Chapter XXVI: Part II (5)

Such feats did they perform that day,
Against these wicked kegs, sir,
That, years to come, if they get home,
They’ll make their boasts and brags, sir.
--_Miscellaneous Essays and Occasional Writings._

Elizabeth Graeme Ferguson, one of the earliest women writers of our country, like many of her contemporaries, kept the style and effect of English poetry. Her lines on the Country Parson, show a fine vein of satire.

_THE COUNTRY PARSON_

How happy is the country parson’s lot!
Forgetting bishops, as by them forgot;
Tranquil of spirit, with an easy mind,
To all his vestry’s votes he sits resigned:
Of manners gentle, and of temper even,
He jogs his flocks, with easy pace, to heaven.
In Greek and Latin, pious books he keeps;
And, while his clerk sings psalms, he--soundly sleeps.
His garden fronts the sun’s sweet orient beams,
And fat church-wardens prompt his golden dreams.
The earliest fruit, in his fair orchard, blooms;
And cleanly pipes pour out tobacco’s fumes.
From rustic bridegroom oft he takes the ring;
And hears the milkmaid plaintive ballads sing.
Back-gammon cheats whole winter nights away,
And Pilgrim’s Progress helps a rainy day.

President John Quincy Adams so far relaxed from his political
dignity as to write light verse.

_TO SALLY_

The man in righteousness arrayed,
A pure and blameless liver,
Needs not the keen Toledo blade,
Nor venom-freighted quiver.
What though he winds his toilsome way
O’er regions wild and weary--
Through Zara’s burning desert stray,
Or Asia’s jungles dreary:

What though he plough the billowy deep
By lunar light, or solar,
Meet the resistless Simoon’s sweep,
Or iceberg circumpolar!
In bog or quagmire deep and dank
His foot shall never settle;
He mounts the summit of Mont Blanc,
Or Popocatapetl.

On Chimborazo’s breathless height
He treads o’er burning lava;
Or snuffs the Bohan Upas blight,
The deathful plant of Java.
Through every peril he shall pass,
By Virtue’s shield protected;
And still by Truth’s unerring glass
His path shall be directed.

Else wherefore was it, Thursday last,
While strolling down the valley,
Defenceless, musing as I passed
A canzonet to Sally,
A wolf, with mouth-protruding snout,
Forth from the thicket bounded--
I clapped my hands and raised a shout--
He heard--and fled--confounded.

Tangier nor Tunis never bred
An animal more crabbed;
Nor Fez, dry-nurse of lions, fed
A monster half so rabid;
Nor Ararat so fierce a beast
Has seen since days of Noah;
Nor stronger, eager for a feast,
The fell constrictor boa.

Oh! place me where the solar beam
Has scorched all verdure vernal;
Or on the polar verge extreme,
Blocked up with ice eternal--
Still shall my voice’s tender lays
Of love remain unbroken;
And still my charming Sally praise,
Sweet smiling and sweet spoken.

About this time, Clement C. Moore wrote the Christmas story which has since become a national classic.

_A VISIT FROM ST. NICHOLAS_

’Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;
The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;
And mamma in her ’kerchief, and I in my cap
Had just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap,
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.
The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below,
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer,
With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name;
“Now, _Dasher!_ now, _Dancer!_ now, _Prancer_ and _Vixen!_
On, _Comet!_ on, _Cupid!_ on, _Dunder_ and _Blitzen!_
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!”
As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky;
So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
With the sleigh full of Toys, and St. Nicholas too.
And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.
He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;
A bundle of Toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a pedler just opening his pack.
His eyes--how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow;
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath;
He had a broad face and a little round belly,
That shook when he laughed, like a bowlful of jelly.
He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself;
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread;
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk,
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose;
He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight,
_“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night_.”

Washington Irving, though his work is besprinkled with humor cannot be quoted at length.

A bit of his gay verse is given.

_A CERTAIN YOUNG LADY_

There’s a certain young lady,
Who’s just in her heyday,
And full of all mischief, I ween;
So teasing! so pleasing!
Capricious! delicious!
And you know very well whom I mean.

With an eye dark as night,
Yet than noonday more bright,
Was ever a black eye so keen?
It can thrill with a glance,
With a beam can entrance,
And you know very well whom I mean.

With a stately step--such as
You’d expect in a duchess--
And a brow might distinguish a queen,
With a mighty proud air,
That says “touch me who dare,”
And you know very well whom I mean.

With a toss of the head
That strikes one quite dead,
But a smile to revive one again;
That toss so appalling!
That smile so enthralling!
And you know very well whom I mean.

Confound her! devil take her!--
A cruel heart-breaker--
But hold! see that smile so serene.
God love her! God bless her!
May nothing distress her!
You know very well whom I mean.

Heaven help the adorer
Who happens to bore her,
The lover who wakens her spleen;
But too blest for a sinner
Is he who shall win her,
And you know very well whom I mean.

William Cullen Bryant, like most of the New England poets, was not often humorous in his work. Perhaps the nearest he came to it was in his _Lines to a Mosquito_.

_TO A MOSQUITO_

Fair insect! that with threadlike legs spread out,
And blood-extracting bill and filmy wing,
Dost murmur, as thou slowly sail’st about,
In pitiless ears, full many a plaintive thing,
And tell how little our large veins should bleed,
Would we but yield them to thy bitter need?

Unwillingly, I own, and, what is worse,
Full angrily men harken to thy plaint;
Thou gettest many a brush and many a curse,
For saying thou art gaunt and starved and faint.
Even the old beggar, while he asks for food,
Would kill thee, hapless stranger, if he could.

