Chapter XIV: Introduction (2)

[Footnote P: it must be aloud that thare's a streak o' nater
in lovin' sho, but it sartinly is 1 of the curusest things
in nater to see a rispecktable dri goods dealer (deekon off
a chutch mayby) ariggin' himself out in the Weigh they du
and struttin' round in the Reign aspilin' his trowsis and
makin' wet goods of himself. Ef any thin's foolisher and
moor dicklus than militerry gloary it is milishy gloary.--H.
B.]

This 'ere's about the meanest place a skunk could wal diskiver
(Saltillo's Mexican, I b'lieve, fer wut we call Salt-river);
The sort o' trash a feller gits to eat doos beat all nater,
I'd give a year's pay fer a smell o' one good blue-nose tater;
The country here thet Mister Bolles declared to be so charmin'
Throughout is swarmin' with the most alarmin' kind o' varmin.

He talked about delishis froots, but then it wuz a wopper all,
The holl on't 's mud an' prickly pears, with here an' there a chapparal;
You see a feller peekin' out, an', fust you know, a lariat
Is round your throat an' you a copse, 'fore you can say, "Wut air ye
at?"[Q]
You never see sech darned gret bugs (it may not be irrelevant
To say I've seen a _scarabœus pilularius_[R] big ez a year old
elephant,)
The rigiment come up one day in time to stop a red bug
From runnin' off with Cunnle Wright,--'t wuz jest a common _cimex
lectularius_.

[Footnote Q: these fellers are verry proppilly called Rank
Heroes, and the more tha kill the ranker and more Herowick
tha bekum.--H. B.]

[Footnote R: it wuz "tumblebug" as he Writ it, but the
parson put the Latten instid. i sed tother maid better
meeter, but he said tha was eddykated peepl to Boston and
tha wouldn't stan' it no how. idnow as tha _wood_ and idnow
_as_ tha wood.--H. B.]

One night I started up on eend an' thought I wuz to hum agin,
I heern a horn, thinks I it's Sol the fisherman hez come agin,
_His_ bellowses is sound enough,--ez I'm a livin' creeter,
I felt a thing go thru my leg,--'t wuz nothin' more 'n a skeeter!
Then there's the yaller fever, tu, they call it here el vomito,--
(Come, thet wun't du, you landcrab there, I tell ye to le' _go_ my toe!
My gracious! it's a scorpion thet's took a shine to play with 't
I darsn't skeer the tarnal thing fer fear he'd run away with 't.)

Afore I come away from hum I hed a strong persuasion
Thet Mexicans worn't human beans,[S]--an ourang outang nation,
A sort o' folks a chap could kill an' never dream on't arter,
No more 'n a feller 'd dream o' pigs thet he hed hed to slarter;
I'd an idee thet they were built arter the darkie fashion all,
An' kickin' colored folks about, you know, 's a kind o' national;
But wen I jined I worn't so wise ez thet air queen o' Sheby,
Fer, come to look at 'em, they aint much diff'rent from wut we be,
An' here we air ascrougin' 'em out o' thir own dominions,
Ashelterin' 'em, ez Caleb sez, under our eagle's pinions,
Wich means to take a feller up jest by the slack o' 's trowsis
An' walk him Spanish clean right out o' all his homes an' houses;
Wal, it doos seem a curus way, but then hooraw fer Jackson!
It must be right, fer Caleb sez it's reg'lar Anglosaxon.
The Mex'cans don't fight fair, they say, they piz'n all the water,
An' du amazin' lots o' things thet isn't wut they ough' to;
Bein' they haint no lead, they make their bullets out o' copper
An' shoot the darned things at us, tu, wich Caleb sez aint proper;
He sez they'd ough' to stan' right up an' let us pop 'em fairly,
(Guess wen he ketches 'em at thet he'll hev to git up airly,)
Thet our nation's bigger'n theirn an' so its rights air bigger,
An' thet it's all to make 'em free thet we air pullin' trigger,
Thet Anglo Saxondom's idee 's abreakin' 'em to pieces,
An' thet idee's thet every man doos jest wut he damn pleases;
Ef I don't make his meanin' clear, perhaps in some respex I can,
I know thet "every man" don't mean a nigger or a Mexican;
An' there's another thing I know, an' thet is, ef these creeturs,
Thet stick an Anglosaxon mask onto State-prison feeturs,
Should come to Jaalam Centre fer to argify an' spout on't,
The gals 'ould count the silver spoons the minnit they cleared out on't.

[Footnote S: he means human beins, that's wut he means, i
spose he kinder thought tha wuz human beans ware the Xisle
Poles comes from.--H. B.]

This goin' ware glory waits ye haint one agreeable feetur,
An' ef it worn't fer wakin' snakes, I'd home agin short meter;
O, wouldn't I be off, quick time, ef't worn't thet I wuz sartin
They'd let the daylight into me to pay me fer desartin'!
I don't approve o' tellin' tales, but jest to you I may state
Our ossifers aint wut they wuz afore they left the Baystate;
Then it wuz "Mister Sawin, sir, you're middlin' well now, be ye?
Step up an' take a nipper, sir; I'm dreffle glad to see ye";
But now it's "Ware's my eppylet? here, Sawin, step an' fetch it!
An' mind your eye, be thund'rin' spry, or, damn ye, you shall ketch it!"
Wal, ez the Doctor sez, some pork will bile so, but by mighty,
Ef I hed some on 'em to hum, I 'd give 'em linkum vity,
I'd play the rogue's march on their hides an' other music follerin'--
But I must close my letter here, fer one on 'em 's ahollerin',
These Anglosaxon ossifers,--wal, taint no use ajawin',
I'm safe enlisted fer the war,

Yourn,
|Birdofredom Sawin|.

