because it kind o' rousesThe folks to vote,—an' keeps us inOur quiet custom-houses.I du believe it's wise an' goodTo sen' out furrin missions,Thet is, on sartin understoodAn' orthydox conditions;—I mean nine thousan' dolls. per ann.,Nine thousan' more fer outfit,An' me to recommend a manThe place 'ould jest about fit.I du believe in special waysO' prayin' an' convartin';The bread comes back in many days,An' buttered, tu, fer sartin;I mean in prayin' till one bustsOn wut the party chooses,An' in convartin' public trustsTo very privit uses.I du believe hard coin the stuffFer 'lectioneers to spout on;The people's ollers soft enoughTo make hard money out on;Dear Uncle Sam pervides fer his,An' gives a good-sized junk to all,—I don't carehowhard money is,Ez long ez mine's paid punctooal.I du believe with all my soulIn the gret Press's freedom,To pint the people to the goalAn' in the traces lead 'em;Palsied the arm thet forges yokesAt my fat contracts squintin',An' withered be the nose thet pokesInter the gov'ment printin'!I du believe thet I should giveWut's his'n unto Cæsar,Fer it's by him I move an' live,Frum him my bread an' cheese air;I du believe thet all o' meDoth bear his superscription,—Will, conscience, honor, honesty,An' things o' thet description.I du believe in prayer an' praiseTo him that hez the grantin'O' jobs,—in every thin' thet pays,But most of all inCantin';This doth my cup with marcies fill,This lays all thought o' sin to rest,—Idon'tbelieve in princerple,But O, Iduin interest.I du believe in bein' thisOr thet, ez it may happenOne way or t' other hendiest isTo ketch the people nappin';It aint by princerples nor menMy preudunt course is steadied,—I scent which pays the best, an' thenGo into it baldheaded.I du believe thet holdin' slavesComes nat'ral tu a Presidunt,Let 'lone the rowdedow it savesTo hev a wal-broke precedunt;Fer any office, small or gret,I couldn't ax with no face,Without I'd ben, thru dry an' wet,Th' unrizzest kind o' doughface.I du believe wutever trash'll keep the people in blindness,—Thet we the Mexicuns can thrashRight inter brotherly kindness,Thet bombshells, grape, an' powder 'n' ballAir good-will's strongest magnets,Thet peace, to make it stick at all,Must be druv in with bagnets.In short, I firmly du believeIn Humbug generally,Fer it's a thing thet I perceiveTo hev a solid vally;This heth my faithful shepherd ben,In pasturs sweet heth led me,An' this 'll keep the people greenTo feed ez they hev fed me.
[I subjoin here another passage from my before-mentioned discourse.
"Wonderful, to him that has eyes to see it rightly, is the newspaper. To me, for example, sitting on the critical front bench of the pit, in my study here in Jaalam, the advent of my weekly journal is as that of a strolling theatre, or rather of a puppet-show, on whose stage, narrow as it is, the tragedy, comedy, and farce of life are played in little. Behold the whole huge earth sent to me hebdomadally in a brown-paper wrapper!
"Hither, to my obscure corner, by wind or steam, on horseback or dromedary-back, in the pouch of the Indian runner, or clicking over the magnetic wires, troop all the famous performers from the four quarters of the globe. Looked at from a point of criticism, tiny puppets they seem all, as the editor sets up his booth upon my desk and officiates as showman. Now I can truly see how little and transitory is life. The earth appears almost as a drop of vinegar, on which the solar microscope of the imagination must be brought to bear in order to make out anything distinctly. That animalcule there, in the pea-jacket, is Louis Philippe, just landed on the coast of England. That other, in the gray surtout and cocked hat, is Napoleon Bonaparte Smith, assuring France that she need apprehend no interference from him in the present alarming juncture. At that spot, where you seem to see a speck of something in motion, is an immense mass-meeting. Look sharper and you will see a mite brandishing his mandibles in an excited manner. That is the great Mr. Soandso, defining his position amid tumultuous and irrepressible cheers. That infinitesimal creature, upon whom some score of others, as minute as he, are gazing in open-mouthed admiration, is a famous philosopher, expounding to a select audience their capacity for the infinite. That scarce discernible pufflet of smoke and dust is a revolution. That speck there is a reformer, just arranging the lever with which he is to move the world. And lo, there creeps forward the shadow of a skeleton that blows one breath between its grinning teeth, and all our distinguished actors are whisked off the slippery stage into the dark Beyond.