I call thee stranger, for the town, I ween,
Has not the honor of so proud a birth--
Thou com’st from Jersey meadows, fresh and green,
The offspring of the gods, though born on earth;
For Titan was thy sire, and fair was she,
The ocean nymph that nursed thy infancy.

Beneath the rushes was thy cradle swung,
And when at length thy gauzy wings grew strong,
Abroad to gentle airs their folds were flung,
Rose in the sky, and bore thee soft along;
The south wind breathed to waft thee on thy way,
And danced and shone beneath the billowy bay.

Calm rose afar the city spires, and thence
Came the deep murmur of its throng of men,
And as its grateful odors met thy sense,
They seemed the perfumes of thy native fen.
Fair lay its crowded streets, and at the sight
Thy tiny song grew shriller with delight.

At length thy pinion fluttered in Broadway--
Ah, there were fairy steps, and white necks kissed
By wanton airs, and eyes whose killing ray
Shone through the snowy veils like stars through mist;
And fresh as morn, on many a cheek and chin,
Bloomed the bright blood through the transparent skin.

Sure these were sights to tempt an anchorite!
What! do I hear thy slender voice complain?
Thou wailest when I talk of beauty’s light,
As if it brought the memory of pain.
Thou art a wayward being--well--come near,
And pour thy tale of sorrow in mine ear.

What say’st thou, slanderer! rouge makes thee sick?
And China Bloom at best is sorry food?
And Rowland’s Kalydor, if laid on thick,
Poisons the thirsty wretch that bores for blood.
Go! ’Twas a just reward that met thy crime--
But shun the sacrilege another time.

That bloom was made to look at--not to touch;
To worship--not approach--that radiant white;
And well might sudden vengeance light on such
As dared, like thee, most impiously to bite.
Thou shouldst have gazed at distance and admired--
Murmur’d thy admiration and retired.

Thou’rt welcome to the town--but why come here
To bleed a brother poet, gaunt like thee?
Alas! the little blood I have is dear,
And thin will be the banquet drawn from me.
Look round--the pale-eyed sisters in my cell,
Thy old acquaintance, Song and Famine, dwell.

Try some plump alderman, and suck the blood
Enrich’d by gen’rous wine and costly meat;
On well-filled skins, sleek as thy native mud,
Fix thy light pump, and press thy freckled feet.
Go to the men for whom, in ocean’s halls,
The oyster breeds and the green turtle sprawls.

There corks are drawn, and the red vintage flows,
To fill the swelling veins for thee, and now
The ruddy cheek, and now the ruddier nose
Shall tempt thee, as thou flittest round the brow;
And when the hour of sleep its quiet brings,
No angry hand shall rise to brush thy wings.

Fitz-Greene Halleck wrote much in collaboration with Joseph Rodman Drake, and it is often difficult to separate their work.

_ODE TO FORTUNE_

Fair lady with the bandaged eye!
I’ll pardon all thy scurvy tricks,
So thou wilt cut me, and deny
Alike thy kisses and thy kicks:
I’m quite contented as I am,
Have cash to keep my duns at bay,
Can choose between beefsteaks and ham,
And drink Madeira every day.

My station is the middle rank,
My fortune--just a competence--
Ten thousand in the Franklin Bank,
And twenty in the six per cents;
No amorous chains my heart enthrall,
I neither borrow, lend, nor sell;
Fearless I roam the City Hall,
And bite my thumb at Sheriff Bell.

The horse that twice a week I ride
At Mother Dawson’s eats his fill;
My books at Goodrich’s abide,
My country-seat is Weehawk hill;
My morning lounge is Eastburn’s shop,
At Poppleton’s I take my lunch,
Niblo prepares my mutton-chop,
And Jennings makes my whiskey-punch.

When merry, I the hours amuse
By squibbing Bucktails, Guards, and Balls,
And when I’m troubled with the blues
Damn Clinton and abuse cards:
Then, Fortune, since I ask no prize,
At least preserve me from thy frown!
The man who don’t attempt to rise
’Twere cruelty to tumble down.

Albert Gorton Greene also wrote in the manner of his English forebears, indeed, his _Old Grimes_ is quite in line with Tom Hood or Goldsmith.

_OLD CHIMES_

Old Grimes is dead; that good old man
We never shall see more:
He used to wear a long, black coat,
All buttoned down before.

His heart was open as the day,
His feelings all were true;
His hair was some inclined to gray--
He wore it in a queue.

Whene’er he heard the voice of pain,
His breast with pity burn’d;
The large, round head upon his cane
From ivory was turn’d.

Kind words he ever had for all;
He knew no base design:
His eyes were dark and rather small,
His nose was aquiline.

He lived at peace with all mankind.
In friendship he was true:
His coat had pocket-holes behind,
His pantaloons were blue.

Unharm’d, the sin which earth pollutes
He pass’d securely o’er,
And never wore a pair of boots
For thirty years or more.

But good old Grimes is now at rest,
Nor fears misfortune’s frown:
He wore a double-breasted vest--
The stripes ran up and down.

He modest merit sought to find,
And pay it its desert:
He had no malice in his mind,
No ruffles on his shirt.

His neighbors he did not abuse--
Was sociable and gay:
He wore large buckles on his shoes
And changed them every day.

His knowledge, hid from public gaze,
He did not bring to view,
Nor made a noise, town-meeting days,
As many people do.

His worldly goods he never threw
In trust to fortune’s chances,
But lived (as all his brothers do)
In easy circumstances.

Thus undisturb’d by anxious cares,
His peaceful moments ran;
And everybody said he was
A fine old gentleman.