[Those have not been wanting (as, indeed, when hath Satan
been to seek for attorneys?) who have maintained that our
late inroad upon Mexico was undertaken, not so much for the
avenging of any national quarrel, as for the spreading of
free institutions and of Protestantism. _Capita vix duabus
Anticyris medenda!_ Verily I admire that no pious sergeant
among these new Crusaders beheld Martin Luther riding at the
front of the host upon a tamed pontifical bull, as, in that
former invasion of Mexico, the zealous Gomara (spawn though
he were of the Scarlet Woman) was favored with a vision of
St. James of Compostella, skewering the infidels upon his
apostolical lance. We read, also, that Richard of the lion
heart, having gone to Palestine on a similar errand of
mercy, was divinely encouraged to cut the throats of such
Paynims as refused to swallow the bread of life (doubtless
that they might be thereafter incapacitated for swallowing
the filthy gobbets of Mahound) by angels of heaven, who
cried to the king and his knights,--_Seigneurs, tuez! tuez!_
providentially using the French tongue, as being the only
one understood by their auditors. This would argue for the
pantoglottism of these celestial intelligences, while, on
the other hand, the Devil, _teste_ Cotton Mather, is
unversed in certain of the Indian dialects. Yet must he be a
semeiologist the most expert, making himself intelligible to
every people and kindred by signs; no other discourse,
indeed, being needful, than such as the mackerel-fisher
holds with his finned quarry, who, if other bait be wanting,
can by a bare bit of white rag at the end of a string
captivate those foolish fishes. Such piscatorial oratory is
Satan cunning in. Before one he trails a hat and feather, or
a bare feather without a hat; before another, a Presidential
chair, or a tidewaiter's stool, or a pulpit in the city, no
matter what. To us, dangling there over our heads, they seem
junkets dropped out of the seventh heaven, sops dipped in
nectar, but, once in our mouths, they are all one, bits of
fuzzy cotton.

This, however, by the way. It is time now _revocare gradum_.
While so many miracles of this sort, vouched by
eyewitnesses, have encouraged the arms of Papists, not to
speak of Echetlæus at Marathon and those _Dioscuri_ (whom we
must conclude imps of the pit) who sundry times captained
the pagan Roman soldiery, it is strange that our first
American crusade was not in some such wise also signalized.
Yet it is said that the Lord hath manifestly prospered our
armies. This opens the question, whether, when our hands are
strengthened to make great slaughter of our enemies, it be
absolutely and demonstratively certain that this might is
added to us from above, or whether some Potentate from an
opposite quarter may not have a finger in it, as there are
few pies into which his meddling digits are not thrust.
Would the Sanctifier and Setter-apart of the seventh day
have assisted in a victory gained on the Sabbath, as was one
in the late war? Or has that day become less an object of
his especial care since the year 1697, when so manifest a
providence occurred to Mr. William Trowbridge, in answer to
whose prayers, when he and all on shipboard with him were
starving, a dolphin was sent daily, "which was enough to
serve 'em; only on _Saturdays_ they still catched a couple,
and on the _Lord's Days_ they could catch none at all"?
Haply they might have been permitted, by way of
mortification, to take some few sculpins (those banes of the
salt-water angler), which unseemly fish would, moreover,
have conveyed to them a symbolical reproof for their breach
of the day, being known in the rude dialect of our mariners
as _Cape Cod Clergymen_.

It has been a refreshment to many nice consciences to know
that our Chief Magistrate would not regard with eyes of
approval the (by many esteemed) sinful pastime of dancing,
and I own myself to be so far of that mind, that I could not
but set my face against this Mexican Polka, though danced to
the Presidential piping with a Gubernatorial second. If ever
the country should be seized with another such mania _de
propagandâ fide_, I think it would be wise to fill our
bombshells with alternate copies of the Cambridge Platform
and the Thirty-nine Articles, which would produce a mixture
of the highest explosive power, and to wrap every one of our
cannon-balls in a leaf of the New Testament, the reading of
which is denied to those who sit in the darkness of Popery.
Those iron evangelists would thus be able to disseminate
vital religion and Gospel truth in quarters inaccessible to
the ordinary missionary. I have seen lads, unimpregnate with
the more sublimated punctiliousness of Walton, secure
pickerel, taking their unwary _siesta_ beneath the lily-pads
too nigh the surface, with a gun and small shot. Why not,
then, since gunpowder was unknown in the time of the
Apostles (not to enter here upon the question whether it
were discovered before that period by the Chinese), suit our
metaphor to the age in which we live, and say _shooters_ as
well as _fishers_ of men?

