Part 3 — MELIBOEUS-HIPPONAX (continued 5)

No. VII

LATEST VIEWS OF MR. BIGLOW

PRELIMINARY NOTE

[It is with feelings of the liveliest pain that we inform our readers of the death of the Reverend Homer Wilbur, A.M., which took place suddenly, by an apoplectic stroke, on the afternoon of Christmas day, 1862. Our venerable friend (for so we may venture to call him, though we never enjoyed the high privilege of his personal acquaintance) was in his eighty-fourth year, having been born June 12, 1779, at Pigsgusset Precinct (now West Jerusha) in the then District of Maine. Graduated with distinction at Hubville College in 1805, he pursued his theological studies with the late Reverend Preserved Thacker, D.D., and was called to the charge of the First Society in Jaalam in 1809, where he remained till his death.

'As an antiquary he has probably left no superior, if, indeed, an equal,' writes his friend and colleague, the Reverend Jeduthun Hitchcock, to whom we are indebted for the above facts; 'in proof of which I need only allude to his "History of Jaalam, Genealogical, Topographical, and Ecclesiastical," 1849, which has won him an eminent and enduring place in our more solid and useful literature. It is only to be regretted that his intense application to historical studies should have so entirely withdrawn him from the pursuit of poetical composition, for which he was endowed by Nature with a remarkable aptitude. His well-known hymn, beginning "With clouds of care encompassed round," has been attributed in some collections to the late President Dwight, and it is hardly presumptuous to affirm that the simile of the rainbow in the eighth stanza would do no discredit to that polished pen.'

We regret that we have not room at present for the whole of Mr. Hitchcock's exceedingly valuable communication. We hope to lay more liberal extracts from it before our readers at an early day. A summary of its contents will give some notion of its importance and interest. It contains: 1st, A biographical sketch of Mr. Wilbur, with notices of his predecessors in the pastoral office, and of eminent clerical contemporaries; 2d, An obituary of deceased, from the Punkin-Falls 'Weekly Parallel;' 3d, A list of his printed and manuscript productions and of projected works; 4th, Personal anecdotes and recollections, with specimens of table-talk; 5th, A tribute to his relict, Mrs. Dorcas (Pilcox) Wilbur; 6th, A list of graduates fitted for different colleges by Mr. Wilbur, with biographical memoranda touching the more distinguished; 7th, Concerning learned, charitable, and other societies, of which Mr. Wilbur was a member, and of those with which, had his life been prolonged, he would doubtless have been associated, with a complete catalogue of such Americans as have been Fellows of the Royal Society; 8th, A brief summary of Mr. Wilbur's latest conclusions concerning the Tenth Horn of the Beast in its special application to recent events, for which the public, as Mr. Hitchcock assures us, have been waiting with feelings of lively anticipation; 9th, Mr. Hitchcock's own views on the same topic; and, 10th, A brief essay on the importance of local histories. It will be apparent that the duty of preparing Mr. Wilbur's biography could not have fallen into more sympathetic hands.

In a private letter with which the reverend gentleman has since favored us, he expresses the opinion that Mr. Wilbur's life was shortened by our unhappy civil war. It disturbed his studies, dislocated all his habitual associations and trains of thought, and unsettled the foundations of a faith, rather the result of habit than conviction, in the capacity of man for self-government. 'Such has been the felicity of my life,' he said to Mr. Hitchcock, on the very morning of the day he died, 'that, through the divine mercy, I could always say, Summum nec metuo diem, nec opto. It has been my habit, as you know, on every recurrence of this blessed anniversary, to read Milton's "Hymn of the Nativity" till its sublime harmonies so dilated my soul and quickened its spiritual sense that I seemed to hear that other song which gave assurance to the shepherds that there was One who would lead them also in green pastures and beside the still waters. But to-day I have been unable to think of anything but that mournful text, "I came not to send peace, but a sword," and, did it not smack of Pagan presumptuousness, could almost wish I had never lived to see this day.'

Mr. Hitchcock also informs us that his friend 'lies buried in the Jaalam graveyard, under a large red-cedar which he specially admired. A neat and substantial monument is to be erected over his remains, with a Latin epitaph written by himself; for he was accustomed to say, pleasantly, "that there was at least one occasion in a scholar's life when he might show the advantages of a classical training."'

The following fragment of a letter addressed to us, and apparently intended to accompany Mr. Biglow's contribution to the present number, was found upon his table after his decease.—EDITORS ATLANTIC MONTHLY.]

TO THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY

JAALAM, 24th Dec., 1862.

RESPECTED SIRS,—- The infirm state of my bodily health would be a sufficient apology for not taking up the pen at this time, wholesome as I deem it for the mind to apricate in the shelter of epistolary confidence, were it not that a considerable, I might even say a large, number of individuals in this parish expect from their pastor some publick expression of sentiment at this crisis. Moreover, Qui tacitus ardet magis uritur. In trying times like these, the besetting sin of undisciplined minds is to seek refuge from inexplicable realities in the dangerous stimulant of angry partisanship or the indolent narcotick of vague and hopeful vaticination: fortunamque suo temperat arbitrio. Both by reason of my age and my natural temperament, I am unfitted for either. Unable to penetrate the inscrutable judgments of God, I am more than ever thankful that my life has been prolonged till I could in some small measure comprehend His mercy. As there is no man who does not at some time render himself amenable to the one,—quum vix justus sit securus,—so there is none that does not feel himself in daily need of the other.

I confess I cannot feel, as some do, a personal consolation for the manifest evils of this war in any remote or contingent advantages that may spring from it. I am old and weak, I can bear little, and can scarce hope to see better days; nor is it any adequate compensation to know that Nature is young and strong and can bear much. Old men philosophize over the past, but the present is only a burthen and a weariness. The one lies before them like a placid evening landscape; the other is full of vexations and anxieties of housekeeping. It may be true enough that miscet hæc illis, prohibetque Clotho fortunam stare, but he who said it was fain at last to call in Atropos with her shears before her time; and I cannot help selfishly mourning that the fortune of our Republick could not at least stay till my days were numbered.

Tibullus would find the origin of wars in the great exaggeration of riches, and does not stick to say that in the days of the beechen trencher there was peace. But averse as I am by nature from all wars, the more as they have been especially fatal to libraries, I would have this one go on till we are reduced to wooden platters again, rather than surrender the principle to defend which it was undertaken. Though I believe Slavery to have been the cause of it, by so thoroughly demoralizing Northern politicks for its own purposes as to give opportunity and hope to treason, yet I would not have our thought and purpose diverted from their true object,—the maintenance of the idea of Government. We are not merely suppressing an enormous riot, but contending for the possibility of permanent order coexisting with democratical fickleness; and while I would not superstitiously venerate form to the sacrifice of substance, neither would I forget that an adherence to precedent and prescription can alone give that continuity and coherence under a democratical constitution which are inherent in the person of a despotick monarch and the selfishness of an aristocratieal class. Stet pro ratione voluntas is as dangerous in a majority as in a tyrant.

I cannot allow the present production of my young friend to go out without a protest from me against a certain extremeness in his views, more pardonable in the poet than in the philosopher. While I agree with him, that the only cure for rebellion is suppression by force, yet I must animadvert upon certain phrases where I seem to see a coincidence with a popular fallacy on the subject of compromise. On the one hand there are those who do not see that the vital principle of Government and the seminal principle of Law cannot properly be made a subject of compromise at all, and on the other those who are equally blind to the truth that without a compromise of individual opinions, interests, and even rights, no society would be possible. In medio tutissimus. For my own part, I would gladly—

Ef I a song or two could make Like rockets druv by their own burnin', All leap an' light, to leave a wake Men's hearts an' faces skyward turnin'!— But, it strikes me, 'tain't jest the time Fer stringin' words with settisfaction: Wut's wanted now's the silent rhyme 'Twixt upright Will an' downright Action.

Words, ef you keep 'em, pay their keep, But gabble's the short cut to ruin; 10 It's gratis, (gals half-price,) but cheap At no rate, ef it henders doin'; Ther' 's nothin' wuss, 'less 'tis to set A martyr-prem'um upon jawrin': Teapots git dangerous, ef you shet Their lids down on 'em with Fort Warren.

'Bout long enough it's ben discussed Who sot the magazine afire, An' whether, ef Bob Wickliffe bust, 'Twould scare us more or blow us higher. 20 D' ye spose the Gret Foreseer's plan Wuz settled fer him in town-meetin'? Or thet ther'd ben no Fall o' Man, Ef Adam'd on'y bit a sweetin'?

Oh, Jon'than, ef you want to be A rugged chap agin an' hearty, Go fer wutever'll hurt Jeff D., Nut wut'll boost up ary party. Here's hell broke loose, an' we lay flat With half the univarse a-singe-in', 30 Till Sen'tor This an' Gov'nor Thet Stop squabblin' fer the gardingingin.