Ralph Waldo Emerson is seldom humorous or even in lighter vein. His Fable about the squirrel shows a graceful wit.

_FABLE_

The mountain and the squirrel
Had a quarrel,
And the former called the latter “Little Prig”;
Bun replied,
“You are doubtless very big;
But all sorts of things and weather
Must be taken in together,
To make up a year
And a sphere,
And I think it no disgrace
To occupy my place.
If I’m not so large as you,
You are not so small as I,
And not half so spry.
I’ll not deny you make
A very pretty squirrel track;
Talents differ; all is well and wisely put;
If I cannot carry forests on my back,
Neither can you crack a nut.”

Nathaniel Parker Willis was a popular writer of society satire in both prose and verse.

_LOVE IN A COTTAGE_

They may talk of love in a cottage,
And bowers of trellised vine--
Of nature bewitchingly simple,
And milkmaids half-divine;
They may talk of the pleasure of sleeping
In the shade of a spreading tree,
And a walk in the fields at morning,
By the side of a footstep free!

But give me a sly flirtation
By the light of a chandelier--
With music to play in the pauses,
And nobody very near;
Or a seat on a silken sofa,
With a glass of pure old wine,
And mama too blind to discover
The small white hand in mine.

Your love in a cottage is hungry,
Your vine is a nest for flies--
Your milkmaid shocks the Graces,
And simplicity talks of pies!
You lie down to your shady slumber
And wake with a bug in your ear,
And your damsel that walks in the morning
Is shod like a mountaineer.

True love is at home on a carpet,
And mightily likes his ease--
And true love has an eye for a dinner,
And starves beneath shady trees.
His wing is the fan of a lady.
His foot’s an invisible thing,
And his arrow is tipp’d with a jewel
And shot from a silver string.

Seba Smith, among the first to break away from English traditions, wrote over the pen name of Major Jack Downing. He was a pioneer in the matter of dialect writing and the first to poke fun at New England speech and manners.

Follows a part of his skit called

_MY FIRST VISIT TO PORTLAND_

After I had walked about three or four hours, I come along towards the upper end of the town, where I found there were stores and shops of all sorts and sizes. And I met a feller, and says I,--

“What place is this?”

“Why, this,” says he, “is Huckler’s Row.”

“What!” says I, “are these the stores where the traders in Huckler’s Row keep?”

And says he, “Yes.”

“Well, then,” says I to myself, “I have a pesky good mind to go in and have a try with one of these chaps, and see if they can twist my eye-teeth out. If they can get the best end of a bargain out of me, they can do what there ain’t a man in our place can do; and I should just like to know what sort of stuff these ’ere Portland chaps are made of.” So in I goes into the best-looking store among ’em. And I see some biscuit lying on the shelf, and says I,--

“Mister, how much do you ax apiece for them ’ere biscuits?”

“A cent apiece,” says he.

“Well,” says I, “I shan’t give you that, but, if you’ve a mind to, I’ll give you two cents for three of them, for I begin to feel a little as though I would like to take a bite.”

“Well,” says he, “I wouldn’t sell ’em to anybody else so, but, seeing it’s you, I don’t care if you take ’em.”

I knew he lied, for he never seen me before in his life. Well, he handed down the biscuits, and I took ’em, and walked round the store awhile, to see what else he had to sell. At last says I,--

“Mister, have you got any good cider?”

Says he, “Yes, as good as ever ye see.”

“Well,” says I, “what do you ax a glass for it?”

“Two cents,” says he.

“Well,” says I, “seems to me I feel more dry than I do hungry now. Ain’t you a mind to take these ’ere biscuits again and give me a glass of cider?” and says he:

“I don’t care if I do.”

So he took and laid ’em on the shelf again and poured out a glass of cider. I took the glass of cider and drinkt it down and, to tell you the truth about it, it was capital good cider Then says I:

“I guess it’s about time for me to be a-going,” and so I stept along toward the door; but he ups and says, says he:

“Stop, mister, I believe you haven’t paid me for the cider.’

“Not paid you for the cider!” says I; “what do you mean by that? Didn’t the biscuits that I give you just come to the cider?”

“Oh, ah, right!” says he.

So I started to go again, but before I had reached the door he says, says he:

“But stop, mister, you didn’t pay me for the biscuit.”

“What!” says I, “do you mean to impose upon me? Do you think I am going to pay you for the biscuits, and let you keep them, too? Ain’t they there now on your shelf? What more do you want? I guess, sir, you don’t whittle me in that way.”

So I turned about and marched off and left the feller staring and scratching his head as tho’ he was struck with a dunderment.

Howsomeever, I didn’t want to cheat him, only jest to show ’em it wa’n’t so easy a matter to pull my eye-teeth out; so I called in next day and paid him two cents.

* * * * *

And now humor began to creep into the newspapers, and it came about that American humorists, almost without exception, have been newspaper men.

Following Seba Smith’s plan each author created a character, usually of homely type, and through him as a mouthpiece gave to the world his own wit and wisdom.

Mrs. Frances Miriam Whitcher wrote the Widow Bedott papers, and Frederick Swartout Cozzens the Sparrowgrass Papers, but best known today is the Mrs. Partington, the American Mrs. Malaprop, created by Benjamin Penhallow Shillaber.