I do much fear that we shall be seized now and then with a
Protestant fervor, as long as we have neighbor Naboths whose
wallowings in Papistical mire excite our horror in exact
proportion to the size and desirableness of their vineyards.
Yet I rejoice that some earnest Protestants have been made
by this war,--I mean those who protested against it. Fewer
they were than I could wish, for one might imagine America
to have been colonized by a tribe of those nondescript
African animals the Aye-Ayes, so difficult a word is No to
us all. There is some malformation or defect of the vocal
organs, which either prevents our uttering it at all, or
gives it so thick a pronunciation as to be unintelligible. A
mouth filled with the national pudding, or watering in
expectation thereof, is wholly incompetent to this
refractory monosyllable. An abject and herpetic Public
Opinion is the Pope, the Anti-Christ, for us to protest
against _e corde cordium_. And by what College of Cardinals
is this our God's-vicar, our binder and looser, elected?
Very like, by the sacred conclave of Tag, Rag, and Bobtail,
in the gracious atmosphere of the grog-shop. Yet it is of
this that we must all be puppets. This thumps the
pulpit-cushion, this guides the editor's pen, this wags the
senator's tongue. This decides what Scriptures are
canonical, and shuffles Christ away into the Apocrypha.
According to that sentence fathered upon Solon, Οὕτω δημόσιον
κακὸν ἔρχεται οἴκαδ' ἑκάστῳ. This unclean spirit is
skilful to assume various shapes. I have known it to
enter my own study and nudge my elbow of a Saturday,
under the semblance of a wealthy member of my
congregation. It were a great blessing, if every
particular of what in the sum we call popular sentiment
could carry about the name of its manufacturer stamped
legibly upon it. I gave a stab under the fifth rib to
that pestilent fallacy,--"Our country, right or
wrong,"--by tracing its original to a speech of Ensign
Cilley at a dinner of the Bungtown Fencibles. H. W.]

No. III.

WHAT MR. ROBINSON THINKS.

[A few remarks on the following verses will not be out of
place. The satire in them was not meant to have any
personal, but only a general, application. Of the gentleman
upon whose letter they were intended as a commentary Mr.
Biglow had never heard, till he saw the letter itself. The
position of the satirist is oftentimes one which he would
not have chosen, had the election been left to himself. In
attacking bad principles, he is obliged to select some
individual who has made himself their exponent, and in whom
they are impersonate, to the end that what he says may not,
through ambiguity, be dissipated _tenues in auras_. For what
says Seneca? _Longum iter per præcepta, breve et efficace
per exempla._ A bad principle is comparatively harmless
while it continues to be an abstraction, nor can the general
mind comprehend it fully till it is printed in that large
type which all men can read at sight, namely, the life and
character, the sayings and doings, of particular persons. It
is one of the cunningest fetches of Satan, that he never
exposes himself directly to our arrows, but, still dodging
behind this neighbor or that acquaintance, compels us to
wound him through them, if at all. He holds our affections
as hostages, the while he patches up a truce with our
conscience.

Meanwhile, let us not forget that the aim of the true
satirist is not to be severe upon persons, but only upon
falsehood, and, as Truth and Falsehood start from the same
point, and sometimes even go along together for a little
way, his business is to follow the path of the latter after
it diverges, and to show her floundering in the bog at the
end of it. Truth is quite beyond the reach of satire. There
is so brave a simplicity in her, that she can no more be
made ridiculous than an oak or a pine. The danger of the
satirist is, that continual use may deaden his sensibility
to the force of language. He becomes more and more liable to
strike harder than he knows or intends. He may be careful to
put on his boxing-gloves, and yet forget, that, the older
they grow, the more plainly may the knuckles inside be felt.
Moreover, in the heat of contest, the eye is insensibly
drawn to the crown of victory, whose tawdry tinsel glitters
through that dust of the ring which obscures Truth's wreath
of simple leaves. I have sometimes thought that my young
friend, Mr. Biglow, needed a monitory hand laid on his
arm,--_aliquid sufflaminandus erat_. I have never thought it
good husbandry to water the tender plants of reform with
_aqua fortis_, yet, where so much is to do in the beds, he
were a sorry gardener who should wage a whole day's war with
an iron scuffle on those ill weeds that make the
garden-walks of life unsightly, when a sprinkle of Attic
salt will wither them up. _Est ars etiam maledicendi_, says
Scaliger, and truly it is a hard thing to say where the
graceful gentleness of the lamb merges in downright
sheepishness. We may conclude with worthy and wise Dr.
Fuller, that "one may be a lamb in private wrongs, but in
hearing general affronts to goodness they are asses which
are not lions."--H. W.]

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

My! aint it terrible? Wut shall we du?
We can't never choose him, o' course,--thet's flat;
Guess we shall hev to come round, (don't you?)
An' go in fer thunder an' guns, an' all that;
Fer John P.
Robinson 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 wuz a part of his plan,--
He's been true to _one_ party and 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 G.

We were gittin' on nicely up here to our village,
With good old idees o' wut's right an' wut aint,
We kind o' thought Christ went agin war an' pillage,
An' thet eppyletts worn't the best mark of a 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 ignorance, an' t' other half rum,
But John P.
Robinson he
Sez it aint 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.

Wal, 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!

[The attentive reader will doubtless have perceived in the
foregoing poem an allusion to that pernicious
sentiment,--"Our country, right or wrong." It is an abuse of
language to call a certain portion of land, much more,
certain personages, elevated for the time being to high
station, our country. I would not sever nor loosen a single
one of those ties by which we are united to the spot of our
birth, nor minish by a tittle the respect due to the
Magistrate. I love our own Bay State too well to do the one,
and as for the other, I have myself for nigh forty years
exercised, however unworthily, the function of Justice of
the Peace, having been called thereto by the unsolicited
kindness of that most excellent man and upright patriot,
Caleb Strong. _Patriæ fumus igne alieno luculentior_ is best
qualified with this,--_Ubi libertas, ibi patria_. We are
inhabitants of two worlds, and owe a double but not a
divided, allegiance. In virtue of our clay, this little ball
of earth exacts a certain loyalty of us, while, in our
capacity as spirits, we are admitted citizens of an
invisible and holier fatherland. There is a patriotism of
the soul whose claim absolves us from our other and terrene
fealty. Our true country is that ideal realm which we
represent to ourselves under the names of religion, duty,
and the like. Our terrestrial organizations are but far-off
approaches to so fair a model, and all they are verily
traitors who resist not any attempt to divert them from this
their original intendment. When, therefore, one would have
us to fling up our caps and shout with the multitude,--"_Our
country, however bounded!_" he demands of us that we
sacrifice the larger to the less, the higher to the lower,
and that we yield to the imaginary claims of a few acres of
soil our duty and privilege as liegemen of Truth. Our true
country is bounded on the north and the south, on the east
and the west, by Justice, and when she oversteps that
invisible boundary-line by so much as a hair's-breadth, she
ceases to be our mother, and chooses rather to be looked
upon _quasi noverca_. That is a hard choice, when our
earthly love of country calls upon us to tread one path and
our duty points us to another. We must make as noble and
becoming an election as did Penelope between Icarius and
Ulysses. Veiling our faces, we must take silently the hand
of Duty to follow her.