It's war we're in, not politics; It's systems wrastlin' now, not parties; An' victory in the eend'll fix Where longest will an' truest heart is, An' wut's the Guv'ment folks about? Tryin' to hope ther' 's nothin' doin', An' look ez though they didn't doubt Sunthin' pertickler wuz a-brewin'. 40

Ther' 's critters yit thet talk an' act Fer wut they call Conciliation; They'd hand a buff'lo-drove a tract When they wuz madder than all Bashan. Conciliate? it jest means be kicked, No metter how they phrase an' tone it; It means thet we're to set down licked, Thet we're poor shotes an' glad to own it!

A war on tick's ez dear 'z the deuce, But it wun't leave no lastin' traces, 50 Ez 'twould to make a sneakin' truce Without no moral specie-basis: Ef greenbacks ain't nut jest the cheese, I guess ther' 's evils thet's extremer,— Fer instance,—shinplaster idees Like them put out by Gov'nor Seymour.

Last year, the Nation, at a word, When tremblin' Freedom cried to shield her, Flamed weldin' into one keen sword Waitin' an' longin' fer a wielder: A splendid flash!—but how'd the grasp 61 With sech a chance ez thet wuz tally? Ther' warn't no meanin' in our clasp,— Half this, half thet, all shilly-shally.

More men? More man! It's there we fail; Weak plans grow weaker yit by lengthenin': Wut use in addin' to the tail, When it's the head's in need o' strengthenin'? We wanted one thet felt all Chief From roots o' hair to sole o' stockin', 70 Square-sot with thousan'-ton belief In him an' us, ef earth went rockin'!

Ole Hick'ry wouldn't ha' stood see-saw 'Bout doin' things till they wuz done with,— He'd smashed the tables o' the Law In time o' need to load his gun with; He couldn't see but jest one side,— Ef his, 'twuz God's, an' thet wuz plenty; An' so his 'Forrards!' multiplied An army's fightin' weight by twenty. 80

But this 'ere histin', creak, creak, creak, Your cappen's heart up with a derrick, This tryin' to coax a lightnin'-streak Out of a half-discouraged hayrick, This hangin' on mont' arter mont' Fer one sharp purpose 'mongst the twitter,— I tell ye, it doos kind o' stunt The peth and sperit of a critter.

In six months where'll the People be, Ef leaders look on revolution 90 Ez though it wuz a cup o' tea,— Jest social el'ments in solution? This weighin' things doos wal enough When war cools down, an' comes to writin'; But while it's makin', the true stuff Is pison-mad, pig-headed fightin'.

Democ'acy gives every man The right to be his own oppressor; But a loose Gov'ment ain't the plan, Helpless ez spilled beans on a dresser: 100 I tell ye one thing we might larn From them smart critters, the Seceders,— Ef bein' right's the fust consarn, The 'fore-the-fust's cast-iron leaders.

But 'pears to me I see some signs Thet we're a-goin' to use our senses: Jeff druv us into these hard lines, An' ough' to bear his half th' expenses; Slavery's Secession's heart an' will, South, North, East, West, where'er you find it, 110 An' ef it drors into War's mill, D'ye say them thunder-stones sha'n't grind it?

D' ye s'pose, ef Jeff giv him a lick, Ole Hick'ry'd tried his head to sof'n So's 'twouldn't hurt thet ebony stick Thet's made our side see stars so of'n? 'No!' he'd ha' thundered, 'on your knees, An' own one flag, one road to glory! Soft-heartedness, in times like these, Shows sof'ness in the upper story!' 120

An' why should we kick up a muss About the Pres'dunt's proclamation? It ain't a-goin' to lib'rate us, Ef we don't like emancipation: The right to be a cussed fool Is safe from all devices human, It's common (ez a gin'l rule) To every critter born o' woman.

So we're all right, an' I, fer one, Don't think our cause'll lose in vally 130 By rammin' Scriptur' in our gun, An' gittin' Natur' fer an ally: Thank God, say I, fer even a plan To lift one human bein's level, Give one more chance to make a man, Or, anyhow, to spile a devil!

Not thet I'm one thet much expec' Millennium by express to-morrer; They will miscarry,—I rec'lec' Tu many on 'em, to my sorrer: Men ain't made angels in a day, 141 No matter how you mould an' labor 'em, Nor 'riginal ones, I guess, don't stay With Abe so of'n ez with Abraham.

The'ry thinks Fact a pooty thing, An' wants the banns read right ensuin'; But fact wun't noways wear the ring, 'Thout years o' settin' up an' wooin': Though, arter all, Time's dial-plate Marks cent'ries with the minute-finger, 150 An' Good can't never come tu late, Though it does seem to try an' linger.

An' come wut will, I think it's grand Abe's gut his will et last bloom-furnaced In trial-flames till it'll stand The strain o' bein' in deadly earnest: Thet's wut we want,—we want to know The folks on our side hez the bravery To b'lieve ez hard, come weal, come woe, In Freedom ez Jeff doos in Slavery. 160

Set the two forces foot to foot, An' every man knows who'll be winner, Whose faith in God hez ary root Thet goes down deeper than his dinner: Then 'twill be felt from pole to pole, Without no need o' proclamation, Earth's biggest Country's gut her soul An' risen up Earth's Greatest Nation!

No. VIII

KETTELOPOTOMACHIA

PRELIMINARY MOTE

[In the month of February, 1866, the editors of the 'Atlantic Monthly' received from the Rev. Mr. Hitchcock of Jaalam a letter enclosing the macaronic verses which follow, and promising to send more, if more should be communicated. 'They were rapped out on the evening of Thursday last past,' he says, 'by what claimed to be the spirit of my late predecessor in the ministry here, the Rev. Dr. Wilbur, through the medium of a young man at present domiciled in my family. As to the possibility of such spiritual manifestations, or whether they be properly so entitled, I express no opinion, as there is a division of sentiment on that subject in the parish, and many persons of the highest respectability in social standing entertain opposing views. The young man who was improved as a medium submitted himself to the experiment with manifest reluctance, and is still unprepared to believe in the authenticity of the manifestations. During his residence with me his deportment has always been exemplary; he has been constant in his attendance upon our family devotions and the public ministrations of the Word, and has more than once privately stated to me, that the latter had often brought him under deep concern of mind. The table is an ordinary quadrupedal one, weighing about thirty pounds, three feet seven inches and a half in height, four feet square on the top, and of beech or maple, I am not definitely prepared to say which. It had once belonged to my respected predecessor, and had been, so far as I can learn upon careful inquiry, of perfectly regular and correct habits up to the evening in question. On that occasion the young man previously alluded to had been sitting with his hands resting carelessly upon it, while I read over to him at his request certain portions of my last Sabbath's discourse. On a sudden the rappings, as they are called, commenced to render themselves audible, at first faintly, but in process of time more distinctly and with violent agitation of the table. The young man expressed himself both surprised and pained by the wholly unexpected, and, so far as he was concerned, unprecedented occurrence. At the earnest solicitation, however, of several who happened to be present, he consented to go on with the experiment, and with the assistance of the alphabet commonly employed in similar emergencies, the following communication was obtained and written down immediately by myself. Whether any, and if so, how much weight should be attached to it, I venture no decision. That Dr. Wilbur had sometimes employed his leisure in Latin versification I have ascertained to be the case, though all that has been discovered of that nature among his papers consists of some fragmentary passages of a version into hexameters of portions of the Song of Solomon. These I had communicated about a week or ten days previous[ly] to the young gentleman who officiated as medium in the communication afterwards received. I have thus, I believe, stated all the material facts that have any elucidative bearing upon this mysterious occurrence.'

So far Mr. Hitchcock, who seems perfectly master of Webster's unabridged quarto, and whose flowing style leads him into certain farther expatiations for which we have not room. We have since learned that the young man he speaks of was a sophomore, put under his care during a sentence of rustication from —— College, where he had distinguished himself rather by physical experiments on the comparative power of resistance in window-glass to various solid substances, than in the more regular studies of the place. In answer to a letter of inquiry, the professor of Latin says, 'There was no harm in the boy that I know of beyond his loving mischief more than Latin, nor can I think of any spirits likely to possess him except those commonly called animal. He was certainly not remarkable for his Latinity, but I see nothing in the verses you enclose that would lead me to think them beyond his capacity, or the result of any special inspiration whether of beech or maple. Had that of birch been tried upon him earlier and more faithfully, the verses would perhaps have been better in quality and certainly in quantity.' This exact and thorough scholar then goes on to point out many false quantities and barbarisms. It is but fair to say, however, that the author, whoever he was, seems not to have been unaware of some of them himself, as is shown by a great many notes appended to the verses as we received them, and purporting to be by Scaliger, Bentley, and others,—among them the Esprit de Voltaire! These we have omitted as clearly meant to be humorous and altogether failing therein.