_AFTER A WEDDING_

“I like to tend weddings,” said Mrs. Partington, as she came back from a neighboring church where one had been celebrated, and hung up her shawl, and replaced the black bonnet in her long-preserved band-box. “I like to see young people come together with the promise to love, cherish, and nourish each other. But it is a solemn thing, is matrimony--a very solemn thing--where the pasture comes into the chancery, with his surplus on, and goes through with the cerement of making ’em man and wife. It ought to be husband and wife; for it ain’t every husband that turns out a man. I declare I shall never forget how I felt when I had the nuptial ring put on to my finger, when Paul said, ‘With my goods I thee endow.’ He used to keep a dry-goods store then, and I thought he was going to give me all there was in it. I was young and simple, and didn’t know till arterwards that it only meant one calico gound in a year. It is a lovely sight to see the young people plighting their trough, and coming up to consume their vows.”

She bustled about and got tea ready, but abstractedly she put on the broken teapot, that had lain away unused since Paul was alive, and the teacups, mended with putty, and dark with age, as if the idea had conjured the ghost of past enjoyment to dwell for the moment in the home of present widowhood.

A young lady, who expected to be married on Thanksgiving night, wept copiously at her remarks, but kept on hemming the veil that was to adorn her brideship, and Ike sat pulling bristles out of the hearth-brush in expressive silence.

Yet not all the wits of the day were newspaper men, for Oliver Wendell Holmes left his essays and novels now and then to give his native humor full play.

The “Deacon’s Masterpiece,” often called “The One Hoss Shay” is a classic, and many short poems are among our best witty verses, while Holmes’ genial humor pervades his Breakfast Table books.

_THE HEIGHT OF THE RIDICULOUS_

I wrote some lines once on a time,
In wondrous merry mood,
And thought, as usual, men would say
They were exceeding good.

They were so queer, so very queer,
I laughed as I would die;
Albeit, in the general way,
A sober man am I.

I called my servant, and he came;
How kind it was of him,
To mind a slender man like me,
He of the mighty limb!

“These to the printer,” I exclaimed,
And, in my humorous way,
I added (as a trifling jest),
“There’ll be the devil to pay.”

He took the paper, and I watched,
And saw him peep within;
At the first line he read, his face
Was all upon the grin.

He read the next: the grin grew broad,
And shot from ear to ear;
He read the third: a chuckling noise
I now began to hear.

The fourth: he broke into a roar;
The fifth: his waistband split;
The sixth: he burst five buttons off,
And tumbled in a fit.

Ten days and nights, with sleepless eye,
I watched that wretched man,
And since, I never dare to write
As funny as I can.

_ÆSTIVATION_

In candent ire the solar splendor flames;
The foles, languescent, pend from arid rames;
His humid front the cive, anheling, wipes,
And dreams of erring on ventiferous ripes.

How dulce to vive occult to mortal eyes,
Dorm on the herb with none to supervise,
Carp the suave berries from the crescent vine,
And bibe the flow from longicaudate kine.

To me also, no verdurous visions come
Save you exiguous pool’s confervascum,--
No concave vast repeats the tender hue
That laves my milk-jug with celestial blue.

Me wretched! Let me curr to quercine shades!
Effund your albid hausts, lactiferous maids!
Oh, might I vole to some umbrageous chump,--
Depart,--be off,--excede,--evade,--erump!

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is charged with the perpetration of certain nonsense verses. His authorship of these has been stoutly denied as well as positively asseverated.

The two poems in question are appended, and if Longfellow did write them they are in no wise to his discredit.

_THERE WAS A LITTLE GIRL_

There was a little girl,
And she had a little curl
Right in the middle of her forehead.
When she was good
She was very, very good,
And when she was bad she was horrid.

One day she went upstairs,
When her parents, unawares,
In the kitchen were occupied with meals
And she stood upon her head
In her little trundle-bed,
And then began hooraying with her heels.

Her mother heard the noise,
And she thought it was the boys
A-playing at a combat in the attic;
But when she climbed the stair,
And found Jemima there,
She took and she did spank her most emphatic.

_MR. FINNEY’S TURNIP_

Mr. Finney had a turnip
And it grew and it grew;
And it grew behind the barn,
And that turnip did no harm.

There it grew and it grew
Till it could grow no taller;
Then his daughter Lizzie picked it
And put it in the cellar.

There it lay and it lay
Till it began to rot;
And his daughter Susie took it
And put it in the pot.

And they boiled it and boiled it
As long as they were able,
And then his daughters took it
And put it on the table.

Mr. Finney and his wife
They sat down to sup;
And they ate and they ate
And they ate that turnip up.

James Thomas Fields, an acknowledged humorist, wrote mostly homely narrative wit.

_THE ALARMED SKIPPER_

Many a long, long year ago,
Nantucket skippers had a plan
Of finding out, though “lying low,”
How near New York their schooners ran.

They greased the lead before it fell,
And then, by sounding through the night,
Knowing the soil that stuck, so well,
They always guessed their reckoning right.

A skipper gray, whose eyes were dim,
Could tell, by _tasting_, just the spot;
And so below he’d “dowse the glim,”--
After, of course, his “something hot.”

Snug in his berth at eight o’clock
This ancient skipper might be found;
No matter how his craft would rock,
He slept,--for skippers’ naps are sound!

The watch on deck would now and then
Run down and wake him, with the lead;
He’d up, and taste, and tell the men
How many miles they went ahead.

One night ’twas Jotham Marden’s watch,
A curious wag,--the peddler’s son,--
And so he mused (the wanton wretch),
“To-night I’ll have a grain of fun.

“We’re all a set of stupid fools
To think the skipper knows by _tasting_
What ground he’s on: Nantucket schools
Don’t teach such stuff, with all their basting!”

And so he took the well-greased lead
And rubbed it o’er a box of earth
That stood on deck,--a parsnip-bed,--
And then he sought the skipper’s berth.