Shortly after the publication of the foregoing poem, there
appeared some comments upon it in one of the public prints
which seemed to call for animadversion. I accordingly
addressed to Mr. Buckingham, of the Boston Courier, the
following letter.

|Jaalam|, November 4, 1847.
_'To the Editor of the Courier:_

"|Respected Sir|,--Calling at the post-office this morning,
our worthy and efficient postmaster offered for my perusal a
paragraph in the Boston Morning Post of the 3d instant,
wherein certain effusions of the pastoral muse are
attributed to the pen of Mr. James Russell Lowell. For aught
I know or can affirm to the contrary, this Mr. Lowell may be
a very deserving person and a youth of parts (though I have
seen verses of his which I could never rightly understand);
and if he be such, he, I am certain, as well as I, would be
free from any proclivity to appropriate to himself whatever
of credit (or discredit) may honestly belong to another. I
am confident, that, in penning these few lines, I am only
forestalling a disclaimer from that young gentleman, whose
silence hitherto, when rumor pointed to himward, has excited
in my bosom mingled emotions of sorrow and surprise. Well
may my young parishioner, Mr. Biglow, exclaim with the poet,

'Sic vos non vobis,' &c.;

though, in saying this, I would not convey the impression
that he is a proficient in the Latin tongue,--the tongue, I
might add, of a Horace and a Tully.

"Mr. B. does not employ his pen, I can safely say, for any
lucre of worldly gain, or to be exalted by the carnal
plaudits of men _digito monstrari_, &c. He does not wait
upon Providence for mercies, and in his heart mean _merces_.
But I should esteem myself as verily deficient in my duty
(who am his friend and in some unworthy sort his spiritual
_fidus Achates_, &c.), if I did not step forward to claim
for him whatever measure of applause might be assigned to
him by the judicious.

"If this were a fitting occasion, I might venture here a
brief dissertation touching the manner and kind of my young
friend's poetry. But I dubitate whether this abstruser sort
of speculation (though enlivened by some apposite instances
from Aristophanes) would sufficiently interest your oppidan
readers. As regards their satirical tone, and their
plainness of speech, I will only say, that, in my pastoral
experience, I have found that the Arch-Enemy loves nothing
better than to be treated as a religious, moral, and
intellectual being, and that there is no _apage Sathanas_!
so potent as ridicule. But it is a kind of weapon that must
have a button of good-nature on the point of it.

"The productions of Mr. B. have been stigmatized in some
quarters as unpatriotic; but I can vouch that he loves his
native soil with that hearty, though discriminating,
attachment which springs from an intimate social intercourse
of many years' standing. In the ploughing season, no one has
a deeper share in the well-being of the country than he. If
Dean Swift were right in saying that he who makes two blades
of grass grow where one grew before confers a greater
benefit on the state than he who taketh a city, Mr. B. might
exhibit a fairer claim to the Presidency than General Scott
himself. I think that some of those disinterested lovers of
the hard-handed democracy, whose fingers have never touched
anything rougher than the dollars of our common country,
would hesitate to compare palms with him. It would do your
heart good, respected Sir, to see that young man mow. He
cuts a cleaner and wider swarth than any in this town.

"But it is time for me to be at my Post. It is very clear
that my young friend's shot has struck the lintel, for the
Post is shaken (Amos ix. 1). The editor of that paper is a
strenuous advocate of the Mexican war, and a colonel, as I
am given to understand. I presume, that, being necessarily
absent in Mexico, he has left his journal in some less
judicious hands. At any rate, the Post has been too swift on
this occasion. It could hardly have cited a more
incontrovertible line from any poem than that which it has
selected for animadversion, namely,--

'We kind o' thought Christ went agin war an' pillage.'

"If the Post maintains the converse of this proposition, it
can hardly be considered as a safe guide-post for the moral
and religious portions of its party, however many other
excellent qualities of a post it may be blessed with. There
is a sign in London on which is painted,--'The Green Man.'
It would do very well as a portrait of any individual who
would support so unscriptural a thesis. As regards the
language of the line in question, I am bold to say that He
who readeth the hearts of men will not account any dialect
unseemly which conveys a sound and pious sentiment. I could
wish that such sentiments were more common, however
uncouthly expressed. Saint Ambrose affirms, that _veritas a
quocunque_ (why not, then, _quomodocunque_?) _dicatur, a
spiritu sancto est_. Digest also this of Baxter:--'The
plainest words are the most profitable oratory in the
weightiest matters.'

