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.
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.
James Russell Lowell
]
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 praecepta, 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 be 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 gives places or pelf;
But consistency still wuz 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 princerple 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 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 ign'ance, 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. _Patriae 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 swath 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 should
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 _voe 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 qua 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, the 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 Shakespeare, 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. 10
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 princerples wuz 'fore we sent him'?
Wut wuz there in them from this vote to prevent him?
A marciful Providunce fashioned us holler
O' purpose thet we might our princerples 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. 20
Aint princerple 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 thet princerple kind o' gits spiled by exposure;[19]
A man that lets all sorts o' folks git a sight on 't
Ough' to hev it all took right away, every mite on 't;
Ef he cant keep it all to himself wen it's wise to,
He aint one it's fit to trust nothin' so nice to.
Besides, ther's a wonderful power in latitude
To shift a man's morril relations an' attitude; 30
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, for 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, 40
An' sartin it is thet a man cannot be strict
In bein' himself, when 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 precisely 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, 50
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; 60
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 an' say, 'Thet's the ticket;
Ez fer Mexico, 'taint no great glory to lick it, 70
But 'twould be a darned shame to go pullin' o' triggers
To extend the aree of abusin' the niggers. '
So they march in percession, an' git up hooraws,
An' tramp thru the mud far 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 annooal soft-sodder an' taxes. 80
Now, to keep unimpaired all these glorious feeturs
Thet characterize morril an' reasonin' creeturs,
Thet give every paytriot all he can cram,
Thet oust the untrustworthy Presidunt Flam,
An' 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 how to tickle her,--
I say thet a party with gret aims like these
Must stick jest ez close ez a hive full o' bees. 90
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; 100
They've run us a hundred cool millions in debt
(An' fer Demmercrat Horners there'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 mantlepiece fell upon Polk.
Now all o' these blessin's the Wigs might enjoy,
Ef they'd gumption enough the right means to imploy;[20] 110
Fer the silver spoon born in Dermoc'acy'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, 120
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,-- 130
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.
Now here wuz New England ahevin' the honor
Of a chance at the Speakership showered upon her;-- 140
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, 150
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. 160
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. 170
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. 180
An', ez fer this Palfrey,[21] 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?
Does 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; 190
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, 200
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. [22]
You say, 'We'd ha' seared 'em by growin' in peace,
A plaguy sight more then by bobberies like these'?
Who is it dares say thet our naytional eagle
Won'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'd ough' to? 210
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, 220
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 civerlized, 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; 230
I sha'nt talk with _him_, my religion's too fervent.
Good mornin', my friends, I'm your most humble servant.
[Into the question whether the ability to express ourselves in
articulate language has been productive of more good or evil, I shall
not here enter at large. The two faculties of speech and of
speech-making are wholly diverse in their natures. By the first we make
ourselves intelligible, by the last unintelligible, to our fellows. It
has not seldom occurred to me (noting how in our national legislature
everything runs to talk, as lettuces, if the season or the soil be
unpropitious, shoot up lankly to seed, instead of forming handsome
heads) that Babel was the first Congress, the earliest mill erected for
the manufacture of gabble. In these days, what with Town Meetings,
School Committees, Boards (lumber) of one kind and another, Congresses,
Parliaments, Diets, Indian Councils, Palavers, and the like, there is
scarce a village which has not its factories of this description driven
by milk-and-water power. I cannot conceive the confusion of tongues to
have been the curse of Babel, since I esteem my ignorance of other
languages as a kind of Martello-tower, in which I am safe from the
furious bombardments of foreign garrulity. For this reason I have ever
preferred the study of the dead languages, those primitive formations
being Ararats upon whose silent peaks I sit secure and watch this new
deluge without fear, though it rain figures (_simulacra_, semblances) of
speech forty days and nights together, as it not uncommonly happens.
Thus is my coat, as it were, without buttons by which any but a vernacular
wild bore can seize me. Is it not possible that the Shakers may intend
to convey a quiet reproof and hint, in fastening their outer garments
with hooks and eyes?
This reflection concerning Babel, which I find in no Commentary, was
first thrown upon my mind when an excellent deacon of my congregation
(being infected with the Second Advent delusion) assured me that he had
received a first instalment of the gift of tongues as a small earnest of
larger possessions in the like kind to follow. For, of a truth, I could
not reconcile it with my ideas of the Divine justice and mercy that the
single wall which protected people of other languages from the
incursions of this otherwise well-meaning propagandist should be broken
down.