“Where are we now, sir? Please to taste.”
The skipper yawned, put out his tongue,
Then oped his eyes in wondrous haste,
And then upon the floor he sprung!

The skipper stormed, and tore his hair,
Thrust on his boots, and roared to Marden,
“_Nantucket’s sunk, and here we are
Right over old Marm Hackett’s garden!_”

John Godfrey Saxe has been called the American Tom Hood. His verses are among our very best humorous poems.

_MY FAMILIAR_

Again I hear that creaking step!--
He’s rapping at the door!--
Too well I know the boding sound
That ushers in a bore.
I do not tremble when I meet
The stoutest of my foes,
But heaven defend me from the friend
Who comes,--but never goes!

He drops into my easy-chair
And asks about the news;
He peers into my manuscript,
And gives his candid views;
He tells me where he likes the line,
And where he’s forced to grieve;
He takes the strangest liberties,--
But never takes his leave!

He reads my daily paper through
Before I’ve seen a word;
He scans the lyric (that I wrote)
And thinks it quite absurd;
He calmly smokes my last cigar,
And coolly asks for more;
He opens everything he sees--
Except the entry door!

He talks about his fragile health,
And tells me of his pains;
He suffers from a score of ills
Of which he ne’er complains;
And how he struggled once with death
To keep the fiend at bay;
On themes like those away he goes--
But never goes away!

He tells me of the carping words
Some shallow critic wrote;
And every precious paragraph
Familiarly can quote;
He thinks the writer did me wrong;
He’d like to run him through!
He says a thousand pleasant things--
But never says “Adieu!”

Whene’er he comes--that dreadful man--
Disguise it as I may,
I know that, like an autumn rain,
He’ll last throughout the day.
In vain I speak of urgent tasks;
In vain I scowl and pout;
A frown is no extinguisher--
It does not put him out!

I mean to take the knocker off,
Put crape upon the door,
Or hint to John that I am gone
To stay a month or more.
I do not tremble when I meet
The stoutest of my foes,
But Heaven defend me from the friend
Who never, never goes!

Henry Wheeler Shaw, creator of the character of Josh Billings, was a philosopher and essayist as well as a funny man.

Doubtless his work has lived largely because of its amusing misspelling, but there is much wisdom to be found in his wit.

The following essays are given only in part.

_TIGHT BOOTS_

I would jist like to kno who the man waz who fust invented _tite boots_.

He must hav bin a narrow and kontrakted kuss.

If he still lives, i hope he haz repented ov hiz sin, or iz enjoying grate agony ov sum kind.

I hay bin in a grate menny tite spots in mi life, but generally could manage to make them average; but thare iz no sich thing az making a pair of tite boots average.

Enny man who kan wear a pair ov tite boots, and be humble, and penitent, and not indulge profane literature, will make a good husband.

Oh! for the pen ov departed Wm. Shakspear, to write an anethema aginst tite boots, that would make anshunt Rome wake up, and howl agin az she did once before on a previous ockashun.

Oh! for the strength ov Herkules, to tare into shu strings all the tite boots ov creashun, and skatter them tew the 8 winds ov heaven.

Oh! for the buty ov Venus, tew make a bigg foot look hansum without a tite boot on it.

Oh! for the payshunce ov Job, the Apostle, to nuss a tite boot and bles it, and even pra for one a size smaller and more pinchfull.

Oh! for a pair of boots bigg enuff for the foot ov a mountain.

I have been led into the above assortment ov _Oh’s!_ from having in my posseshun, at this moment, a pair ov number nine boots, with a pair ov number eleven feet in them.

Mi feet are az uneasy az a dog’s noze the fust time he wears a muzzle.

I think mi feet will eventually choke the boots to deth.

I liv in hopes they will.

I suppozed i had lived long enuff not to be phooled agin in this way, but i hav found out that an ounce ov vanity weighs more than a pound ov reazon, espeshily when a man mistakes a bigg foot for a small one.

Avoid tite boots, mi friend, az you would the grip of the devil; for menny a man haz cought for life a fust rate habit for swareing bi encouraging hiz feet to hurt hiz boots.

I hav promised mi two feet, at least a dozen ov times during mi checkured life, that they never should be strangled agin, but i find them to-day az phull ov pain az the stummuk ake from a suddin attak ov tite boots.

But this iz solemly the last pair ov tite boots i will ever wear; i will hereafter wear boots az bigg az mi feet, if i have to go barefoot to do it.

I am too old and too respektable to be a phool enny more.

Eazy boots iz _one_ of the luxurys ov life, but i forgit what the other luxury iz, but i don’t kno az i care, provided i kan git rid ov this pair ov tite boots.

Enny man kan hav them for seven dollars, just half what they kost, and if they don’t make his feet ake wuss than an angle worm in hot ashes, he needn’t pay for them.

Methuseles iz the only man, that i kan kall to mind now who could hav afforded to hav wore tite boots, and enjoyed them, he had a grate deal ov waste time tew be miserable in but life now days, iz too short, and too full ov aktual bizzness to phool away enny ov it on tite boots.

Tite boots are an insult to enny man’s understanding.

He who wears tite boots will hav too acknowledge the corn.

Tite boots hav no bowells or mersy, their insides are wrath and promiskious cussing.

Beware ov tite boots.--

_A HEN_

A hen is a darn phool, they was born so bi natur.

When natur undertakes tew make a phool, she hits the mark the fust time.

Most all the animile kritters hav instinkt, which is wuth more to them than reason would be, for instinkt don’t make enny blunders.

If the animiles had reason, they would akt just as ridikilus as we men folks do.