Though entirely satisfied that the verses are altogether unworthy of Mr. Wilbur, who seems to Slave been a tolerable Latin scholar after the fashion of his day, yet we have determined to print them here, partly as belonging to the res gestæ of this collection, and partly as a warning to their putative author which may keep him from such indecorous pranks for the future.]

KETTELOPOTOMACHIA

P. Ovidii Nasonis carmen heroicum macaronicum perplexametrum, inter Getas getico moro compostum, denuo per medium ardentispiritualem adjuvante mensâ diabolice obsessâ, recuperatum, curâque Jo. Conradi Schwarzii umbræ, allis necnon plurimis adjuvantibus, restitutum.

LIBER I

Punctorum garretos colens et cellara Quinque, Gutteribus quæ et gaudes sunday-am abstingere frontem, Plerumque insidos solita fluitare liquore Tanglepedem quem homines appellant Di quoque rotgut, Pimpliidis, rubicundaque, Musa, O, bourbonolensque, Fenianas rixas procul, alma, brogipotentis Patricii cyathos iterantis et horrida bella, Backos dum virides viridis Brigitta remittit, Linquens, eximios celebrem, da, Virginienses Rowdes, præcipue et TE, heros alte, Polarde! 10 Insignes juvenesque, illo certamine lictos, Colemane, Tylere, nec vos oblivione relinquam.

Ampla aquilæ invictæ fausto est sub tegmine terra, Backyfer, ooiskeo pollens, ebenoque bipede, Socors præsidum et altrix (denique quidruminantium), Duplefveorum uberrima; illis et integre cordi est Deplere assidue et sine proprio incommodo fiscum; Nunc etiam placidum hoc opus invictique secuti, Goosam aureos ni eggos voluissent immo necare Quæ peperit, saltem ac de illis meliora merentem. 20

Condidit hanc Smithius Dux, Captinus inclytus ille Regis Ulyssæ instar, docti arcum intendere longum; Condidit ille Johnsmith, Virginiamque vocavit, Settledit autem Jacobus rex, nomine primus, Rascalis implens ruptis, blagardisque deboshtis, Militibusque ex Falstaffi legione fugatis Wenchisque illi quas poterant seducere nuptas; Virgineum, ah, littus matronis talibus impar! Progeniem stirpe ex hoc non sine stigmate ducunt Multi sese qui jactant regum esse nepotes: 30 Haud omnes, Mater, genitos quæ nuper habebas Bello fortes, consilio cautos, virtute decoros, Jamque et habes, sparso si patrio in sanguine virtus, Mostrabisque iterum, antiquis sub astris reducta! De illis qui upkikitant, dicebam, rumpora tanta, Letcheris et Floydis magnisque Extra ordine Billis; Est his prisca fides jurare et breakere wordum: Poppere fellerum a tergo, aut stickere clam bowiknifo, Haud sane facinus, dignum sed victrice lauro; Larrupere et nigerum, factum præstantius ullo: 40 Ast chlamydem piciplumatam, Icariam, flito et ineptam, Yanko gratis induere, illum et valido railo Insuper acri equitare docere est hospitio uti.

Nescio an ille Polardus duplefveoribus ortus, Sed reputo potius de radice poorwitemanorum; Fortuiti proles, ni fallor, Tylerus erat Præsidis, omnibus ab Whiggis nominatus a poor cuss; Et nobilem tertium evincit venerabile nomen. Ast animosi omnes bellique ad tympana ha! ha! Vociferant læti, procul et si proelia, sive 50 Hostem incautum atsito possint shootere salvi; Imperiique capaces, esset si stylus agmen, Pro dulci spoliabant et sine dangere fito. Præ ceterisque Polardus: si Secessia licta, Se nunquam licturum jurat res et unheardof, Verbo hæsit, similisque audaci roosteri invicto, Dunghilli solitus rex pullos whoppere molles, Grantum, hirelingos stripes quique et splendida tollunt Sidera, et Yankos, territum et omnem sarsuit orbem.

Usque dabant operam isti omnes, noctesque diesque, 60 Samuelem demulgere avunculum, id vero siccum; Uberibus sed ejus, et horum est culpa, remotis, Parvam domi vaccam, nec mora minima, quærunt, Lacticarentem autem et droppam vix in die dantem; Reddite avunculi, et exclamabant, reddite pappam! Polko ut consule, gemens, Billy immurmurat Extra; Echo respondit, thesauro ex vacuo, pappam! Frustra explorant pocketa, ruber nare repertum; Officia expulsi aspiciunt rapta, et Paradisum Occlusum, viridesque Laud illis nascere backos; 70 Stupent tunc oculis madidis spittantque silenter. Adhibere usu ast longo vires prorsus inepti, Si non ut qui grindeat axve trabemve reuolvat, Virginiam excruciant totis nunc mightibu' matrem; Non melius, puta, nono panis dimidiumne est?

Readere ibi non posse est casus commoner ullo; Tanto intentius imprimere est opus ergo statuta; Nemo propterea pejor, melior, sine doubto, Obtineat qui contractum, si et postea rhino; Ergo Polardus, si quis, inexsuperabilis heros, 80 Colemanus impavidus nondum, atque in purpure natus Tylerus Iohanides celerisque in flito Nathaniel, Quisque optans digitos in tantum stickere pium, Adstant accincti imprimere aut perrumpere leges: Quales os miserum rabidi tres ægre molossi, Quales aut dubium textum atra in veste ministri, Tales circumstabant nunc nostri inopes hoc job.

Hisque Polardus voce canoro talia fatus: Primum autem, veluti est mos, præceps quisque liquorat, Quisque et Nicotianum ingens quid inserit atrum, 90 Heroûm nitidum decus et solamen avitum, Masticat ac simul altisonans, spittatque profuse: Quis de Virginia meruit præstantius unquam? Quis se pro patria curavit impigre tutum? Speechisque articulisque hominum quis fortior ullus, Ingeminans pennæ lickos et vulnera vocis? Quisnam putidius (hic) sarsuit Yankinimicos, Sæpius aut dedit ultro datam et broke his parolam? Mente inquassatus solidâque, tyranno minante, Horrisonis (hic) bombis moenia et alta quatente, 100 Sese promptum (hic) jactans Yankos lickere centum, Atque ad lastum invictus non surrendidit unquam? Ergo haud meddlite, posco, mique relinquite (hic) hoc job, Si non—knifumque enormem mostrat spittatque tremendus.

Dixerat: ast alii reliquorant et sine pauso Pluggos incumbunt maxillis, uterque vicissim Certamine innocuo valde madidam inquinat assem: Tylerus autem, dumque liquorat aridus hostis, Mirum aspicit duplumque bibentem, astante Lyæo; Ardens impavidusque edidit tamen impia verba; 110 Duplum quamvis te aspicio, esses atque viginti, Mendacem dicerem totumque (hic) thrasherem acervum; Nempe et thrasham, doggonatus (hic) sim nisi faxem; Lambastabo omnes catawompositer-(hic) que chawam! Dixit et impulsus Ryeo ruitur bene titus, Illi nam gravidum caput et laterem habet in hatto.

Hunc inhiat titubansque Polardus, optat et illum Stickere inermem, protegit autem rite Lyæus, Et pronos geminos, oculis dubitantibus, heros Cernit et irritus hostes, dumque excogitat utrum 120 Primum inpitchere, corruit, inter utrosque recumbit, Magno asino similis nimio sub pondere quassus: Colemanus hos moestus, triste ruminansque solamen, Inspicit hiccans, circumspittat terque cubantes; Funereisque his ritibus humidis inde solutis, Sternitur, invalidusque illis superincidit infans; Hos sepelit somnus et snorunt cornisonantes, Watchmanus inscios ast calybooso deinde reponit.

No. IX

[The Editors of the 'Atlantic' have received so many letters of inquiry concerning the literary remains of the late Mr. Wilbur, mentioned by his colleague and successor, Rev. Jeduthun Hitchcock, in a communication from which we made some extracts in our number for February, 1863, and have been so repeatedly urged to print some part of them for the gratification of the public, that they felt it their duty at least to make some effort to satisfy so urgent a demand. They have accordingly carefully examined the papers intrusted to them, but find most of the productions of Mr. Wilbur's pen so fragmentary, and even chaotic, written as they are on the backs of letters in an exceedingly cramped chirography,—here a memorandum for a sermon; there an observation of the weather; now the measurement of an extraordinary head of cabbage, and then of the cerebral capacity of some reverend brother deceased; a calm inquiry into the state of modern literature, ending in a method of detecting if milk be impoverished with water, and the amount thereof; one leaf beginning with a genealogy, to be interrupted halfway down with an entry that the brindle cow had calved,—that any attempts at selection seemed desperate. His only complete work, 'An Enquiry concerning the Tenth Horn of the Beast,' even in the abstract of it given by Mr. Hitchcock, would, by a rough computation of the printers, fill five entire numbers of our journal, and as he attempts, by a new application of decimal fractions, to identify it with the Emperor Julian, seems hardly of immediate concern to the general reader. Even the Table-Talk, though doubtless originally highly interesting in the domestic circle, is so largely made up of theological discussion and matters of local or preterite interest, that we have found it hard to extract anything that would at all satisfy expectation. But, in order to silence further inquiry, we subjoin a few passages as illustrations of its general character.]

