Note 33 — Chapter II
Reading edition
Charles Mackay, Life and Liberty in America: or, Sketches of a Tour in the United States and Canada in 1857-8, one vol., New York, 1859, pp. 316-17. Mackay was at least of sufficient repute as a poet to be thought worthy of a dinner in Boston at which there were present, Longfellow, Holmes, Agassiz, Lowell, Prescott, Governor Banks, and others. He preached "hands across the seas" in his public lectures, occasionally reading his poem "John and Jonathan"--a sort of advance copy of Kipling's idea of the "White Man's Burden." Mackay's concluding verse, "John" speaking, was: "And I have strength for nobler work Than e'er my hand has done, And realms to rule and truths to plant Beyond the rising sun. Take you the West and I the East; We'll spread ourselves abroad, With trade and spade and wholesome laws, And faith in man and God."