But a hen don’t seem tew hav even instinkt, and was made expressly for a phool.

I hav seen a hen fly out ov a good warm shelter, on the 15th ov January, when the snow was 3 foot high, and lite on the top ov a stun wall, and coolly set thare, and freeze tew deth.

Noboddy but a darn phool would do this, unless it was tew save a bet.

I hav saw a human being do similar things, but they did it tew win a bet.

To save a bet, is self-preservashun, and self-preservashun, is the fust law ov natur, so sez Blakstone, and he is the best judge ov law now living.

If i couldn’t be Josh Billings, i would like, next in suit tew be Blakstone, and compoze sum law.

Not so far removed from the Josh Billings type of humor is the work of James Russell Lowell. His well known _Biglow Papers_ exploit in perfection the back country New England politics as well as native character.

_WHAT MR. ROBINSON THINKS_

Guvener B. is a sensible man;
He stays to his home an’ looks arter his folks;
He draws his furrer ez straight ez he can,
An’ into nobody’s tater-patch pokes;
But John P.
Robinson he
Sez he wunt vote fer Guvener B.

My ain’t it terrible? Wut shall we du?
We can’t never choose him, o’ course,--thet’s flat;
Guess we shall hev to come round (don’t you?)
An’ go in fer thunder an’ guns, an’ all that;
Fer John P.
Robinson he
Sez he wunt vote fer Guvener B.

Gineral C. is a dreffle smart man:
He’s ben on all sides thet give places or pelf;
But consistency still was a part of his plan,--
He’s ben true to _one_ party,--an’ thet is himself;--
So John P.
Robinson he
Sez he shall vote fer Gineral C.

Gineral C. he goes in fer the war;
He don’t vally principle more’n an old cud;
Wut did God make us raytional creeturs fer,
But glory an’ gunpowder, plunder an’ blood?
So John P.
Robinson he
Sez he shall vote fer Gineral C.

We were gettin’ on nicely up here to our village,
With good old idees o’ wut’s right an’ wut ain’t,
We kind o’ thought Christ went agin’ war an’ pillage,
An’ thet eppyletts worn’t the best mark of a saint;
But John P.
Robinson he
Sez this kind o’ thing’s an exploded idee.

The side of our country must ollers be took,
An’ Presidunt Polk, you know, _he_ is our country,
An’ the angel thet writes all our sins in a book
Puts the _debit_ to him, an’ to us the _per contry_!
An’ John P.
Robinson he
Sez this is his view o’ the thing to a T.

Parson Wilbur he calls all these argimunts lies;
Sez they’re nothin’ on airth but jest _fee_, _faw_, _fum_;
An’ thet all this big talk of our destinies
Is half on it ign’ance, an’ t’other half rum;
But John P.
Robinson he
Sez it ain’t no sech thing; an’, of course, so must we.

Parson Wilbur sez _he_ never heerd in his life
Thet th’ Apostles rigged out in their swaller-tail coats,
An’ marched round in front of a drum an’ a fife,
To git some on ’em office, an’ some on ’em votes;
But John P.
Robinson he
Sez they didn’t know everythin’ down in Judee.

Wall, it’s a marcy we’ve gut folks to tell us
The rights an’ the wrongs o’ these matters, I vow,--
God sends country lawyers, an’ other wise fellers,
To start the world’s team wen it gits in a slough;
Fer John P.
Robinson he
Sez the world’ll go right, ef he hollers out Gee!

Phoebe Cary, though a hymn writer of repute, did some extremely clever parodies. This work of hers is little known.

_I REMEMBER_

I remember, I remember,
The house where I was wed,
And the little room from which that night
My smiling bride was led.
She didn’t come a wink too soon,
Nor make too long a stay;
But now I often wish her folks
Had kept the girl away!

I remember, I remember,
Her dresses, red and white,
Her bonnets and her caps and cloaks,--
They cost an awful sight!
The “corner lot” on which I built,
And where my brother met
At first my wife, one washing-day,--
That man is single yet!

I remember, I remember,
Where I was used to court,
And thought that all of married life
Was just such pleasant sport:--
My spirit flew in feathers then,
No care was on my brow;
I scarce could wait to shut the gate,--
I’m not so anxious now!

I remember, I remember,
My dear one’s smile and sigh;
I used to think her tender heart
Was close against the sky.
It was a childish ignorance,
But now it soothes me not
To know I’m farther off from Heaven
Than when she wasn’t got!

_“THERE’S A BOWER OF BEAN-VINES”_

There’s a bower of bean-vines in Benjamin’s yard,
And the cabbages grow round it, planted for greens;
In the time of my childhood ’twas terribly hard
To bend down the bean-poles, and pick off the beans.

That bower and its products I never forget,
But oft, when my landlady presses me hard,
I think, are the cabbages growing there yet,
Are the bean-vines still bearing in Benjamin’s yard?

No, the bean-vines soon withered that once used to wave,
But some beans had been gathered, the last that hung on;
And a soup was distilled in a kettle, that gave
All the fragrance of summer when summer was gone.

Thus memory draws from delight, ere it dies,
An essence that breathes of it awfully hard;
As thus good to my taste as ’twas then to my eyes,
Is that bower of bean-vines in Benjamin’s yard.

_JACOB_

He dwelt among “Apartments let,”
About five stories high;
A man, I thought, that none would get,
And very few would try.

A boulder, by a larger stone
Half hidden in the mud,
Fair as a man when only one
Is in the neighborhood.

He lived unknown, and few could tell
When Jacob was not free;
But he has got a wife--and O!
The difference to me!