"When the paragraph in question was shown to Mr. Biglow, the
only part of it which seemed to give him any dissatisfaction
was that which classed him with the Whig party. He says,
that, if resolutions are a nourishing kind of diet, that
party must be in a very hearty and flourishing condition;
for that they have quietly eaten more good ones of their own
baking than he could have conceived to be possible without
repletion. He has been for some years past (I regret to say)
an ardent opponent of those sound doctrines of protective
policy which form so prominent a portion of the creed of
that party. I confess, that, in some discussions which I
have had with him on this point in my study, he has
displayed a vein of obstinacy which I had not hitherto
detected in his composition. He is also (_horresco
referens_) infected in no small measure with the peculiar
notions of a print called the Liberator, whose heresies I
take every proper opportunity of combating, and of which, I
thank God, I have never read a single line.

"I did not see Mr. B.'s verses until they appeared in print,
and there is certainly one thing in them which I consider
highly improper. I allude to the personal references to
myself by name. To confer notoriety on an humble individual
who is laboring quietly in his vocation, and who keeps his
cloth as free as he can from the dust of the political arena
(though _væ mihi si non evangelizavero_), is no doubt an
indecorum. The sentiments which he attributes to me I will
not deny to be mine. They were embodied, though in a
different form, in a discourse preached upon the last day of
public fasting, and were acceptable to my entire people (of
whatever political views), except the postmaster, who
dissented _ex officio_. I observe that you sometimes devote
a portion of your paper to a religious summary. I should be
well pleased to furnish a copy of my discourse for insertion
in this department of your instructive journal. By omitting
the advertisements, it might easily be got within the limits
of a single number, and I venture to insure you the sale of
some scores of copies in this town. I will cheerfully render
myself responsible for ten. It might possibly be
advantageous to issue it as an _extra_. But perhaps you will
not esteem it an object, and I will not press it. My offer
does not spring from any weak desire of seeing my name in
print; for I can enjoy this satisfaction at any time by
turning to the Triennial Catalogue of the University, where
it also possesses that added emphasis of Italics with which
those of my calling are distinguished.

"I would simply add, that I continue to fit ingenuous youth
for college, and that I have two spacious and airy sleeping
apartments at this moment unoccupied. _Ingenuas didicisse_,
&c. Terms, which vary according to the circumstances of the
parents, may be known on application to me by letter, post
paid. In all cases the lad will be expected to fetch his own
towels. This rule, Mrs. W. desires me to add, has no
exceptions.

"Respectfully, your obedient servant,
"|Homer Wilbur|, A.M.

"P.S. Perhaps the last paragraph may look like an attempt to
obtain the insertion of my circular gratuitously. If it
should appear to you in that light, I desire that you would
erase it, or charge for it at the usual rates, and deduct
the amount from the proceeds in your hands from the sale of
my discourse, when it shall be printed. My circular is much
longer and more explicit, and will be forwarded without
charge to any who may desire it. It has been very neatly
executed on a letter sheet, by a very deserving printer, who
attends upon my ministry, and is a creditable specimen of
the typographic art. I have one hung over my mantelpiece in
a neat frame, where it makes a beautiful and appropriate
ornament, and balances the profile of Mrs. W., cut with her
toes by the young lady born without arms. H. W."

I have in the foregoing letter mentioned General Scott in
connection with the Presidency, because I have been given to
understand that he has blown to pieces and otherwise caused
to be destroyed more Mexicans than any other commander. His
claim would therefore be deservedly considered the
strongest. Until accurate returns of the Mexicans killed,
wounded, and maimed be obtained, it will be difficult to
settle these nice points of precedence. Should it prove that
any other officer has been more meritorious and destructive
than General S., and has thereby rendered himself more
worthy of the confidence and support of the conservative
portion of our community, I shall cheerfully insert his
name, instead of that of General S., in a future edition. It
may be thought, likewise, that General S. has invalidated
his claims by too much attention to the decencies of
apparel, and the habits belonging to a gentleman. These
abstruser points of statesmanship are beyond my scope. I
wonder not that successful military achievement should
attract the admiration of the multitude. Rather do I rejoice
with wonder to behold how rapidly this sentiment is losing
its hold upon the popular mind. It is related of Thomas
Warton, the second of that honored name who held the office
of Poetry Professor at Oxford, that, when one wished to find
him, being absconded, as was his wont, in some obscure
alehouse, he was counselled to traverse the city with a drum
and fife, the sound of which inspiring music would be sure
to draw the Doctor from his retirement into the street. We
are all more or less bitten with this martial insanity.
_Nescio quâ dulcedine ... cunctos ducit._ I confess to some
infection of that itch myself. When I see a
Brigadier-General maintaining his insecure elevation in the
saddle under the severe fire of the training-field, and when
I remember that some military enthusiasts, through haste,
inexperience, or an over-desire to lend reality to those
fictitious combats, will sometimes discharge their ramrods,
I cannot but admire, while I deplore, the mistaken devotion
of those heroic officers. _Semel insanivimus omnes._ I was
myself, during the late war with Great Britain, chaplain of
a regiment, which was fortunately never called to active
military duty. I mention this circumstance with regret
rather than pride. Had I been summoned to actual warfare, I
trust that I might have been strengthened to bear myself
after the manner of that reverend father in our New England
Israel, Dr. Benjamin Colman, who, as we are told in Turell's
life of him, when the vessel in which he had taken passage
for England was attacked by a French privateer, "fought like
a philosopher and a Christian,... and prayed all the while
he charged and fired." As this note is already long, I shall
not here enter upon a discussion of the question, whether
Christians may lawfully be soldiers. I think it sufficiently
evident, that, during the first two centuries of the
Christian era, at least, two professions were esteemed
incompatible. Consult Jortin on this head.--H. W.]

No. IV.