In reading Congressional debates, I have fancied, that, after the
subsidence of those painful buzzings in the brain which result from such
exercises, I detected a slender residuum of valuable information. I made
the discovery that _nothing_ takes longer in the saying than anything
else, for as _ex nihilo nihil fit_, so from one polypus _nothing_ any
number of similar ones may be produced. I would recommend to the
attention of _viva voce_ debaters and controversialists the admirable
example of the monk Copres, who, in the fourth century, stood for half
an hour in the midst of a great fire, and thereby silenced a Manichaean
antagonist who had less of the salamander in him. As for those who
quarrel in print, I have no concern with them here, since the eyelids
are a divinely granted shield against all such. Moreover, I have
observed in many modern books that the printed portion is becoming
gradually smaller, and the number of blank or fly-leaves (as they are
called) greater. Should this fortunate tendency of literature continue,
books will grow more valuable from year to year, and the whole Serbonian
bog yield to the advances of firm arable land.
The sagacious Lacedaemonians, hearing that Tesephone had bragged that he
could talk all day long on any given subject, made no more ado, but
forthwith banished him, whereby they supplied him a topic and at the
same time took care that his experiment upon it should be tried out of
earshot.
I have wondered, in the Representatives' Chamber of our own
Commonwealth, to mark how little impression seemed to be produced by
that emblematic fish suspended over the heads of the members. Our wiser
ancestors, no doubt, hung it there as being the animal which the
Pythagoreans reverenced for its silence, and which certainly in that
particular does not so well merit the epithet _cold blooded_, by which
naturalists distinguish it, as certain bipeds, afflicted with
ditch-water on the brain, who take occasion to tap themselves in Faneuil
Halls, meeting-houses, and other places of public resort. --H. W. ]
No. V
THE DEBATE IN THE SENNIT
SOT TO A NUSRY RHYME
[The incident which gave rise to the debate satirized in the following
verses was the unsuccessful attempt of Drayton and Sayres to give
freedom to seventy men and women, fellow-beings and fellow-Christians.
Had Tripoli, instead of Washington, been the scene of this undertaking,
the unhappy leaders in it would have been as secure of the theoretic as
they now are of the practical part of martyrdom. I question whether the
Dey of Tripoli is blessed with a District Attorney so benighted as ours
at the seat of government. Very fitly is he named Key, who would allow
himself to be made the instrument of locking the door of hope against
sufferers in such a cause. Not all the waters of the ocean can cleanse
the vile smutch of the jailer's fingers from off that little Key.
_Ahenea clavis_, a brazen Key indeed!
Mr. Calhoun, who is made the chief speaker in this burlesque, seems to
think that the light of the nineteenth century is to be put out as soon
as he tinkles his little cow-bell curfew. Whenever slavery is touched,
he sets up his scarecrow of dissolving the Union. This may do for the
North, but I should conjecture that something more than a
pumpkin-lantern is required to scare manifest and irretrievable Destiny
out of her path. Mr. Calhoun cannot let go the apron-string of the Past.
The Past is a good nurse, but we must be weaned from her sooner or
later, even though, like Plotinus, we should run home from school to ask
the breast, after we are tolerably well-grown youths. It will not do for
us to hide our faces in her lap, whenever the strange Future holds out
her arms and asks us to come to her.
But we are all alike. We have all heard it said, often enough, that
little boys must not play with fire; and yet, if the matches be taken
away from us, and put out of reach upon the shelf, we must needs get
into our little corner, and scowl and stamp and threaten the dire
revenge of going to bed without our supper. The world shall stop till we
get our dangerous plaything again. Dame Earth, meanwhile, who has more
than enough household matters to mind, goes bustling hither and thither
as a hiss or a sputter tells her that this or that kettle of hers is
boiling over, and before bedtime we are glad to eat our porridge cold,
and gulp down our dignity along with it.
Mr. Calhoun has somehow acquired the name of a great statesman, and, if
it be great statesmanship to put lance in rest and run a tilt at the
Spirit of the Age with the certainty of being next moment hurled neck
and heels into the dust amid universal laughter, he deserves the title.
He is the Sir Kay of our modern chivalry. He should remember the old
Scandinavian mythus. Thor was the strongest of gods, but he could not
wrestle with Time, nor so much as lift up a fold of the great snake
which bound the universe together; and when he smote the Earth, though
with his terrible mallet, it was but as if a leaf had fallen. Yet all
the while it seemed to Thor that he had only been wrestling with an old
woman, striving to lift a cat, and striking a stupid giant on the head.