_REUBEN_

That very time I saw, (but thou couldst not),
Walking between the garden and the barn,
Reuben, all armed; a certain aim he took
At a young chicken, standing by a post,
And loosed his bullet smartly from his gun,
As he would kill a hundred thousand hens.
But I might see young Reuben’s fiery shot
Lodged in the chaste board of the garden fence,
And the domesticated fowl passed on,
In henly meditation, bullet free.

Edward Everett Hale, George William Curtis, Richard Grant White and Donald G. Mitchell (Ik Marvel) wrote about this time, but their prose articles are too long to quote in full and not adapted to condensation.

Again the newspaper writers forge to the front and in George Horatio Derby we find “the Father of” the new school of American humor. His sketches, over the name of John Phoenix, began to appear about the middle of the Nineteenth century and were later collected under the titles of Phoenixiana and Squibob Papers.

A fragment of one is given.

* * * * *

The dentist went to work, and in three days he invented an instrument which he was confident would pull anything. It was a combination of the lever, pulley, wheel and axle, inclined plane, wedge, and screw. The castings were made, and the machine put up in the office, over an iron chair rendered perfectly stationary by iron rods going down into the foundations of the granite building. In a week old Byles returned; he was clamped into the iron chair, the forceps connected with the machine attached firmly to the tooth, and Tushmaker, stationing himself in the rear, took hold of a lever four feet in length. He turned it slightly. Old Byles gave a groan and lifted his right leg. Another turn, another groan, and up went the leg again.

“What do you raise your leg for?” asked the Doctor.

“I can’t help it,” said the patient.

“Well,” rejoined Tushmaker, “that tooth is bound to come out now.”

He turned the lever clear round with a sudden jerk, and snapped old Byles’ head clean and clear from his shoulders, leaving a space of four inches between the severed parts!

They had a _post-mortem_ examination--the roots of the tooth were found extending down the right side, through the right leg, and turning up in two prongs under the sole of the right foot!

“No wonder,” said Tushmaker, “he raised his right leg.”

The jury thought so, too, but they found the roots much decayed; and five surgeons swearing that mortification would have ensued in a few months, Tushmaker was clear on a verdict of “justifiable homicide.”

He was a little shy of that instrument for some time afterward; but one day an old lady, feeble and flaccid, came in to have a tooth drawn, and thinking it would come out very easy Tushmaker concluded, just by way of variety, to try the machine. He did so, and at the first turn drew the old lady’s skeleton completely and entirely from her body, leaving her a mass of quivering jelly in her chair! Tushmaker took her home in a pillow-case.

The woman lived-seven years after that, and they called her the “India-Rubber Woman.” She had suffered terribly with the rheumatism, but after this occurrence never had a pain in her bones. The dentist kept them in a glass case. After this, the machine was sold to the contract or of the Boston Custom-House, and it was found that a child of three years of age could, by a single turn of the screw, raise a stone weighing twenty-three tons. Smaller ones were made on the same principle and sold to the keepers of hotels and restaurants. They were used for boning turkeys. There is no moral to this story whatever, and it is possible that the circumstances may have become slightly exaggerated. Of course, there can be no doubt of the truth of the main incidents.

Charles Godfrey Leland, a humorist of Philadelphia, wrote almost entirely in a broken German dialect. His Hans Breitmann ballads are still among the famous examples of American humor.

_BALLAD_

Der noble Ritter Hugo
Von Schwillensaufenstein
Rode out mit shpeer and helmet,
Und he coom to de panks of de Rhine.

Und oop dere rose a meer maid,
Vod hadn’t got nodings on,
Und she say, “Oh, Ritter Hugo,
Vhere you goes mit yourself alone?”

Und he says, “I rides in de creenwood
Mit helmet und mit shpeer,
Till I cooms into em Gasthaus,
Und dere I trinks some beer.”

Und den outshpoke de maiden
Vot hadn’t got nodings on:
“I ton’t dink mooch of beoplesh
Dat goes mit demselfs alone.

“You’d petter coom down in de wasser,
Vere dere’s heaps of dings to see,
Und have a shplendid tinner
Und drafel along mit me.

“Dere you sees de fisch a-schwimmin,
Und you catches dem efery one”--
So sang dis wasser maiden
Vot hadn’t got nodings on.

“Dere ish drunks all full mit money
In ships dat vent down of old;
Und you helpsh yourself, by dunder!
To shimmerin crowns of gold.

“Shoost look at dese shpoons und vatches!
Shoost see dese diamant rings!
Coom down und full your bockets,
Und I’ll giss you like averydings.

“Vot you vantsh mit your schnapps und lager?
Coom down into der Rhine!
Der ish pottles der Kaiser Charlemagne
Vonce filled mit gold-red wine!”

_Dat_ fetched him--he shtood all shpellpound;
She pooled his coat-tails down,
She drawed him oonder der wasser,
De maiden mit nodings on.

William Allen Butler is remembered chiefly by his long humorous poem of Miss Flora M’Flimsey, or, as it is entitled, _Nothing To Wear_.

* * * * *

Charles Graham Halpine wrote in an Irish brogue the adventures of Private Miles O’Reilly.

* * * * *

John T. Trowbridge and Charles Dudley Warner are among the famous Nineteenth Century writers but their works are not adapted to quotation.

* * * * *

Which brings us to Mark Twain.

Samuel Langhorne Clemens is too well known both by his works and by his life to need any word of comment. His whole career, as printer, pilot, lecturer and writer is an open and conned book to all.

Difficult indeed it is to quote from his volumes of fun, but we append a short extract from _The Jumping Frog of Calaveras County_.