"Yes, the little show-box has its solemner suggestions. Now and then we catch a glimpse of a grim old man, who lays down a scythe and hour-glass in the corner while he shifts the scenes. There, too, inthe dim background, a weird shape is ever delving. Sometimes he leans upon his mattock, and gazes, as a coach whirls by, bearing the newly married on their wedding jaunt, or glances carelessly at a babe brought home from christening. Suddenly (for the scene grows larger and larger as we look) a bony hand snatches back a performer in the midst of his part, and him, whom yesterday two infinites (past and future) would not suffice, a handful of dust is enough to cover and silence forever. Nay, we see the same fleshless fingers opening to clutch the showman himself, and guess, not without a shudder, that they are lying in wait for spectator also.
"Think of it: for three dollars a year I buy a season-ticket to this great Globe Theatre, for which God would write the dramas (only that we like farces, spectacles, and the tragedies of Apollyon better), whose scene-shifter is Time, and whose curtain is rung down by Death.
"Such thoughts will occur to me sometimes as I am tearing off the wrapper of my newspaper. Then suddenly that otherwise too often vacant sheet becomes invested for me with a strange kind of awe. Look! deaths and marriages, notices of inventions, discoveries, and books, lists of promotions, of killed, wounded, and missing, news of fires, accidents, of sudden wealth and as sudden poverty;—I hold in my hand the ends of myriad invisible electric conductors, along which tremble the joys, sorrows, wrongs, triumphs, hopes, and despairs of as many men and women everywhere. So that upon that mood of mind which seems to isolate me from mankind as a spectator of their puppet-pranks, another supervenes, in which I feel that I, too, unknown and unheard of, am yet of some import to my fellows. For, through my newspaper here, do not families take pains to send me, an entire stranger, news of a death among them? Are not here two who would have me know of their marriage? And, strangest of all, is not this singular person anxious to have me informed that he has received a fresh supply of Dimitry Bruisgins? But to none of us does the President continue miraculous (even if for a moment discerned as such). We glance carelessly at the sunrise, and get used to Orion and the Pleiades. The wonder wears off, and to-morrow this sheet, in which a vision was let down to me from Heaven, shall be the wrappage to a bar of soap or the platter for a beggar's broken victuals."—H. W.]
FROM A CANDIDATE FOR THE PRESIDENCY IN ANSWER TO SUTTIN QUESTIONS PROPOSED BY MR. HOSEA BIGLOW, ENCLOSED IN A NOTE FROM MR. BIGLOW TO S. H. GAY, ESQ., EDITOR OF THE NATIONAL ANTI-SLAVERY STANDARD.
[Curiosity may be said to be the quality which pre-eminently distinguishes and segregates man from the lower animals. As we trace the scale of animated nature downward, we find this faculty (as it may truly be called) of the mind diminished in the savage, and quite extinct in the brute. The first object which civilized man proposes to himself I take to be the finding out whatsoever he can concerning his neighbors.Nihil humanum a me alienum puto; I am curious about even JohnSmith. The desire next in strength to this (an opposite pole, indeed, of the same magnet) is that of communicating the unintelligence we have carefully picked up.