And in old times, doubtless, the giants _were_ stupid, and there was no
better sport for the Sir Launcelots and Sir Gawains than to go about
cutting off their great blundering heads with enchanted swords. But
things have wonderfully changed. It is the giants, nowadays, that have
the science and the intelligence, while the chivalrous Don Quixotes of
Conservatism still cumber themselves with the clumsy armor of a bygone
age. On whirls the restless globe through unsounded time, with its
cities and its silences, its births and funerals, half light, half
shade, but never wholly dark, and sure to swing round into the happy
morning at last. With an involuntary smile, one sees Mr. Calhoun letting
slip his pack-thread cable with a crooked pin at the end of it to anchor
South Carolina upon the bank and shoal of the Past. --H. W. ]
TO MR. BUCKENAM
MR. EDITER, As i wuz kinder prunin round, in a little nussry sot out a
year or 2 a go, the Dbait in the sennit cum inter my mine An so i took &
Sot it to wut I call a nussry rime. I hev made sum onnable Gentlemun
speak thut dident speak in a Kind uv Poetikul lie sense the seeson is
dreffle backerd up This way
ewers as ushul
HOSEA BIGLOW.
'Here we stan' on the Constitution, by thunder!
It's a fact o' wich ther's bushils o' proofs;
Fer how could we trample on 't so, I wonder,
Ef 't worn't thet it's ollers under our hoofs? '
Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he:--
'Human rights haint no more
Right to come on this floor,
No more 'n the man in the moon,' sez he.
'The North haint no kind o' bisness with nothin,'
An' you've no idee how much bother it saves; 10
We aint none riled by their frettin' an' frothin',
We're _used_ to layin' the string on our slaves,'
Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;--
Sez Mister Foote,
'I should like to shoot
The holl gang, by the gret horn spoon! ' sez he.
'Freedom's Keystone is Slavery, thet ther's no doubt on,
It's sutthin' thet's--wha' d' ye call it? --divine,--
An' the slaves thet we ollers _make_ the most out on
Air them north o' Mason an' Dixon's line,' 20
Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;--
'Fer all that,' sez Mangum,
''Twould be better to hang 'em
An' so git red on 'em soon,' sez he.
'The mass ough' to labor an' we lay on soffies,
Thet's the reason I want to spread Freedom's aree;
It puts all the cunninest on us in office,
An' reelises our Maker's orig'nal idee,'
Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;--
'Thet's ez plain,' sez Cass, 30
'Ez thet some one's an ass,
It's ez clear ez the sun is at noon,' sez he.
'Now don't go to say I'm the friend of oppression,
But keep all your spare breath fer coolin' your broth,
Fer I ollers hev strove (at least thet's my impression)
To make cussed free with the rights o' the North,'
Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;--
'Yes,' sez Davis o' Miss. ,
'The perfection o' bliss
Is in skinnin' thet same old coon,' sez he. 40
'Slavery's a thing thet depends on complexion,
It's God's law thet fetters on black skins don't chafe;
Ef brains wuz to settle it (horrid reflection! )
Wich of our onnable body 'd be safe? '
Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;--
Sez Mister Hannegan,
Afore he began agin,
'Thet exception is quite oppertoon,' sez he.
'Gennle Cass, Sir, you needn't be twitchin' your collar,
_Your_ merit's quite clear by the dut on your knees, 50
At the North we don't make no distinctions o' color;
You can all take a lick at our shoes wen you please,'
Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;--
Sez Mister Jarnagin,
'They wun't hev to larn agin,
They all on 'em know the old toon,' sez he.
'The slavery question aint no ways bewilderin,'
North an' South hev one int'rest, it's plain to a glance;
No'thern men, like us patriarchs, don't sell their childrin,
But they _du_ sell themselves, ef they git a good chance,' 60
Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;--
Sez Atherton here,
'This is gittin' severe,
I wish I could dive like a loon,' sez he.
'It'll break up the Union, this talk about freedom,
An' your fact'ry gals (soon ez we split) 'll make head,
An' gittin' some Miss chief or other to lead 'em,
'll go to work raisin' permiscoous Ned,'
Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;--
'Yes, the North,' sez Colquitt, 70
'Ef we Southeners all quit,
Would go down like a busted balloon,' sez he.