... Smiley was monstrous proud of his frog, and well he might be, for fellers that had traveled and been everywheres all said he laid over any frog that ever _they_ see.

Well, Smiley kep’ the beast in a little lattice box, and he used to fetch him down-town sometimes and lay for a bet. One day a feller--a stranger in the camp, he was--come acrost him with his box, and says:

“What might it be that you’ve got in the box?”

And Smiley says, sorter indifferent-like, “It might be a parrot, or it might be a canary, maybe, but it ain’t--it’s only just a frog.”

And the feller took it, and looked at it careful, and turned it round this way and that, and says, “H’m--so ’tis. Well what’s _he_ good for?”

“Well,” Smiley says, easy and careless, “he’s good enough for _one_ thing, I should judge--he can outjump any frog in Calaveras County.”

The feller took the box again, and took another long, particular look, and give it back to Smiley, and says, very deliberate, “Well,” he says, “I don’t see no p’ints about that frog that’s any better’n any other frog.”

“Maybe you don’t,” Smiley says. “Maybe you understand frogs and maybe you don’t understand ’em; maybe you’ve had experience, and maybe you ain’t only a amature, as it were. Anyways, I’ve got _my_ opinion and I’ll resk forty dollars that he can outjump any frog in Calaveras County.”

And the feller studied a minute, and then says, kinder sad like, “Well, I’m only a stranger here, and I ain’t got no frog; but if I had a frog I’d bet you.”

And then Smiley says, “That’s all right--that’s all right--if you’ll hold my box a minute I’ll go and get you a frog.” And so the feller took the box, and put up his forty dollars along with Smiley’s, and set down to wait.

So he set there a good while thinking and thinking to himself, and then he got the frog out and prized his mouth open and took a teaspoon and filled him full of quail shot--filled him pretty near up to his chin--and set him on the floor. Smiley he went to the swamp and slopped around in the mud for a long time, and finally he ketched a frog, and fetched him in, and give him to this feller, and says:

“Now, if you’re ready, set him alongside of Dan’l, with his forepaws just even with Dan’l’s, and I’ll give the word.” Then he says, “One--two--three--_git_.” and him and the feller touched up the frogs from behind, and the new frog hopped off lively, but Dan’l give a heave, and hysted up his shoulders--so--like a Frenchman, but it warn’t no use--he couldn’t budge; he was planted as solid as a church, and he couldn’t no more stir than if he was anchored out. Smiley was a good deal surprised, and he was disgusted, too, but he didn’t have no idea what the matter was, of course.

The feller took the money and started away; and when he was going out at the door, he sorter jerked his thumb over his shoulder--so--at Dan’l, and says again, very deliberate, “Well,” he says, “_I_ don’t see no p’ints about that frog that’s any better’n any other frog.”

Smiley he stood scratching his head and looking down at Dan’l a long time, and at last he says, “I do wonder what in the nation that frog throw’d off for--I wonder if there ain’t something the matter with him--e ’pears to look mighty baggy, somehow.” And he ketched Dan’l by the nap of the neck, and hefted him, and says, “Why blame my cats if he don’t weight five pound!” and turned him upside down and he belched out a double handful of shot. And then he see how it was, and he was the maddest man--he set the frog down and took out after that feller, but he never ketched him.

* * * * *

James Bayard Taylor and Thomas Bailey Aldrich, friends and congenial spirits, both despised American Dialect poetry.

Their own work shows a facile wit and graceful fancy, but, with Edmund Clarence Stedman, they must be classed as writers of light verse rather than as humorists.

Taylor was good at parody, and in his _Echo Club_, thus burlesques the style of Aldrich.

_PALABRAS GRANDIOSAS_

_After T---- B---- A----_

I lay i’ the bosom of the sun,
Under the roses dappled and dun.
I thought of the Sultan Gingerbeer,
In his palace beside the Bendemeer,
With his Afghan guards and his eunuchs blind,
And the harem that stretched for a league behind.
The tulips bent i’ the summer breeze,
Under the broad chrysanthemum trees,
And the minstrel, playing his culverin,
Made for mine ears a merry din.

If I were the Sultan, and he were I,
Here i’ the grass he should loafing lie,
And I should bestride my zebra steed,
And the ride of the hunt of the centipede;
While the pet of the harem, Dandeline,
Should fill me a crystal bucket of wine,
And the kislar aga, Up-to-Snuff,
Should wipe my mouth when I sighed “Enough!”
And the gay court-poet, Fearfulbore,
Should sit in the hall when the hunt was o’er,
And chant me songs of silvery tone,
Not from Hafiz, but--mine own!

Ah, wee sweet love, beside me here,
I am not the Sultan Gingerbeer,
Nor you the odalisque Dandeline,
Yet I am yourn, and you are mine!

David Ross Locke, who wrote over the name of Petroleum V. Nasby, was a humorist of the newspapers. He achieved no success until he began to misspell his words, when he at once leaped into popularity.

But the Prince of Misspellers, excepting always Josh Billings, was Artemus Ward, the pseudonym of Charles Farrar Browne.

The trick of misspelling and the use of excessive exaggeration were his stock in trade, added to a certain plaintiveness and abounding good humor.

Browne was the only one of this group of American humorists, whose work was read in England, and he lectured over there with pronounced success.

_ON “FORTS”_

Every man has got a Fort. It’s sum men’s fort to do one thing, and some other men’s fort to do another, while there is numeris shiftliss critters goin’ round loose whose fort is not to do nothin’.

Shakspeer rote good plase, but he wouldn’t hav succeeded as a Washington coorespondent of a New York daily paper. He lacked the rekesit fancy and imagginashun.

That’s so!