I think I could go near to be a perfect Christian if I were always a visitor, as I have sometimes been, at the house of some hospitable friend. I can show a great deal of self-denial where the best of everything is urged upon me with kindly importunity. It is not so very hard to turn the other cheek for a kiss. And when I meditate upon the pains taken for our entertainment in this life, on the endless variety of seasons, of human character and fortune, on the costliness of the hangings and furniture of our dwelling here, I sometimes feel a singular joy in looking upon myself as God's guest, and cannot but believe that we should all be wiser and happier, because more grateful, if we were always mindful of our privilege in this regard. And should we not rate more cheaply any honor that men could pay us, if we remembered that every day we sat at the table of the Great King? Yet must we not forget that we are in strictest bonds His servants also; for there is no impiety so abject as that which expects to be deadheaded (ut ita dicam) through life, and which, calling itself trust in Providence, is in reality asking Providence to trust us and taking up all our goods on false pretences. It is a wise rule to take the world as we find it, not always to leave it so.

It has often set me thinking when I find that I can always pick up plenty of empty nuts under my shagbark-tree. The squirrels know them by their lightness, and I have seldom seen one with the marks of their teeth in it. What a school-house is the world, if our wits would only not play truant! For I observe that men set most store by forms and symbols in proportion as they are mere shells. It is the outside they want and not the kernel. What stores of such do not many, who in material things are as shrewd as the squirrels, lay up for the spiritual winter-supply of themselves and their children! I have seen churches that seemed to me garners of these withered nuts, for it is wonderful how prosaic is the apprehension of symbols by the minds of most men. It is not one sect nor another, but all, who, like the dog of the fable, have let drop the spiritual substance of symbols for their material shadow. If one attribute miraculous virtues to mere holy water, that beautiful emblem of inward purification at the door of God's house, another cannot comprehend the significance of baptism without being ducked over head and ears in the liquid vehicle thereof.

[Perhaps a word of historical comment may be permitted here. My late reverend predecessor was, I would humbly affirm, as free from prejudice as falls to the lot of the most highly favored individuals of our species. To be sure, I have heard Him say that 'what were called strong prejudices were in fact only the repulsion of sensitive organizations from that moral and even physical effluvium through which some natures by providential appointment, like certain unsavory quadrupeds, gave warning of their neighborhood. Better ten mistaken suspicions of this kind than one close encounter.' This he said somewhat in heat, on being questioned as to his motives for always refusing his pulpit to those itinerant professors of vicarious benevolence who end their discourses by taking up a collection. But at another time I remember his saying, 'that there was one large thing which small minds always found room for, and that was great prejudices.' This, however, by the way. The statement which I purposed to make was simply this. Down to A.D. 1830, Jaalam had consisted of a single parish, with one house set apart for religions services. In that year the foundations of a Baptist Society were laid by the labors of Elder Joash Q. Balcom, 2d. As the members of the new body were drawn from the First Parish, Mr. Wilbur was for a time considerably exercised in mind. He even went so far as on one occasion to follow the reprehensible practice of the earlier Puritan divines in choosing a punning text, and preached from Hebrews xiii, 9: 'Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines.' He afterwards, in accordance with one of his own maxims,—'to get a dead injury out of the mind as soon as is decent, bury it, and then ventilate,'—in accordance with this maxim, I say, he lived on very friendly terms with Rev. Shearjashub Scrimgour, present pastor of the Baptist Society in Jaalam. Yet I think it was never unpleasing to him that the church edifice of that society (though otherwise a creditable specimen of architecture) remained without a bell, as indeed it does to this day. So much seemed necessary to do away with any appearance of acerbity toward a respectable community of professing Christians, which might be suspected in the conclusion of the above paragraph.—J.H.]

In lighter moods he was not averse from an innocent play upon words. Looking up from his newspaper one morning, as I entered his study, he said, 'When I read a debate in Congress, I feel as if I were sitting at the feet of Zeno in the shadow of the Portico.' On my expressing a natural surprise, he added, smiling, 'Why, at such times the only view which honorable members give me of what goes on in the world is through their intercalumniations.' I smiled at this after a moment's reflection, and he added gravely, 'The most punctilious refinement of manners is the only salt that will keep a democracy from stinking; and what are we to expect from the people, if their representatives set them such lessons? Mr. Everett's whole life has been a sermon from this text. There was, at least, this advantage in duelling, that it set a certain limit on the tongue. When Society laid by the rapier, it buckled on the more subtle blade of etiquette wherewith to keep obtrusive vulgarity at bay.' In this connection, I may be permitted to recall a playful remark of his upon another occasion. The painful divisions in the First Parish, A.D. 1844, occasioned by the wild notions in respect to the rights of (what Mr. Wilbur, so far as concerned the reasoning faculty, always called) the unfairer part of creation, put forth by Miss Parthenia Almira Fitz, are too well known to need more than a passing allusion. It was during these heats, long since happily allayed, that Mr. Wilbur remarked that 'the Church had more trouble in dealing with one _she_resiarch than with twenty _he_resiarchs,' and that the men's conscia recti, or certainty of being right, was nothing to the women's.

When I once asked his opinion of a poetical composition on which I had expended no little pains, he read it attentively, and then remarked 'Unless one's thought pack more neatly in verse than in prose, it is wiser to refrain. Commonplace gains nothing by being translated into rhyme, for it is something which no hocus-pocus can transubstantiate with the real presence of living thought. You entitle your piece, "My Mother's Grave," and expend four pages of useful paper in detailing your emotions there. But, my dear sir, watering does not improve the quality of ink, even though you should do it with tears. To publish a sorrow to Tom, Dick, and Harry is in some sort to advertise its unreality, for I have observed in my intercourse with the afflicted that the deepest grief instinctively hides its face with its hands and is silent. If your piece were printed, I have no doubt it would be popular, for people like to fancy that they feel much better than the trouble of feeling. I would put all poets on oath whether they have striven to say everything they possibly could think of, or to leave out all they could not help saying. In your own case, my worthy young friend, what you have written is merely a deliberate exercise, the gymnastic of sentiment. For your excellent maternal relative is still alive, and is to take tea with me this evening, D.V. Beware of simulated feeling; it is hypocrisy's first cousin; it is especially dangerous to a preacher; for he who says one day, "Go to, let me seem to be pathetic," may be nearer than he thinks to saying, "Go to, let me seem to be virtuous, or earnest, or under sorrow for sin." Depend upon it, Sappho loved her verses more sincerely than she did Phaon, and Petrarch his sonnets better than Laura, who was indeed but his poetical stalking-horse. After you shall have once heard that muffled rattle of clods on the coffin-lid of an irreparable loss, you will grow acquainted with a pathos that will make all elegies hateful. When I was of your age, I also for a time mistook my desire to write verses for an authentic call of my nature in that direction. But one day as I was going forth for a walk, with my head full of an "Elegy on the Death of Flirtilla," and vainly groping after a rhyme for lily that should not be silly or chilly, I saw my eldest boy Homer busy over the rain-water hogshead, in that childish experiment at parthenogenesis, the changing a horse-hair into a water-snake. All immersion of six weeks showed no change in the obstinate filament. Here was a stroke of unintended sarcasm. Had I not been doing in my study precisely what my boy was doing out of doors? Had my thoughts any more chance of coming to life by being submerged in rhyme than his hair by soaking in water? I burned my elegy and took a course of Edwards on the Will. People do not make poetry; it is made out of them by a process for which I do not find myself fitted. Nevertheless, the writing of verses is a good rhetorical exercitation, as teaching us what to shun most carefully in prose. For prose bewitched is like window-glass with bubbles in it, distorting what it should show with pellucid veracity.'

It is unwise to insist on doctrinal points as vital to religion. The Bread of Life is wholesome and sufficing in itself, but gulped down with these kickshaws cooked up by theologians, it is apt to produce an indigestion, nay, eyen at last an incurable dyspepsia of scepticism.

One of the most inexcusable weaknesses of Americans is in signing their names to what are called credentials. But for my interposition, a person who shall be nameless would have taken from this town a recommendation for an office of trust subscribed by the selectmen and all the voters of both parties, ascribing to him as many good qualities as if it had been his tombstone. The excuse was that it would be well for the town to be rid of him, as it would erelong be obliged to maintain him. I would not refuse my name to modest merit, but I would be as cautious as in signing a bond. [I trust I shall be subjected to no imputation of unbecoming vanity, if I mention the fact that Mr. W. indorsed my own qualifications as teacher of the high-school at Pequash Junction. J.H.] When I see a certificate of character with everybody's name to it, I regard it as a letter of introduction from the Devil. Never give a man your name unless you are willing to trust him with your reputation.