'Jest look wut is doin', wut annyky's brewin'
In the beautiful clime o' the olive an' vine,
All the wise aristoxy's atumblin' to ruin,
An' the sankylots drorin' an' drinkin' their wine,'
Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;--
'Yes,' sez Johnson, 'in France
They're beginnin' to dance
Beelzebub's own rigadoon,' sez he. 80
'The South's safe enough, it don't feel a mite skeery,
Our slaves in their darkness an' dut air tu blest
Not to welcome with proud hallylugers the ery
Wen our eagle kicks yourn from the naytional nest,'
Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;--
'Oh,' sez Westcott o' Florida,
'Wut treason is horrider
Then our priv'leges tryin' to proon? ' sez he.
'It's 'coz they're so happy, thet, wen crazy sarpints
Stick their nose in our bizness, we git so darned riled; 90
We think it's our dooty to give pooty sharp hints,
Thet the last crumb of Edin on airth sha'n't be spiled,'
Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;--
'Ah,' sez Dixon H. Lewis,
'It perfectly true is
Thet slavery's airth's grettest boon,' sez he.
[It was said of old time, that riches have wings; and, though this be
not applicable in a literal strictness to the wealth of our patriarchal
brethren of the South, yet it is clear that their possessions have legs,
and an unaccountable propensity for using them in a northerly direction.
I marvel that the grand jury of Washington did not find a true bill
against the North Star for aiding and abetting Drayton and Sayres. It
would have been quite of a piece with the intelligence displayed by the
South on other questions connected with slavery. I think that no ship of
state was ever freighted with a more veritable Jonah than this same
domestic institution of ours. Mephistopheles himself could not feign so
bitterly, so satirically sad a sight as this of three millions of human
beings crushed beyond help or hope by this one mighty argument,--_Our
fathers knew no better! _ Nevertheless, it is the unavoidable destiny of
Jonahs to be cast overboard sooner or later. Or shall we try the
experiment of hiding our Jonah in a safe place, that none may lay hands
on him to make jetsam of him? Let us, then, with equal forethought and
wisdom, lash ourselves to the anchor, and await, in pious confidence,
the certain result. Perhaps our suspicious passenger is no Jonah after
all, being black. For it is well known that a superintending Providence
made a kind of sandwich of Ham and his descendants, to be devoured by
the Caucasian race.
In God's name, let all, who hear nearer and nearer the hungry moan of
the storm and the growl of the breakers, speak out! But, alas! we have
no right to interfere. If a man pluck an apple of mine, he shall be in
danger of the justice; but if he steal my brother, I must be silent. Who
says this? Our Constitution, consecrated by the callous consuetude of
sixty years, and grasped in triumphant argument by the left hand of him
whose right hand clutches the clotted slave-whip. Justice, venerable
with the undethronable majesty of countless aeons, says,--SPEAK! The
Past, wise with the sorrows and desolations of ages, from amid her
shattered fanes and wolf-housing palaces, echoes,--SPEAK! Nature,
through her thousand trumpets of freedom, her stars, her sunrises, her
seas, her winds, her cataracts, her mountains blue with cloudy pines,
blows jubilant encouragement, and cries,--SPEAK! From the soul's
trembling abysses the still, small voice not vaguely murmurs,--SPEAK!
But, alas! the Constitution and the Honorable Mr. Bagowind, M. C. ,
say--BE DUMB!
It occurs to me to suggest, as a topic of inquiry in this connection,
whether, on that momentous occasion when the goats and the sheep shall
be parted, the Constitution and the Honorable Mr. Bagowind, M. C. , will
be expected to take their places on the left as our hircine vicars.
Quid sum miser tunc dicturus?
Quem patronum rogaturus?
There is a point where toleration sinks into sheer baseness and
poltroonery. The toleration of the worst leads us to look on what is
barely better as good enough, and to worship what is only moderately
good. Woe to that man, or that nation, to whom mediocrity has become an
ideal!
Has our experiment of self-government succeeded, if it barely manage to
_rub and go? _ Here, now, is a piece of barbarism which Christ and the
nineteenth century say shall cease, and which Messrs. Smith, Brown, and
others say shall _not_ cease. I would by no means deny the eminent
respectability of these gentlemen, but I confess, that, in such a
wrestling match, I cannot help having my fears for them.
_Discite justitiam, moniti, et non temnere divos_.