REMARKS OF INCREASE D. O'PHACE, ESQUIRE, AT AN EXTRUMPERY CAUCUS IN STATE STREET, REPORTED BY MR. H. BIGLOW.

[The ingenious reader will at once understand that no such
speech as the following was ever _totidem verbis_
pronounced. But there are simpler and less guarded wits, for
the satisfying of which such an explanation may be needful.
For there are certain invisible lines, which as Truth
successively overpasses, she becomes Untruth to one and
another of us, as a large river, flowing from one kingdom
into another, sometimes takes a new name, albeit the waters
undergo no change, how small soever. There is, moreover, a
truth of fiction more veracious than the truth of fact, as
that of the Poet, which represents to us things and events
as they ought to be, rather than servilely copies them as
they are imperfectly imaged in the crooked and smoky glass
of our mundane affairs. It is this which makes the speech of
Antonius, though originally spoken in no wider a forum than
the brain of Shakspeare, more historically valuable than
that other which Appian has reported, by as much as the
understanding of the Englishman was more comprehensive than
that of the Alexandrian. Mr. Biglow, in the present
instance, has only made use of a license assumed by all the
historians of antiquity, who put into the mouths of various
characters such words as seem to them most fitting to the
occasion and to the speaker. If it be objected that no such
oration could ever have been delivered, I answer, that there
are few assemblages for speech-making which do not better
deserve the title of _Parliamentum Indoctorum_ than did the
sixth Parliament of Henry the Fourth, and that men still
continue to have as much faith in the Oracle of Fools as
ever Pantagruel had. Howell, in his letters, recounts a
merry tale of a certain ambassador of Queen Elizabeth, who,
having written two letters, one to her Majesty and the other
to his wife, directed them at cross-purposes, so that the
Queen was beducked and bedeared and requested to send a
change of hose, and the wife was beprincessed and otherwise
unwontedly besuperlatived, till the one feared for the wits
of her ambassador, and the other for those of her husband.
In like manner it may be presumed that our speaker has
misdirected some of his thoughts, and given to the whole
theatre what he would have wished to confide only to a
select auditory at the back of the curtain. For it is seldom
that we can get any frank utterance from men, who address,
for the most part, a Buncombe either in this world or the
next. As for their audiences, it may be truly said of our
people, that they enjoy one political institution in common
with the ancient Athenians: I mean a certain profitless kind
of _ostracism_, wherewith, nevertheless, they seem hitherto
well enough content. For in Presidential elections, and
other affairs of the sort, whereas I observe that the
_oysters_ fall to the lot of comparatively few, the _shells_
(such as the privileges of voting as they are told to do by
the _ostrivori_ aforesaid, and of huzzaing at public
meetings) are very liberally distributed among the people,
as being their prescriptive and quite sufficient portion.

The occasion of the speech is supposed to be Mr. Palfrey's
refusal to vote for the Whig candidate for the
Speakership.--H. W.]

No? Hez he? He haint, though? Wut? Voted agin him?
Ef the bird of our country could ketch him, she'd skin him;
I seem's though I see her, with wrath in each quill,
Like a chancery lawyer, afilin' her bill,
An' grindin' her talents ez sharp ez all nater,
To pounce like a writ on the back o' the traitor.
Forgive me, my friends, ef I seem to be het,
But a crisis like this must with vigor be met;
Wen an Arnold the star-spangled banner bestains,
Holl Fourth o' Julys seem to bile in my veins.

Who ever'd ha' thought sech a pisonous rig
Would be run by a chap thet wuz chose fer a Wig?
"We knowed wut his principles wuz 'fore we sent him?'
Wut wuz ther in them from this vote to pervent him?
A marciful Providunce fashioned us holler
O' purpose thet we might our principles swaller;
It can hold any quantity on 'em, the belly can,
An' bring 'em up ready fer use like the pelican,
Or more like the kangaroo, who (wich is stranger)
Puts her family into her pouch wen there's danger.
Aint principle precious? then, who's goin' to use it
Wen there's resk o' some chap's gittin' up to abuse it?
I can't tell the wy on 't, but nothin' is so sure
Ez ther principle kind o' gits spiled by exposure;[T]
A man thet lets all sorts o' folks git a sight on 't
Ough' to hev it all took right away, every mite on 't;
Ef he can't keep it all to himself wen it's wise to,
He aint one it's fit to trust nothin' so nice to.

[Footnote T: The speaker is of a different mind from Tully,
who, in his recently discovered tractate _De Republicâ_,
tells us,--_Nec vero habere virtutem satis est, quasi artem
aliquam, nisi utare_, and from our Milton, who says,--"I
cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised
and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her
adversary, but slinks out of the race where that immortal
garland is to be run for, _not without dust and
heat_."--_Areop._ He had taken the words out of the Roman's
mouth, without knowing it, and might well exclaim with
Austin (if a saint's name may stand sponsor for a curse.)
_Pereant qui ante nos nostra dixerint!_--H. W.]

Besides, ther's a wonderful power in latitude
To shift a man's morril relations an' attitude;
Some flossifers think thet a fakkilty's granted
The minnit it's proved to be thoroughly wanted,
Thet a change o' demand makes a change o' condition,
An' thet everythin' 's nothin' except by position,
Ez, fer instance, thet rubber-trees fust begun bearin'
Wen p'litikle conshunces come into wearin',--
Thet the fears of a monkey, whose holt chanced to fail,
Drawed the vertibry out to a prehensile tail;
So, wen one's chose to Congriss, ez soon ez he's in it,
A collar grows right round his neck in a minnit,
An' sartin it is thet a man cannot be strict
In bein' himself, wen he gits to the Deestrict,
Fer a coat thet sets wal here in ole Massachusetts,
Wen it gits on to Washinton, somehow askew sets.