There seem nowadays to be two sources of literary inspiration,—fulness of mind and emptiness of pocket.

I am often struck, especially in reading Montaigne, with the obviousness and familiarity of a great writer's thoughts, and the freshness they gain because said by him. The truth is, we mix their greatness with all they say and give it our best attention. Johannes Faber sic cogitavit would be no enticing preface to a book, but an accredited name gives credit like the signature to a note of hand. It is the advantage of fame that it is always privileged to take the world by the button, and a thing is weightier for Shakespeare's uttering it by the whole amount of his personality.

It is singular how impatient men are with overpraise of others, how patient with overpraise of themselves; and yet the one does them no injury while the other may he their ruin.

People are apt to confound mere alertness of mind with attention. The one is but the flying abroad of all the faculties to the open doors and windows at every passing rumor; the other is the concentration of every one of them in a single focus, as in the alchemist over his alembic at the moment of expected projection. Attention is the stuff that memory is made of, and memory is accumulated genius.

Do not look for the Millennium as imminent. One generation is apt to get all the wear it can out of the cast clothes of the last, and is always sure to use up every paling of the old fence that will hold a nail in building the new.

You suspect a kind of vanity in my genealogical enthusiasm. Perhaps you are right; but it is a universal foible. Where it does not show itself in a personal and private way, it becomes public and gregarious. We flatter ourselves in the Pilgrim Fathers, and the Virginian offshoot of a transported convict swells with the fancy ef a cavalier ancestry. Pride of birth, I have noticed, takes two forms. One complacently traces himself up to a coronet; another, defiantly, to a lapstone. The sentiment is precisely the same in both cases, only that one is the positive and the other the negative pole of it.

Seeing a goat the other day kneeling in order to graze with less trouble, it seemed to me a type of the common notion of prayer. Most people are ready enough to go down on their knees for material blessings, but how few for those spiritual gifts which alone are an answer to our orisons, if we but knew it!

Some people, nowadays, seem to have hit upon a new moralization of the moth and the candle. They would lock up the light of Truth, lest poor Psyche should put it out in her effort to draw nigh, to it.

No. X

MR. HOSEA BIGLOW TO THE EDITOR OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY

DEAR SIR,—Your letter come to han' Requestin' me to please be funny; But I ain't made upon a plan Thet knows wut's comin', gall or honey: Ther' 's times the world does look so queer, Odd fancies come afore I call 'em; An' then agin, for half a year, No preacher 'thout a call's more solemn.

You're 'n want o' sunthin' light an' cute, Rattlin' an' shrewd an' kin' o' jingleish, 10 An' wish, pervidin' it 'ould suit, I'd take an' citify my English. I ken write long-tailed, ef I please,— But when I'm jokin', no, I thankee; Then, fore I know it, my idees Run helter-skelter into Yankee.

Sence I begun to scribble rhyme, I tell ye wut, I hain't ben foolin'; The parson's books, life, death, an' time Hev took some trouble with my schoolin'; 20 Nor th' airth don't git put out with me, Thet love her 'z though she wuz a woman; Why, th' ain't a bird upon the tree But half forgives my bein' human.

An' yit I love th' unhighschooled way Ol' farmers hed when I wuz younger; Their talk wuz meatier, an' 'ould stay, While book-froth seems to whet your hunger; For puttin' in a downright lick 'twixt Humbug's eyes, ther' 's few can metch it, 30 An' then it helves my thoughts ez slick Ez stret-grained hickory does a hetchet.

But when I can't, I can't, thet's all, For Natur' won't put up with gullin'; Idees you hev to shove an' haul Like a druv pig ain't wuth a mullein: Live thoughts ain't sent for; thru all rifts O' sense they pour an' resh ye onwards, Like rivers when south-lyin' drifts Feel thet th' old arth's a-wheelin' sunwards. 40

Time wuz, the rhymes come crowdin' thick Ez office-seekers arter 'lection, An' into ary place 'ould stick Without no bother nor objection; But sence the war my thoughts hang back Ez though I wanted to enlist 'em, An' subs'tutes,—they don't never lack, But then they'll slope afore you've mist 'em.

Nothin' don't seem like wut it wuz; I can't see wut there is to hender, 50 An' yit my brains jes' go buzz, buzz, Like bumblebees agin a winder; 'fore these times come, in all airth's row, Ther' wuz one quiet place, my head in, Where I could hide an' think,—but now It's all one teeter, hopin', dreadin'.

Where's Peace? I start, some clear-blown night, When gaunt stone walls grow numb an' number, An' creakin' 'cross the snow-crus' white, Walk the col' starlight into summer; 60 Up grows the moon, an' swell by swell Thru the pale pasturs silvers dimmer Than the last smile thet strives to tell O' love gone heavenward in its shimmer.

I hev been gladder o' sech things Than cocks o' spring or bees o' clover, They filled my heart with livin' springs, But now they seem to freeze 'em over; Sights innercent ez babes on knee, Peaceful ez eyes o' pastur'd cattle, 70 Jes' coz they be so, seem to me To rile me more with thoughts o' battle.

Indoors an' out by spells I try; Ma'am Natur' keeps her spin-wheel goin', But leaves my natur' stiff and dry Ez fiel's o' clover arter mowin'; An' her jes' keepin' on the same, Calmer 'n a clock, an' never carin' An' findin' nary thing to blame, Is wus than ef she took to swearin'. 80

Snow-flakes come whisperin' on the pane The charm makes blazin' logs so pleasant, But I can't hark to wut they're say'n', With Grant or Sherman ollers present; The chimbleys shudder in the gale, Thet lulls, then suddin takes to flappin' Like a shot hawk, but all's ez stale To me ez so much sperit-rappin'.

Under the yaller-pines I house, When sunshine makes 'em all sweet-scented, 90 An' hear among their furry boughs The baskin' west-wind purr contented, While 'way o'erhead, ez sweet an' low Ez distant bells thet ring for meetin', The wedged wil' geese their bugles blow, Further an' further South retreatin'.

Or up the slippery knob I strain An' see a hundred hills like islan's Lift their blue woods in broken chain Out o' the sea o' snowy silence; 100 The farm-smokes, sweetes' sight on airth, Slow thru the winter air a-shrinkin' Seem kin' o' sad, an' roun' the hearth Of empty places set me thinkin'.

Beaver roars hoarse with meltin' snows, An' rattles di'mon's from his granite; Time wuz, he snatched away my prose, An' into psalms or satires ran it; But he, nor all the rest thet once Started my blood to country-dances, 110 Can't set me goin' more 'n a dunce Thet hain't no use for dreams an' fancies.

Rat-tat-tat-tattle thru the street I hear the drummers makin' riot, An' I set thinkin' o' the feet Thet follered once an' now are quiet,— White feet ez snowdrops innercent, Thet never knowed the paths o' Satan, Whose comin' step ther' 's ears thet won't, No, not lifelong, leave off awaitin', 120

Why, hain't I held 'em on my knee? Didn't I love to see 'em growin', Three likely lads ez wal could be, Hahnsome an' brave an' not tu knowin'? I set an' look into the blaze Whose natur', jes' like theirn, keeps climbin', Ez long 'z it lives, in shinin' ways, An' half despise myself for rhymin'.

Wut's words to them whose faith an' truth On War's red techstone rang true metal, 130 Who ventered life an' love an' youth For the gret prize o' death in battle? To him who, deadly hurt, agen Flashed on afore the charge's thunder, Tippin' with fire the bolt of men Thet rived the Rebel line asunder?

'Tain't right to hev the young go fust, All throbbin' full o' gifts an' graces, Leavin' life's paupers dry ez dust To try an' make b'lieve fill their places: 140 Nothin' but tells us wut we miss, Ther' 's gaps our lives can't never fay in, An' thet world seems so fur from this Lef' for us loafers to grow gray in!

My eyes cloud up for rain; my mouth Will take to twitchin' roun' the corners; I pity mothers, tu, down South, For all they sot among the scorners: I'd sooner take my chance to stan' At Jedgment where your meanest slave is, 150 Than at God's bar hol' up a han' Ez drippin' red ez yourn, Jeff Davis!

Come, Peace! not like a mourner bowed For honor lost an' dear ones wasted, But proud, to meet a people proud, With eyes thet tell o' triumph tasted! Come, with han' grippin' on the hilt, An' step thet proves ye Victory's daughter! Longin' for you, our sperits wilt Like shipwrecked men's on raf's for water. 160

Come, while our country feels the lift Of a gret instinct shoutin' 'Forwards!' An' knows thet freedom ain't a gift Thet tarries long in han's o' cowards! Come, sech ez mothers prayed for, when They kissed their cross with lips thet quivered, An' bring fair wages for brave men, A nation saved, a race delivered!

No. XI

MR. HOSEA BIGLOW'S SPEECH IN MARCH MEETING

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY

JAALAM, April 5, 1866.