H. W.
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 praecepta, 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 be 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 gives places or pelf;
But consistency still wuz 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 princerple 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 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 ign'ance, 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. _Patriae 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 swath 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 should
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 _voe 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 qua 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, the 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 Shakespeare, 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. 10
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 princerples wuz 'fore we sent him'?
Wut wuz there in them from this vote to prevent him?
A marciful Providunce fashioned us holler
O' purpose thet we might our princerples 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. 20
Aint princerple 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 thet princerple kind o' gits spiled by exposure;[19]
A man that lets all sorts o' folks git a sight on 't
Ough' to hev it all took right away, every mite on 't;
Ef he cant keep it all to himself wen it's wise to,
He aint one it's fit to trust nothin' so nice to.
Besides, ther's a wonderful power in latitude
To shift a man's morril relations an' attitude; 30
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, for 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, 40
An' sartin it is thet a man cannot be strict
In bein' himself, when 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 precisely 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, 50
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; 60
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 an' say, 'Thet's the ticket;
Ez fer Mexico, 'taint no great glory to lick it, 70
But 'twould be a darned shame to go pullin' o' triggers
To extend the aree of abusin' the niggers. '
So they march in percession, an' git up hooraws,
An' tramp thru the mud far 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 annooal soft-sodder an' taxes. 80
Now, to keep unimpaired all these glorious feeturs
Thet characterize morril an' reasonin' creeturs,
Thet give every paytriot all he can cram,
Thet oust the untrustworthy Presidunt Flam,
An' 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 how to tickle her,--
I say thet a party with gret aims like these
Must stick jest ez close ez a hive full o' bees. 90
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; 100
They've run us a hundred cool millions in debt
(An' fer Demmercrat Horners there'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 mantlepiece fell upon Polk.
Now all o' these blessin's the Wigs might enjoy,
Ef they'd gumption enough the right means to imploy;[20] 110
Fer the silver spoon born in Dermoc'acy'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, 120
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,-- 130
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.
Now here wuz New England ahevin' the honor
Of a chance at the Speakership showered upon her;-- 140
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, 150
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. 160
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. 170
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. 180
An', ez fer this Palfrey,[21] 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?
Does 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; 190
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, 200
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. [22]
You say, 'We'd ha' seared 'em by growin' in peace,
A plaguy sight more then by bobberies like these'?
Who is it dares say thet our naytional eagle
Won'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'd ough' to? 210
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, 220
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 civerlized, 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; 230
I sha'nt talk with _him_, my religion's too fervent.
Good mornin', my friends, I'm your most humble servant.
[Into the question whether the ability to express ourselves in
articulate language has been productive of more good or evil, I shall
not here enter at large. The two faculties of speech and of
speech-making are wholly diverse in their natures. By the first we make
ourselves intelligible, by the last unintelligible, to our fellows. It
has not seldom occurred to me (noting how in our national legislature
everything runs to talk, as lettuces, if the season or the soil be
unpropitious, shoot up lankly to seed, instead of forming handsome
heads) that Babel was the first Congress, the earliest mill erected for
the manufacture of gabble. In these days, what with Town Meetings,
School Committees, Boards (lumber) of one kind and another, Congresses,
Parliaments, Diets, Indian Councils, Palavers, and the like, there is
scarce a village which has not its factories of this description driven
by milk-and-water power. I cannot conceive the confusion of tongues to
have been the curse of Babel, since I esteem my ignorance of other
languages as a kind of Martello-tower, in which I am safe from the
furious bombardments of foreign garrulity. For this reason I have ever
preferred the study of the dead languages, those primitive formations
being Ararats upon whose silent peaks I sit secure and watch this new
deluge without fear, though it rain figures (_simulacra_, semblances) of
speech forty days and nights together, as it not uncommonly happens.
Thus is my coat, as it were, without buttons by which any but a vernacular
wild bore can seize me. Is it not possible that the Shakers may intend
to convey a quiet reproof and hint, in fastening their outer garments
with hooks and eyes?
This reflection concerning Babel, which I find in no Commentary, was
first thrown upon my mind when an excellent deacon of my congregation
(being infected with the Second Advent delusion) assured me that he had
received a first instalment of the gift of tongues as a small earnest of
larger possessions in the like kind to follow. For, of a truth, I could
not reconcile it with my ideas of the Divine justice and mercy that the
single wall which protected people of other languages from the
incursions of this otherwise well-meaning propagandist should be broken
down.