Men in general may be divided into the inquisitive and the communicative. To the first class belong Peeping Toms, eaves-droppers, navel-contemplating Brahmins, metaphysicians, travellers, Empedocleses, spies, the various societies for promoting Rhinothism, Columbuses, Yankees, discoverers, and men of science, who present themselves to the mind as so many marks of interrogation wandering up and down the world, or sitting in studies and laboratories. The second class I should again subdivide into four. In the first subdivision I would rank those who have an itch to tell us about themselves,—as keepers of diaries, insignificant persons generally, Montaignes, Horace Walpoles, autobiographers, poets. The second includes those who are anxious to impart information concerning other people,—as historians, barbers, and such. To the third belong those who labor to give us intelligence about nothing at all,—as novelists, political orators, the large majority of authors, preachers, lecturers, and the like. In the fourth come those who are communicative from motives of public benevolence,—as finders of mares'-nests and bringers of ill news. Each of us two-legged fowls without feathers embraces all these subdivisions in himself to a greater or less degree, for none of us so much as lays an egg, or incubates a chalk one, but straightway the whole barn-yard shall know it by our cackle or our cluck.Omnibus hoc vitium est.There are different grades in all these classes. One will turn his telescope toward a back-yard, another toward Uranus; one will tell you that he dined with Smith, another that he supped with Plato. In one particular, all men may be considered as belonging to the first grand division, inasmuch as they all seem equally desirous of discovering the mote in their neighbor's eye.
To one or another of these species every human being may safely be referred. I think it beyond a peradventure that Jonah prosecuted some inquiries into the digestive apparatus of whales, and that Noah sealed up a letter in an empty bottle, that news in regard to him might not be wanting in case of the worst. They had else been super or subter human. I conceive, also, that, as there are certain persons who continually peep and pry at the keyhole of that mysterious door through which, sooner or later, we all make our exits, so there are doubtless ghosts fidgetting and fretting on the other side of it, because they have no means of conveying back to this world the scraps of news they have picked up in that. For there is an answer ready somewhere to every question, the great law ofgive and takeruns through all nature, and if we see a hook, we may be sure that an eye is waiting for it. I read in every face I meet a standing advertisement of information wanted in regard to A. B., or that the friends of C. D. can hear something to his disadvantage by application to such a one.
It was to gratify the two great passions of asking and answering that epistolary correspondence was first invented. Letters (for by this usurped title epistles are now commonly known) are of several kinds. First, there are those which are not letters at all,—as letters-patent, letters dismissory, letters enclosing bills, letters of administration, Pliny's letters, letters of diplomacy, of Cato, of Mentor, of Lords Lyttleton, Chesterfield, and Orrery, of Jacob Behmen, Seneca (whom St. Jerome includes in his list of sacred writers), letters from abroad, from sons in college to their fathers, letters of marque, and letters generally, which are in nowise letters of mark. Second, are real letters, such as those of Gray, Cowper, Walpole, Howel, Lamb, D. Y., the first letters from children, (printed in staggering capitals,) Letters from New York, letters of credit, and others, interesting for the sake of thewriter or the thing written. I have read also letters from Europe by a gentleman named Pinto, containing some curious gossip, and which I hope to see collected for the benefit of the curious. There are, besides, letters addressed to posterity,—as epitaphs, for example, written for their own monuments by monarchs, whereby we have lately become possessed of the names of several great conquerors and kings of kings, hitherto unheard of and still unpronounceable, but valuable to the student of the entirely dark ages. The letter which St. Peter sent to King Pepin in the year of grace 755, that of the Virgin to the magistrates of Messina, that of St. Gregory Thaumaturgus to the D—l, and that of this last-mentioned active police-magistrate to a nun of Girgenti, I would place in a class by themselves, as also the letters of candidates, concerning which I shall dilate more fully in a note at the end of the following poem. At present,sat prata biberunt. Only, concerning the shape of letters, they are all either square or oblong, to which general figures circular letters and round-robins also conform themselves.—H. W.]
Deer sirits gut to be the fashun now to rite letters to the candid 8s and i wus chose at a publick Meetin in Jaalam to du wut wus nessary fur that town. i writ to 271 ginerals and gut ansers to 209. tha air called candid 8s but I don't see nothin candid about em. this here I wich I send wus thought satty's factory. I dunno as it's ushle to print Poscrips, but as all the ansers I got hed the saim, I sposed it wus best. times has gretly changed. Formaly to knock a man into a cocked hat wus to use him up, but now it ony gives him a chance fur the cheef madgustracy.—H. B.