MY DEAR SIR,—

(an' noticin' by your kiver thet you're some dearer than wut you wuz, I enclose the deffrence) I dunno ez I know Jest how to interdoose this las' perduction of my mews, ez Parson Wilber allus called 'em, which is goin' to be the last an' stay the last onless sunthin' pertikler sh'd interfear which I don't expec' ner I wun't yield tu ef it wuz ez pressin' ez a deppity Shiriff. Sence Mr. Wilbur's disease I hevn't hed no one thet could dror out my talons. He ust to kind o' wine me up an' set the penderlum agoin' an' then somehow I seemed to go on tick as it wear tell I run down, but the noo minister ain't of the same brewin' nor I can't seem to git ahold of no kine of huming nater in him but sort of slide rite off as you du on the eedge of a mow. Minnysteeril natur is wal enough an' a site better'n most other kines I know on, but the other sort sech as Welbor hed wuz of the Lord's makin' an' naterally more wonderfle an' sweet tastin' leastways to me so fur as heerd from. He used to interdooce 'em smooth ez ile athout sayin' nothin' in pertickler an' I misdoubt he didn't set so much by the sec'nd Ceres as wut he done by the Fust, fact, he let on onct thet his mine misgive him of a sort of fallin' off in spots. He wuz as outspoken as a norwester he wuz, but I tole him I hoped the fall wuz from so high up thet a feller could ketch a good many times fust afore comin' bunt onto the ground as I see Jethro C. Swett from the meetin' house steeple up to th' old perrish, an' took up for dead but he's alive now an' spry as wut you be. Turnin' of it over I recelected how they ust to put wut they called Argymunce onto the frunts of poymns, like poorches afore housen whare you could rest ye a spell whilst you wuz concludin' whether you'd go in or nut espeshully ware tha wuz darters, though I most allus found it the best plen to go in fust an' think afterwards an' the gals likes it best tu. I dno as speechis ever hez any argimunts to 'em, I never see none thet hed an' I guess they never du but tha must allus be a B'ginnin' to everythin' athout it is Etarnity so I'll begin rite away an' anybody may put it afore any of his speeches ef it soots an' welcome. I don't claim no paytent.

THE ARGYMUNT

Interducshin, w'ich may be skipt. Begins by talkin' about himself: thet's jest natur an' most gin'ally allus pleasin', I b'leeve I've notist, to one of the cumpany, an' thet's more than wut you can say of most speshes of talkin'. Nex' comes the gittin' the goodwill of the orjunce by lettin' 'em gether from wut you kind of ex'dentally let drop thet they air about East, A one, an' no mistaik, skare 'em up an' take 'em as they rise. Spring interdooced with a fiew approput flours. Speach finally begins witch nobuddy needn't feel obolygated to read as I never read 'em an' never shell this one ag'in. Subjick staited; expanded; delayted; extended. Pump lively. Subjick staited ag'in so's to avide all mistaiks. Ginnle remarks; continooed; kerried on; pushed furder; kind o' gin out. Subjick _re_staited; dielooted; stirred up permiscoous. Pump ag'in. Gits back to where he sot out. Can't seem to stay thair. Ketches into Mr. Seaward's hair. Breaks loose ag'in an' staits his subjick; stretches it; turns it; folds it; onfolds it; folds it ag'in so's't, no one can't find it. Argoos with an imedginary bean thet ain't aloud to say nothin' in replye. Gives him a real good dressin' an' is settysfide he's rite. Gits into Johnson's hair. No use tryin' to git into his head. Gives it up. Hez to stait his subjick ag'in; doos it back'ards, sideways, eendways, criss-cross, bevellin', noways. Gits finally red on it. Concloods. Concloods more. Reads some xtrax. Sees his subjick a-nosin' round arter him ag'in. Tries to avide it. Wun't du. _Mis_states it. Can't conjectur' no other plawsable way of staytin' on it. Tries pump. No fx. Finely concloods to conclood. Yeels the flore.

You kin spall an' punctooate thet as you please. I allus do, it kind of puts a noo soot of close onto a word, thisere funattick spellin' doos an' takes 'em out of the prissen dress they wair in the Dixonary. Ef I squeeze the cents out of 'em it's the main thing, an' wut they wuz made for: wut's left's jest pummis.

Mistur Wilbur sez he to me onct, sez he, 'Hosee,' sez he, 'in litterytoor the only good thing is Natur. It's amazin' hard to come at,' sez he, 'but onct git it an' you've gut everythin'. Wut's the sweetest small on airth?' sez he. 'Noomone hay,' sez I, pooty bresk, for he wuz allus hankerin' round in hayin'. 'Nawthin' of the kine,' sez he. 'My leetle Huldy's breath,' sez I ag'in. 'You're a good lad,' sez he, his eyes sort of ripplin' like, for he lost a babe onct nigh about her age,—'you're a good lad; but 'tain't thet nuther,' sez he. 'Ef you want to know,' sez he, 'open your winder of a mornin' et ary season, and you'll larn thet the best of perfooms is jest fresh air, fresh air,' sez he, emphysizin', 'athout no mixtur. Thet's wut I call natur in writin', and it bathes my lungs and washes 'em sweet whenever I git a whiff on 't.' sez he. I often think o' thet when I set down to write but the winders air so ept to git stuck, an' breakin' a pane costs sunthin'.

Yourn for the last time,

Nut to be continooed,

HOSEA BIGLOW.

I don't much s'pose, hows'ever I should plen it, I could git boosted into th' House or Sennit,— Nut while the twolegged gab-machine's so plenty, 'nablin' one man to du the talk o' twenty; I'm one o' them thet finds it ruther hard To mannyfactur' wisdom by the yard, An' maysure off, accordin' to demand, The piece-goods el'kence that I keep on hand, The same ole pattern runnin' thru an' thru, An' nothin' but the customer thet's new. 10 I sometimes think, the furder on I go, Thet it gits harder to feel sure I know, An' when I've settled my idees, I find 'twarn't I sheered most in makin' up my mind; 'twuz this an' thet an' t'other thing thet done it, Sunthin' in th' air, I couldn' seek nor shun it. Mos' folks go off so quick now in discussion, All th' ole flint-locks seems altered to percussion, Whilst I in agin' sometimes git a hint, Thet I'm percussion changin' back to flint; 20 Wal, ef it's so, I ain't agoin' to werrit, For th' ole Queen's-arm hez this pertickler merit,— It gives the mind a hahnsome wedth o' margin To kin' o make its will afore dischargin': I can't make out but jest one ginnle rule,— No man need go an' make himself a fool, Nor jedgment ain't like mutton, thet can't bear Cookin' tu long, nor be took up tu rare.

Ez I wuz say'n', I hain't no chance to speak So's't all the country dreads me onct a week, 30 But I've consid'ble o' thet sort o' head Thet sets to home an' thinks wut might be said, The sense thet grows an' werrits underneath, Comin' belated like your wisdom-teeth, An' git so el'kent, sometimes, to my gardin Thet I don' vally public life a fardin'. Our Parson Wilbur (blessin's on his head!) 'mongst other stories of ole times he hed, Talked of a feller thet rehearsed his spreads Beforehan' to his rows o' kebbige-heads, 40 (Ef 'twarn't Demossenes, I guess 'twuz Sisro,) Appealin' fust to thet an' then to this row, Accordin' ez he thought thet his idees Their diff'runt ev'riges o' brains 'ould please; 'An',' sez the Parson, 'to hit right, you must Git used to maysurin' your hearers fust; For, take my word for 't, when all's come an' past, The kebbige-heads'll cair the day et last; Th' ain't ben a meetin' sence the worl' begun But they made (raw or biled ones) ten to one.' 50

I've allus foun' 'em, I allow, sence then About ez good for talkin' tu ez men; They'll take edvice, like other folks, to keep, (To use it 'ould be holdin' on 't tu cheap,) They listen wal, don' kick up when you scold 'em, An' ef they've tongues, hev sense enough to hold 'em; Though th' ain't no denger we shall lose the breed, I gin'lly keep a score or so for seed, An' when my sappiness gits spry in spring, So's't my tongue itches to run on full swing, 60 I fin' 'em ready-planted in March-meetin', Warm ez a lyceum-audience in their greetin', An' pleased to hear my spoutin' frum the fence,— Comin', ez 't doos, entirely free 'f expense. This year I made the follerin' observations Extrump'ry, like most other tri'ls o' patience, An', no reporters bein' sent express To work their abstrac's up into a mess Ez like th' oridg'nal ez a woodcut pictur' Thet chokes the life out like a boy-constrictor, 70 I've writ 'em out, an' so avide all jeal'sies 'twixt nonsense o' my own an' some one's else's.

(N.B. Reporters gin'lly git a hint To make dull orjunces seem 'live in print, An', ez I hev t' report myself, I vum, I'll put th' applauses where they'd ough' to come!)