Resolves, do you say, o' the Springfield Convention?
Thet's percisely the pint I was goin' to mention;
Resolves air a thing we most gen'ally keep ill,
They're a cheap kind o' dust fer the eyes o' the people;
A parcel o' delligits jest git together
An' chat fer a spell o' the crops an' the weather,
Then, comin' to order, they squabble awile
An' let off the speeches they're ferful 'll spile;
Then--Resolve,--Thet we wunt hev an inch o' slave territory;
Thet President Polk's holl perceedins air very tory;
Thet the war is a damned war, an' them thet enlist in it
Should hev a cravat with a dreffle tight twist in it;
Thet the war is a war fer the spreadin' o' slavery;
Thet our army desarves our best thanks fer their bravery;
Thet we're the original friends o' the nation,
All the rest air a paltry an' base fabrication;
Thet we highly respect Messrs. A, B, an' C,
An' ez deeply despise Messrs. E, F, an' G.
In this way they go to the eend o' the chapter,
An' then they bust out in a kind of a raptur
About their own vartoo, an' folks's stone-blindness
To the men thet 'ould actilly do 'em a kindness,--
The American eagle,--the Pilgrims thet landed,--
Till on ole Plymouth Rock they git finally stranded.
Wal, the people they listen and say, "Thet's the ticket;
Ez fer Mexico, t'aint no great glory to lick it,
But 't would be a darned shame to go pullin' o' triggers
To extend the aree of abusin' the niggers."

So they march in percessions, an' git up hooraws,
An' tramp thru the mud fer the good o' the cause,
An' think they're a kind o' fulfillin' the prophecies,
Wen they're on'y jest changin' the holders of offices;
Ware A sot afore, B is comf'tably seated,
One humbug's victor'ous, an' t' other defeated,
Each honnable doughface gits jest wut he axes,
An' the people--their annool soft-sodder an' taxes.

Now, to keep unimpared all these glorious feeturs
Thet characterize morril an' reasonin' creeturs,
Thet give every paytriot all he can cram,
Thet oust the untrustworthy Presidunt Flam,
And stick honest Presidunt Sham in his place,
To the manifest gain o' the holl human race,
An' to some indervidgewals on 't in partickler,
Who love Public Opinion an' know now to tickle her,--
I say thet a party with great aims like these
Must stick jest ez close ez a hive full o' bees.

I'm willin' a man should go tollable strong
Agin wrong in the abstract, fer thet kind o' wrong
Is ollers unpop'lar an' never gits pitied,
Because it's a crime no one never committed;
But he mus'n't be hard on partickler sins,
Coz then he'll be kickin' the people's own shins;
On'y look at the Demmercrats, see wut they've done
Jest simply by stickin' together like fun;
They've sucked us right into a mis'able war
Thet no one on airth aint responsible for;
They've run us a hundred cool millions in debt,
(An' fer Demmercrat Horners ther's good plums left yet;)
They talk agin tayriffs, but act fer a high one,
An' so coax all parties to build up their Zion;
To the people they're ollers ez slick ez molasses,
An' butter their bread on both sides with The Masses,
Half o' whom they've persuaded, by way of a joke,
Thet Washinton's mantelpiece fell upon Polk.

Now all o' these blessin's the Wigs might enjoy,
Ef they'd gumption enough the right means to imploy;[U]
Fer the silver spoon born in Dermocracy's mouth
Is a kind of a scringe thet they hev to the South;
Their masters can cuss 'em an' kick 'em an' wale 'em,
An' they notice it less 'an the ass did to Balaam;
In this way they screw into second-rate offices
Wich the slaveholder thinks 'ould substract too much off his ease;
The file-leaders, I mean, du, fer they, by their wiles,
Unlike the old viper, grow fat on their files.
Wal, the Wigs hev been tryin' to grab all this prey frum 'em
An' to hook this nice spoon o' good fortin' away frum 'em
An' they might ha' succeeded, ez likely ez not,
In lickin' the Demmercrats all round the lot,
Ef it warn't thet, wile all faithful Wigs were their knees on,
Some stuffy old codger would holler out,--"Treason!
You must keep a sharp eye on a dog thet hez bit you once,
An' _I_ aint agoin' to cheat my constitoounts,"--
Wen every fool knows thet a man represents
Not the fellers thet sent him, but them on the fence,--
Impartially ready to jump either side
An' make the fust use of a turn o' the tide,--
The waiters on Providunce here in the city,
Who compose wut they call a State Centerl Committy.
Constitoounts air hendy to help a man in,
But arterwards don't weigh the heft of a pin.
Wy, the people can't all live on Uncle Sam's pus,
So they've nothin' to du with 't fer better or wus;
It's the folks thet air kind o' brought up to depend on 't
Thet hev any consarn in 't, an' thet is the end on 't.

[Footnote U: That was a pithy saying of Persius, and fits
our politicians without a wrinkle,-_Magister artis,
ingeniique largitor venter._--H. W.]