In reading Congressional debates, I have fancied, that, after the
subsidence of those painful buzzings in the brain which result from such
exercises, I detected a slender residuum of valuable information. I made
the discovery that _nothing_ takes longer in the saying than anything
else, for as _ex nihilo nihil fit_, so from one polypus _nothing_ any
number of similar ones may be produced. I would recommend to the
attention of _viva voce_ debaters and controversialists the admirable
example of the monk Copres, who, in the fourth century, stood for half
an hour in the midst of a great fire, and thereby silenced a Manichaean
antagonist who had less of the salamander in him. As for those who
quarrel in print, I have no concern with them here, since the eyelids
are a divinely granted shield against all such. Moreover, I have
observed in many modern books that the printed portion is becoming
gradually smaller, and the number of blank or fly-leaves (as they are
called) greater. Should this fortunate tendency of literature continue,
books will grow more valuable from year to year, and the whole Serbonian
bog yield to the advances of firm arable land.
The sagacious Lacedaemonians, hearing that Tesephone had bragged that he
could talk all day long on any given subject, made no more ado, but
forthwith banished him, whereby they supplied him a topic and at the
same time took care that his experiment upon it should be tried out of
earshot.
I have wondered, in the Representatives' Chamber of our own
Commonwealth, to mark how little impression seemed to be produced by
that emblematic fish suspended over the heads of the members. Our wiser
ancestors, no doubt, hung it there as being the animal which the
Pythagoreans reverenced for its silence, and which certainly in that
particular does not so well merit the epithet _cold blooded_, by which
naturalists distinguish it, as certain bipeds, afflicted with
ditch-water on the brain, who take occasion to tap themselves in Faneuil
Halls, meeting-houses, and other places of public resort. --H. W. ]
No. V
THE DEBATE IN THE SENNIT
SOT TO A NUSRY RHYME
[The incident which gave rise to the debate satirized in the following
verses was the unsuccessful attempt of Drayton and Sayres to give
freedom to seventy men and women, fellow-beings and fellow-Christians.
Had Tripoli, instead of Washington, been the scene of this undertaking,
the unhappy leaders in it would have been as secure of the theoretic as
they now are of the practical part of martyrdom. I question whether the
Dey of Tripoli is blessed with a District Attorney so benighted as ours
at the seat of government. Very fitly is he named Key, who would allow
himself to be made the instrument of locking the door of hope against
sufferers in such a cause. Not all the waters of the ocean can cleanse
the vile smutch of the jailer's fingers from off that little Key.
_Ahenea clavis_, a brazen Key indeed!
Mr. Calhoun, who is made the chief speaker in this burlesque, seems to
think that the light of the nineteenth century is to be put out as soon
as he tinkles his little cow-bell curfew. Whenever slavery is touched,
he sets up his scarecrow of dissolving the Union. This may do for the
North, but I should conjecture that something more than a
pumpkin-lantern is required to scare manifest and irretrievable Destiny
out of her path. Mr. Calhoun cannot let go the apron-string of the Past.
The Past is a good nurse, but we must be weaned from her sooner or
later, even though, like Plotinus, we should run home from school to ask
the breast, after we are tolerably well-grown youths. It will not do for
us to hide our faces in her lap, whenever the strange Future holds out
her arms and asks us to come to her.
But we are all alike. We have all heard it said, often enough, that
little boys must not play with fire; and yet, if the matches be taken
away from us, and put out of reach upon the shelf, we must needs get
into our little corner, and scowl and stamp and threaten the dire
revenge of going to bed without our supper. The world shall stop till we
get our dangerous plaything again. Dame Earth, meanwhile, who has more
than enough household matters to mind, goes bustling hither and thither
as a hiss or a sputter tells her that this or that kettle of hers is
boiling over, and before bedtime we are glad to eat our porridge cold,
and gulp down our dignity along with it.
Mr. Calhoun has somehow acquired the name of a great statesman, and, if
it be great statesmanship to put lance in rest and run a tilt at the
Spirit of the Age with the certainty of being next moment hurled neck
and heels into the dust amid universal laughter, he deserves the title.
He is the Sir Kay of our modern chivalry. He should remember the old
Scandinavian mythus. Thor was the strongest of gods, but he could not
wrestle with Time, nor so much as lift up a fold of the great snake
which bound the universe together; and when he smote the Earth, though
with his terrible mallet, it was but as if a leaf had fallen. Yet all
the while it seemed to Thor that he had only been wrestling with an old
woman, striving to lift a cat, and striking a stupid giant on the head.