MY FELLER KEBBIGE-HEADS, who look so green, I vow to gracious thet ef I could dreen The world of all its hearers but jest you, 'twould leave 'bout all tha' is wuth talkin' to, 80 An' you, my ven'able ol' frien's, thet show Upon your crowns a sprinklin' o' March snow, Ez ef mild Time had christened every sense For wisdom's church o' second innocence. Nut Age's winter, no, no sech a thing, But jest a kin' o' slippin'-back o' spring,— [Sev'ril noses blowed.] We've gathered here, ez ushle, to decide Which is the Lord's an' which is Satan's side, Coz all the good or evil thet can heppen Is 'long o' which on 'em you choose for Cappen. [Cries o' 'Thet's so.']

Aprul's come back; the swellin' buds of oak 91 Dim the fur hillsides with a purplish smoke; The brooks are loose an', singing to be seen, (Like gals,) make all the hollers soft an' green; The birds are here, for all the season's late; They take the sun's height an' don' never wait; Soon 'z he officially declares it's spring Their light hearts lift 'em on a north'ard wing, An' th' ain't an acre, fur ez you can hear, Can't by the music tell the time o' year; 100 But thet white dove Carliny seared away, Five year ago, jes' sech an Aprul day; Peace, that we hoped 'ould come an' build last year An' coo by every housedoor, isn't here,— No, nor wun't never be, for all our jaw, Till we're ez brave in pol'tics ez in war! O Lord, ef folks wuz made so's't they could see The begnet-pint there is to an idee! [Sensation.] Ten times the danger in 'em th' is in steel; They run your soul thru an' you never feel, 110 But crawl about an' seem to think you're livin', Poor shells o' men, nut wuth the Lord's forgivin', Tell you come bunt ag'in a real live feet, An' go to pieces when you'd ough' to ect! Thet kin' o' begnet's wut we're crossin' now, An' no man, fit to nevvigate a scow, 'ould stan' expectin' help from Kingdom Come, While t'other side druv their cold iron home.

My frien's, you never gethered from my mouth, No, nut one word ag'in the South ez South, 120 Nor th' ain't a livin' man, white, brown, nor black, Gladder 'n wut I should be to take 'em back; But all I ask of Uncle Sam is fust To write up on his door, 'No goods on trust'; [Cries o' 'Thet's the ticket!'] Give us cash down in ekle laws for all, An' they'll be snug inside afore nex' fall. Give wut they ask, an' we shell hev Jamaker, Wuth minus some consid'able an acre; Give wut they need, an' we shell git 'fore long A nation all one piece, rich, peacefle, strong; 130 Make 'em Amerikin, an' they'll begin To love their country ez they loved their sin; Let 'em stay Southun, an' you've kep' a sore Ready to fester ez it done afore. No mortle man can boast of perfic' vision, But the one moleblin' thing is Indecision, An' th' ain't no futur' for the man nor state Thet out of j-u-s-t can't spell great. Some folks 'ould call thet reddikle, do you? 'Twas commonsense afore the war wuz thru; 140 Thet loaded all our guns an' made 'em speak So's't Europe heared 'em clearn acrost the creek; 'They're drivin' o' their spiles down now,' sez she, 'To the hard grennit o' God's fust idee; Ef they reach thet, Democ'cy needn't fear The tallest airthquakes we can git up here.' Some call 't insultin' to ask ary pledge, An' say 'twill only set their teeth on edge, But folks you've jest licked, fur 'z I ever see, Are 'bout ez mad 'z they wal know how to be; 150 It's better than the Rebs themselves expected 'fore they see Uncle Sam wilt down henpected; Be kind 'z you please, but fustly make things fast, For plain Truth's all the kindness thet'll last; Ef treason is a crime, ez some folks say, How could we punish it in a milder way Than sayin' to 'em, 'Brethren, lookee here, We'll jes' divide things with ye, sheer an' sheer, An' sence both come o' pooty strong-backed daddies, You take the Darkies, ez we've took the Paddies; 160 Ign'ant an' poor we took 'em by the hand, An' they're the bones an' sinners o' the land,' I ain't o' them thet fancy there's a loss on Every inves'ment thet don't start from Bos'on; But I know this: our money's safest trusted In sunthin', come wut will, thet can't be busted, An' thet's the old Amerikin idee, To make a man a Man an' let him be. [Gret applause.]

Ez for their l'yalty, don't take a goad to 't, But I do' want to block their only road to 't 170 By lettin' 'em believe thet they can git Mor'n wut they lost, out of our little wit: I tell ye wut, I'm 'fraid we'll drif' to leeward 'thout we can put more stiffenin' into Seward; He seems to think Columby'd better ect Like a scared widder with a boy stiff-necked Thet stomps an' swears he wun't come in to supper; She mus' set up for him, ez weak ez Tupper, Keepin' the Constitootion on to warm, Tell he'll eccept her 'pologies in form: 180 The neighbors tell her he's a cross-grained cuss Thet needs a hidin' 'fore he comes to wus; 'No,' sez Ma Seward, 'he's ez good 'z the best, All he wants now is sugar-plums an' rest;' 'He sarsed my Pa,' sez one; 'He stoned my son,' Another edds, 'Oh wal, 'twuz jes' his fun.' 'He tried to shoot our Uncle Samwell dead.' ''Twuz only tryin' a noo gun he hed.' 'Wal, all we ask's to hev it understood You'll take his gun away from him for good; 190 We don't, wal, nut exac'ly, like his play, Seem' he allus kin' o' shoots our way. You kill your fatted calves to no good eend, 'thout his fust sayin', "Mother, I hev sinned!"' ['Amen!' frum Deac'n Greenleaf]

The Pres'dunt he thinks thet the slickest plan 'ould be t' allow thet he's our on'y man, An' thet we fit thru all thet dreffle war Jes' for his private glory an' eclor; 'Nobody ain't a Union man,' sez he, ''thout he agrees, thru thick an' thin, with me; 200 Warn't Andrew Jackson's 'nitials jes' like mine? An' ain't thet sunthin' like a right divine To cut up ez kentenkerous ez I please, An' treat your Congress like a nest o' fleas?' Wal, I expec' the People wouldn' care, if The question now wuz techin' bank or tariff, But I conclude they've 'bout made up their min' This ain't the fittest time to go it blin', Nor these ain't metters thet with pol'tics swings, But goes 'way down amongst the roots o' things; 210 Coz Sumner talked o' whitewashin' one day They wun't let four years' war be throwed away. 'Let the South hev her rights?' They say, 'Thet's you! But nut greb hold of other folks's tu.' Who owns this country, is it they or Andy? Leastways it ough' to be the People and he; Let him be senior pardner, ef he's so, But let them kin' o' smuggle in ez Co; [Laughter.] Did he diskiver it? Consid'ble numbers Think thet the job wuz taken by Columbus. 220 Did he set tu an' make it wut it is? Ef so, I guess the One-Man-power hez riz. Did he put thru the rebbles, clear the docket, An' pay th' expenses out of his own pocket? Ef thet's the case, then everythin' I exes Is t' hev him come an' pay my ennooal texes. [Profoun' sensation.] Was 't he thet shou'dered all them million guns? Did he lose all the fathers, brothers, sons? Is this ere pop'lar gov'ment thet we run A kin' o' sulky, made to kerry one? 230 An' is the country goin' to knuckle down To hev Smith sort their letters 'stid o'Brown? Who wuz the 'Nited States 'fore Richmon' fell? Wuz the South needfle their full name to spell? An' can't we spell it in thet short-han' way Till th' underpinnin's settled so's to stay? Who cares for the Resolves of '61, Thet tried to coax an airthquake with a bun? Hez act'ly nothin' taken place sence then To larn folks they must hendle fects like men? 240 Ain't this the true p'int? Did the Rebs accep' 'em? Ef nut, whose fault is 't thet we hevn't kep 'em? Warn't there two sides? an' don't it stend to reason Thet this week's 'Nited States ain't las' week's treason? When all these sums is done, with nothin' missed, An' nut afore, this school 'll be dismissed.