Now here wuz New England ahevin' the honor
Of a chance at the Speakership showered upon her;--
Do you say,--"She don't want no more Speakers, but fewer;
She's hed plenty o' them, wut she wants is a _doer_"?
Fer the matter o' thet it's notorous in town
Thet her own representatives du her quite brown.
But thet's nothin' to du with it; wut right hed Palfrey
To mix himself up with fanatical small fry?
Warn't we gittin' on prime with our hot an' cold blowin',
Acondemnin' the war wilst we kep' it agoin'?
We'd assumed with gret skill a commandin' position,
On this side or thet, no one couldn't tell wich one,
So, wutever side wipped, we'd a chance at the plunder
An' could sue fer infringin' our paytented thunder;
We were ready to vote fer whoever wuz eligible,
Ef on all pints at issoo he'd stay unintelligible.
Wal, sposin' we hed to gulp down our perfessions,
We were ready to come out next mornin' with fresh ones;
Besides, ef we did, 'twas our business alone,
Fer couldn't we du wut we would with our own?
An' ef a man can, wen pervisions hev riz so,
Eat up his own words, it's a marcy it is so.

Wy, these chaps frum the North, with back-bones to 'em, darn 'em,
'Ould be wuth more 'an Gennle Tom Thumb is to Barnum;
Ther's enough thet to office on this very plan grow,
By exhibitin' how very small a man can grow;
But an M. C. frum here ollers hastens to state he
Belongs to the order called invertebraty,
Wence some gret filologists judge primy fashy
Thet M. C. is M. T. by paronomashy;
An' these few exceptions air _loosus naytury_
Folks 'ould put down their quarters to stare at, like fury.

It's no use to open the door o' success,
Ef a member can bolt so fer nothin' or less;
Wy, all o' them grand constitootional pillers
Our fore-fathers fetched with 'em over the billers,
Them pillers the people so soundly hev slep' on,
Wile to slav'ry, invasion, an' debt they were swep' on,
Wile our Destiny higher an' higher kep' mountin',
(Though I guess folks'll stare wen she hends her account in,)
Ef members in this way go kickin' agin 'em,
They wunt hev so much ez a feather left in 'em.

An', ez fer this Palfrey,[V] we thought wen we'd gut him in,
He'd go kindly in wutever harness we put him in;
Supposin' we _did_ know thet he wuz a peace man?
Doos he think he can be Uncle Sammle's policeman,
An' wen Sam gits tipsy an' kicks up a riot,
Lead him off to the lockup to snooze till he's quiet?
Wy, the war is a war thet true paytriots can bear, ef
It leads to the fat promised land of a tayriff;
We don't go an' fight it, nor aint to be driv on,
Nor Demmercrats nuther, thet hev wut to live on;
Ef it aint jest the thing thet's well pleasin' to God,
It makes us thought highly on elsewhere abroad;
The Rooshian black eagle looks blue in his eerie
An' shakes both his heads wen he hears o' Monteery;
In the Tower Victory sets, all of a fluster,
An' reads, with locked doors, how we won Cherry Buster;
An' old Philip Lewis--thet come an' kep' school here
Fer the mere sake o' scorin' his ryalist ruler
On the tenderest part of our kings _in futuro_--
Hides his crown underneath an old shut in his bureau,
Breaks off in his brags to a suckle o' merry kings,
How he often hed hided young native Amerrikins,
An', turnin' quite faint in the midst of his fooleries,
Sneaks down stairs to bolt the front door o' the Tooleries.[W]

[Footnote V:
There is truth yet in this of Juvenal,--
"Dat veniam corvis, vexat censura columbas."
H. W.]

[Footnote W: Jortin is willing to allow of other miracles
besides those recorded in Holy Writ, and why not of other
prophecies? It is granting too much to Satan to suppose him,
as divers of the learned have done, the inspirer of the
ancient oracles. Wiser, I esteem it, to give chance the
credit of the successful ones. What is said here of Louis
Philippe was verified in some of its minute particulars
within a few months' time. Enough to have made the fortune
of Delphi or Hammon, and no thanks to Beelzebub neither!
That of Seneca in Medea will suit here:--

"Rapida fortuna ac levis
Præcepsque regno eripuit, exsilio dedit."

Let us allow, even to richly deserved misfortune, our
commiseration, and be not over-hasty meanwhile in our
censure of the French people, left for the first time to
govern themselves, remembering that wise sentence of
Æschylus,--
Ἅπας, δὲ τραχὺς ὅστις ἂν νέον κρατῇ.
H. W.]

You say,--"We'd ha' scared 'em by growin' in peace,
A plaguy sight more then by bobberies like these"?
Who is it dares say thet "our naytional eagle
Wun't much longer be classed with the birds thet air regal,
Coz theirn be hooked beaks, an' she, arter this slaughter,
'll bring back a bill ten times longer 'n she ough' to"?
Wut's your name? Come, I see ye, you up-country feller,
You've put me out severil times with your beller;
Out with it! Wut? Biglow? I say nothin' furder,
Thet feller would like nothin' better 'n a murder;
He's a traiter, blasphemer, an' wut ruther worse is,
He puts all his ath'ism in dreffle bad verses;
Socity aint safe till sech monsters air out on it,
Refer to the Post, ef you hev the least doubt on it;
Wy, he goes agin war, agin indirect taxes,
Agin sellin' wild lands 'cept to settlers with axes,
Agin holdin' o' slaves, though he knows it's the corner
Our libbaty rests on, the mis'able scorner!
In short, he would wholly upset with his ravages
All thet keeps us above the brute critters an' savages,
An' pitch into all kinds o' briles an' confusions
The holl of our civilized, free institutions;
He writes fer thet ruther unsafe print, the Courier,
An' likely ez not hez a squintin' to Foorier;
I'll be----, thet is, I mean I'll be blest,
Ef I hark to a word frum so noted a pest;
I shan't talk with _him_, my religion's too fervent.--
Good mornin', my friends, I'm your most humble servant.