And in old times, doubtless, the giants _were_ stupid, and there was no
better sport for the Sir Launcelots and Sir Gawains than to go about
cutting off their great blundering heads with enchanted swords. But
things have wonderfully changed. It is the giants, nowadays, that have
the science and the intelligence, while the chivalrous Don Quixotes of
Conservatism still cumber themselves with the clumsy armor of a bygone
age. On whirls the restless globe through unsounded time, with its
cities and its silences, its births and funerals, half light, half
shade, but never wholly dark, and sure to swing round into the happy
morning at last. With an involuntary smile, one sees Mr. Calhoun letting
slip his pack-thread cable with a crooked pin at the end of it to anchor
South Carolina upon the bank and shoal of the Past. --H. W. ]
TO MR. BUCKENAM
MR. EDITER, As i wuz kinder prunin round, in a little nussry sot out a
year or 2 a go, the Dbait in the sennit cum inter my mine An so i took &
Sot it to wut I call a nussry rime. I hev made sum onnable Gentlemun
speak thut dident speak in a Kind uv Poetikul lie sense the seeson is
dreffle backerd up This way
ewers as ushul
HOSEA BIGLOW.
'Here we stan' on the Constitution, by thunder!
It's a fact o' wich ther's bushils o' proofs;
Fer how could we trample on 't so, I wonder,
Ef 't worn't thet it's ollers under our hoofs? '
Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he:--
'Human rights haint no more
Right to come on this floor,
No more 'n the man in the moon,' sez he.
'The North haint no kind o' bisness with nothin,'
An' you've no idee how much bother it saves; 10
We aint none riled by their frettin' an' frothin',
We're _used_ to layin' the string on our slaves,'
Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;--
Sez Mister Foote,
'I should like to shoot
The holl gang, by the gret horn spoon! ' sez he.
'Freedom's Keystone is Slavery, thet ther's no doubt on,
It's sutthin' thet's--wha' d' ye call it? --divine,--
An' the slaves thet we ollers _make_ the most out on
Air them north o' Mason an' Dixon's line,' 20
Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;--
'Fer all that,' sez Mangum,
''Twould be better to hang 'em
An' so git red on 'em soon,' sez he.
'The mass ough' to labor an' we lay on soffies,
Thet's the reason I want to spread Freedom's aree;
It puts all the cunninest on us in office,
An' reelises our Maker's orig'nal idee,'
Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;--
'Thet's ez plain,' sez Cass, 30
'Ez thet some one's an ass,
It's ez clear ez the sun is at noon,' sez he.
'Now don't go to say I'm the friend of oppression,
But keep all your spare breath fer coolin' your broth,
Fer I ollers hev strove (at least thet's my impression)
To make cussed free with the rights o' the North,'
Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;--
'Yes,' sez Davis o' Miss. ,
'The perfection o' bliss
Is in skinnin' thet same old coon,' sez he. 40
'Slavery's a thing thet depends on complexion,
It's God's law thet fetters on black skins don't chafe;
Ef brains wuz to settle it (horrid reflection! )
Wich of our onnable body 'd be safe? '
Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;--
Sez Mister Hannegan,
Afore he began agin,
'Thet exception is quite oppertoon,' sez he.
'Gennle Cass, Sir, you needn't be twitchin' your collar,
_Your_ merit's quite clear by the dut on your knees, 50
At the North we don't make no distinctions o' color;
You can all take a lick at our shoes wen you please,'
Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;--
Sez Mister Jarnagin,
'They wun't hev to larn agin,
They all on 'em know the old toon,' sez he.
'The slavery question aint no ways bewilderin,'
North an' South hev one int'rest, it's plain to a glance;
No'thern men, like us patriarchs, don't sell their childrin,
But they _du_ sell themselves, ef they git a good chance,' 60
Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;--
Sez Atherton here,
'This is gittin' severe,
I wish I could dive like a loon,' sez he.
'It'll break up the Union, this talk about freedom,
An' your fact'ry gals (soon ez we split) 'll make head,
An' gittin' some Miss chief or other to lead 'em,
'll go to work raisin' permiscoous Ned,'
Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;--
'Yes, the North,' sez Colquitt, 70
'Ef we Southeners all quit,
Would go down like a busted balloon,' sez he.