I knowed ez wal ez though I'd seen 't with eyes Thet when the war wuz over copper'd rise, An' thet we'd hev a rile-up in our kettle 'twould need Leviathan's whole skin to settle: 250 I thought 'twould take about a generation 'fore we could wal begin to be a nation, But I allow I never did imegine 'twould be our Pres'dunt thet 'ould drive a wedge in To keep the split from closin' ef it could. An' healin' over with new wholesome wood; For th' ain't no chance o' healin' while they think Thet law an' gov'ment's only printer's ink; I mus' confess I thank him for discoverin' The curus way in which the States are sovereign; 260 They ain't nut quite enough so to rebel, But, when they fin' it's costly to raise h——, [A groan from Deac'n G.] Why, then, for jes' the same superl'tive reason, They're 'most too much so to be tetched for treason; They can't go out, but ef they somehow du, Their sovereignty don't noways go out tu; The State goes out, the sovereignty don't stir, But stays to keep the door ajar for her. He thinks secession never took 'em out, An' mebby he's correc', but I misdoubt? 270 Ef they warn't out, then why, 'n the name o' sin, Make all this row 'bout lettin' of 'em in? In law, p'r'aps nut; but there's a diffurence, ruther, Betwixt your mother-'n-law an' real mother, [Derisive cheers.] An' I, for one, shall wish they'd all ben som'eres, Long 'z U.S. Texes are sech reg'lar comers. But, O my patience! must we wriggle back Into th' ole crooked, pettyfoggin' track, When our artil'ry-wheels a road hev cut Stret to our purpose ef we keep the rut? 280 War's jes' dead waste excep' to wipe the slate Clean for the cyph'rin' of some nobler fate. [Applause.] Ez for dependin' on their oaths an' thet, 'twun't bind 'em more 'n the ribbin roun' my het: I heared a fable once from Othniel Starns, That pints it slick ez weathercocks do barns; Onct on a time the wolves hed certing rights Inside the fold; they used to sleep there nights, An' bein' cousins o' the dogs, they took Their turns et watchin', reg'lar ez a book; 290 But somehow, when the dogs hed gut asleep, Their love o' mutton beat their love o' sheep, Till gradilly the shepherds come to see Things warn't agoin' ez they'd ough' to be; So they sent off a deacon to remonstrate Along 'th the wolves an' urge 'em to go on straight; They didn't seem to set much by the deacon, Nor preachin' didn' cow 'em, nut to speak on; Fin'ly they swore thet they'd go out an' stay, An' hev their fill o' mutton every day; 300 Then dogs an' shepherds, after much hard dammin', [Groan from Deac'n G.] Turned tu an' give 'em a tormented lammin', An' sez, 'Ye sha'n't go out, the murrain rot ye, To keep us wastin' half our time to watch ye!' But then the question come, How live together 'thout losin' sleep, nor nary yew nor wether? Now there wuz some dogs (noways wuth their keep) Thet sheered their cousins' tastes an' sheered the sheep; They sez, 'Be gin'rous, let 'em swear right in, An', ef they backslide, let 'em swear ag'in; 310 Jes' let 'em put on sheep-skins whilst they're swearin'; To ask for more 'ould be beyond all bearin'.' 'Be gin'rous for yourselves, where you're to pay, Thet's the best prectice,' sez a shepherd gray; 'Ez for their oaths they wun't be wuth a button, Long 'z you don't cure 'em o' their taste for mutton; Th' ain't but one solid way, howe'er you puzzle: Tell they're convarted, let 'em wear a muzzle.' [Cries of 'Bully for you!']

I've noticed thet each half-baked scheme's abetters Are in the hebbit o' producin' letters 320 Writ by all sorts o' never-heared-on fellers, 'bout ez oridge'nal ez the wind in bellers; I've noticed, tu, it's the quack med'cine gits (An' needs) the grettest heaps o' stiffykits; [Two pothekeries goes out.] Now, sence I lef off creepin' on all fours, I hain't ast no man to endorse my course; It's full ez cheap to be your own endorser, An' ef I've made a cup, I'll fin' the saucer; But I've some letters here from t'other side, An' them's the sort thet helps me to decide; 330 Tell me for wut the copper-comp'nies hanker, An' I'll tell you jest where it's safe to anchor. [Faint hiss.] Fus'ly the Hon'ble B.O. Sawin writes Thet for a spell he couldn't sleep o' nights, Puzzlin' which side wuz preudentest to pin to, Which wuz th' ole homestead, which the temp'ry leanto; Et fust he jedged 'twould right-side-up his pan To come out ez a 'ridge'nal Union man, 'But now,' he sez, 'I ain't nut quite so fresh; The winnin' horse is goin' to be Secesh; 340 You might, las' spring, hev eas'ly walked the course, 'fore we contrived to doctor th' Union horse; Now we're the ones to walk aroun' the nex' track: Jest you take hol' an' read the follerin' extrac', Out of a letter I received last week From an ole frien' thet never sprung a leak, A Nothun Dem'crat o' th' ole Jarsey blue, Born copper-sheathed an' copper-fastened tu.'

'These four years past it hez ben tough To say which side a feller went for; 350 Guideposts all gone, roads muddy 'n' rough, An' nothin' duin' wut 'twuz meant for; Pickets a-firin' left an' right, Both sides a lettin' rip et sight,— Life warn't wuth hardly payin' rent for.

'Columby gut her back up so, It warn't no use a-tryin' to stop her,— War's emptin's riled her very dough An' made it rise an' act improper; 'Twuz full ez much ez I could du 360 To jes' lay low an' worry thru, 'Thout hevin' to sell out my copper.

'Afore the war your mod'rit men, Could set an' sun 'em on the fences, Cyph'rin' the chances up, an' then Jump off which way bes' paid expenses; Sence, 'twuz so resky ary way, I didn't hardly darst to say I 'greed with Paley's Evidences. [Groan from Deac'n G.]

'Ask Mac ef tryin' to set the fence 370 Warn't like bein' rid upon a rail on 't, Headin' your party with a sense O' bein' tipjint in the tail on 't, An' tryin' to think thet, on the whole, You kin' o' quasi own your soul When Belmont's gut a bill o' sale on 't? [Three cheers for Grant and Sherman.]

'Come peace, I sposed thet folks 'ould like Their pol'tics done ag'in by proxy; Give their noo loves the bag an' strike A fresh trade with their reg'lar doxy; 380 But the drag's broke, now slavery's gone, An' there's gret resk they'll blunder on, Ef they ain't stopped, to real Democ'cy.

'We've gut an awful row to hoe In this 'ere job o' reconstructin'; Folks dunno skurce which way to go, Where th' ain't some boghole to be ducked in; But one thing's clear; there is a crack, Ef we pry hard, 'twixt white an' black, Where the ole makebate can be tucked in. 390

'No white man sets in airth's broad aisle Thet I ain't willin' t' own ez brother, An' ef he's happened to strike ile, I dunno, fin'ly, but I'd ruther; An' Paddies, long 'z they vote all right, Though they ain't jest a nat'ral white, I hold one on 'em good 'z another, [Applause.]

'Wut is there lef I'd like to know, Ef 'tain't the defference o' color, To keep up self-respec' an' show 400 The human natur' of a fullah? Wut good in bein' white, onless It's fixed by law, nut lef' to guess, We're a heap smarter an' they duller?

'Ef we're to hev our ekle rights, 'twun't du to 'low no competition; Th' ole debt doo us for bein' whites Ain't safe onless we stop th' emission O' these noo notes, whose specie base Is human natur', thout no trace 410 O' shape, nor color, nor condition. [Continood applause.]

'So fur I'd writ an' couldn' jedge Aboard wut boat I'd best take pessige, My brains all mincemeat, 'thout no edge Upon 'em more than tu a sessige, But now it seems ez though I see Sunthin' resemblin' an idee, Sence Johnson's speech an' veto message.

'I like the speech best, I confess, The logic, preudence, an' good taste on 't; 420 An' it's so mad, I ruther guess There's some dependence to be placed on 't; [Laughter.] It's narrer, but 'twixt you an' me, Out o' the allies o' J.D. A temp'ry party can be based on 't.

'Jes' to hold on till Johnson's thru An' dug his Presidential grave is, An' then!—who knows but we could slew The country roun' to put in——? Wun't some folks rare up when we pull 430 Out o' their eyes our Union wool An' larn 'em wut a p'lit'cle shave is!

'Oh, did it seem 'z ef Providunce Could ever send a second Tyler? To see the South all back to once, Reapin' the spiles o' the Free-siler, Is cute ez though an ingineer Should claim th' old iron for his sheer Coz 'twas himself that bust the biler!' [Gret laughter.]

Thet tells the story! Thet's wut we shall git 440 By tryin' squirtguns on the burnin' Pit; For the day never comes when it'll du To kick off Dooty like a worn-out shoe. I seem to hear a whisperin' in the air, A sighin' like, of unconsoled despair, Thet comes from nowhere an' from everywhere, An' seems to say, 'Why died we? warn't it, then, To settle, once for all, thet men wuz men? Oh, airth's sweet cup snetched from us barely tasted, The grave's real chill is feelin' life wuz wasted! 450 Oh, you we lef', long-lingerin' et the door, Lovin' you best, coz we loved Her the more, Thet Death, not we, had conquered, we should feel Ef she upon our memory turned her heel, An' unregretful throwed us all away To flaunt it in a Blind Man's Holiday!'

My frien's, I've talked nigh on to long enough. I hain't no call to bore ye coz ye're tough; My lungs are sound, an' our own v'ice delights Our ears, but even kebbige-heads hez rights. 460 It's the las' time thet I shell e'er address ye, But you'll soon fin' some new tormentor: bless ye! [Tumult'ous applause and cries of 'Go on!' 'Don't stop!']