'Jest look wut is doin', wut annyky's brewin'
In the beautiful clime o' the olive an' vine,
All the wise aristoxy's atumblin' to ruin,
An' the sankylots drorin' an' drinkin' their wine,'
Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;--
'Yes,' sez Johnson, 'in France
They're beginnin' to dance
Beelzebub's own rigadoon,' sez he. 80
'The South's safe enough, it don't feel a mite skeery,
Our slaves in their darkness an' dut air tu blest
Not to welcome with proud hallylugers the ery
Wen our eagle kicks yourn from the naytional nest,'
Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;--
'Oh,' sez Westcott o' Florida,
'Wut treason is horrider
Then our priv'leges tryin' to proon? ' sez he.
'It's 'coz they're so happy, thet, wen crazy sarpints
Stick their nose in our bizness, we git so darned riled; 90
We think it's our dooty to give pooty sharp hints,
Thet the last crumb of Edin on airth sha'n't be spiled,'
Sez John C. Calhoun, sez he;--
'Ah,' sez Dixon H. Lewis,
'It perfectly true is
Thet slavery's airth's grettest boon,' sez he.
[It was said of old time, that riches have wings; and, though this be
not applicable in a literal strictness to the wealth of our patriarchal
brethren of the South, yet it is clear that their possessions have legs,
and an unaccountable propensity for using them in a northerly direction.
I marvel that the grand jury of Washington did not find a true bill
against the North Star for aiding and abetting Drayton and Sayres. It
would have been quite of a piece with the intelligence displayed by the
South on other questions connected with slavery. I think that no ship of
state was ever freighted with a more veritable Jonah than this same
domestic institution of ours. Mephistopheles himself could not feign so
bitterly, so satirically sad a sight as this of three millions of human
beings crushed beyond help or hope by this one mighty argument,--_Our
fathers knew no better! _ Nevertheless, it is the unavoidable destiny of
Jonahs to be cast overboard sooner or later. Or shall we try the
experiment of hiding our Jonah in a safe place, that none may lay hands
on him to make jetsam of him? Let us, then, with equal forethought and
wisdom, lash ourselves to the anchor, and await, in pious confidence,
the certain result. Perhaps our suspicious passenger is no Jonah after
all, being black. For it is well known that a superintending Providence
made a kind of sandwich of Ham and his descendants, to be devoured by
the Caucasian race.
In God's name, let all, who hear nearer and nearer the hungry moan of
the storm and the growl of the breakers, speak out! But, alas! we have
no right to interfere. If a man pluck an apple of mine, he shall be in
danger of the justice; but if he steal my brother, I must be silent. Who
says this? Our Constitution, consecrated by the callous consuetude of
sixty years, and grasped in triumphant argument by the left hand of him
whose right hand clutches the clotted slave-whip. Justice, venerable
with the undethronable majesty of countless aeons, says,--SPEAK! The
Past, wise with the sorrows and desolations of ages, from amid her
shattered fanes and wolf-housing palaces, echoes,--SPEAK! Nature,
through her thousand trumpets of freedom, her stars, her sunrises, her
seas, her winds, her cataracts, her mountains blue with cloudy pines,
blows jubilant encouragement, and cries,--SPEAK! From the soul's
trembling abysses the still, small voice not vaguely murmurs,--SPEAK!
But, alas! the Constitution and the Honorable Mr. Bagowind, M. C. ,
say--BE DUMB!
It occurs to me to suggest, as a topic of inquiry in this connection,
whether, on that momentous occasion when the goats and the sheep shall
be parted, the Constitution and the Honorable Mr. Bagowind, M. C. , will
be expected to take their places on the left as our hircine vicars.
Quid sum miser tunc dicturus?
Quem patronum rogaturus?
There is a point where toleration sinks into sheer baseness and
poltroonery. The toleration of the worst leads us to look on what is
barely better as good enough, and to worship what is only moderately
good. Woe to that man, or that nation, to whom mediocrity has become an
ideal!
Has our experiment of self-government succeeded, if it barely manage to
_rub and go? _ Here, now, is a piece of barbarism which Christ and the
nineteenth century say shall cease, and which Messrs. Smith, Brown, and
others say shall _not_ cease. I would by no means deny the eminent
respectability of these gentlemen, but I confess, that, in such a
wrestling match, I cannot help having my fears for them.
_Discite justitiam, moniti, et non temnere divos_.
H. W.
