Chapter XIII: Part III

WHEREIN IT IS SHOWN THAT THE MOST ARDENT SPIRITS ARE MORE ORNAMENTAL THAN USEFUL

Many a speculating wight Came by express-trains, day and night, To see if Knott would 'sell his right,' 550 Meaning to make the ghosts a sight-- What they call a 'meenaygerie;' One threatened, if he would not 'trade,' His run of custom to invade, (He could not these sharp folks persuade That he was not, in some way, paid,) And stamp him as a plagiary, By coming down, at one fell swoop, With THE ORIGINAL KNOCKING TROUPE, Come recently from Hades, 560 Who (for a quarter-dollar heard) Would ne'er rap out a hasty word Whence any blame might be incurred From the most fastidious ladies; The late lamented Jesse Soule, To stir the ghosts up with a pole And be director of the whole, Who was engaged the rather For the rare merits he'd combine, Having been in the spirit line, 570 Which trade he only did resign, With general applause, to shine, Awful in mail of cotton fine, As ghost of Hamlet's father! Another a fair plan reveals Never yet hit on, which, he feels, To Knott's religious sense appeals-- 'We'll have your house set up on wheels, A speculation pious; For music, we can shortly find 580 A barrel-organ that will grind Psalm-tunes--an instrument designed For the New England tour--refined From secular drosses, and inclined To an unworldly turn, (combined With no sectarian bias;) Then, travelling by stages slow, Under the style of Knott & Co., I would accompany the show As moral lecturer, the foe 590 Of Rationalism; while you could throw The rappings in, and make them go Strict Puritan principles, you know, (How _do_ you make 'em? with your toe?) And the receipts which thence might flow, We could divide between us; Still more attractions to combine, Beside these services of mine, I will throw in a very fine (It would do nicely for a sign) 600 Original Titian's Venus.' Another offered handsome fees If Knott would get Demosthenes (Nay, his mere knuckles, for more ease) To rap a few short sentences; Or if, for want of proper keys, His Greek might make confusion, Then just to get a rap from Burke, To recommend a little work On Public Elocution. 610 Meanwhile, the spirits made replies To all the reverent _whats_ and _whys_, Resolving doubts of every size, And giving seekers grave and wise, Who came to know their destinies, A rap-turous reception; When unbelievers void of grace Came to investigate the place, (Creatures of Sadducistic race, With grovelling intellects and base,) 620 They could not find the slightest trace To indicate deception; Indeed, it is declared by some That spirits (of this sort) are glum, Almost, or wholly, deaf and dumb, And (out of self-respect) quite mum To skeptic natures cold and numb Who of _this_ kind of Kingdom Come Have not a just conception: True, there were people who demurred 630 That, though the raps no doubt were heard Both under them and o'er them, Yet, somehow, when a search they made, They found Miss Jenny sore afraid, Or Jenny's lover, Doctor Slade, Equally awestruck and dismayed, Or Deborah, the chambermaid, Whose terrors not to be gainsaid In laughs hysteric were displayed, Was always there before them; This had its due effect with some Who straight departed, muttering, Hum! 642 Transparent hoax! and Gammon! But these were few: believing souls, Came, day by day, in larger shoals, As the ancients to the windy holes 'Neath Delphi's tripod brought their doles, Or to the shrine of Ammon.

The spirits seemed exceeding tame, Call whom you fancied, and he came; 650 The shades august of eldest fame You summoned with an awful ease; As grosser spirits gurgled out From chair and table with a spout, In Auerbach's cellar once, to flout The senses of the rabble rout, Where'er the gimlet twirled about Of cunning Mephistopheles, So did these spirits seem in store, Behind the wainscot or the door, Ready to thrill the being's core Of every enterprising bore 662 With their astounding glamour; Whatever ghost one wished to hear, By strange coincidence, was near To make the past or future clear (Sometimes in shocking grammar) By raps and taps, now there, now here-- It seemed as if the spirit queer Of some departed auctioneer 670 Were doomed to practise by the year With the spirit of his hammer: Whate'er you asked was answered, yet One could not very deeply get Into the obliging spirits' debt, Because they used the alphabet In all communications, And new revealings (though sublime) Rapped out, one letter at a time, With boggles, hesitations, 680 Stoppings, beginnings o'er again, And getting matters into train, Could hardly overload the brain With too excessive rations, Since just to ask _if two and two Really make four? or, How d' ye do_? And get the fit replies thereto In the tramundane rat-tat-too, Might ask a whole day's patience.

'Twas strange ('mongst other things) to find 690 In what odd sets the ghosts combined, Happy forthwith to thump any Piece of intelligence inspired, The truth whereof had been inquired By some one of the company; For instance, Fielding, Mirabeau, Orator Henley, Cicero, Paley, John Ziska, Marivaux, Melancthon, Robertson, Junot, 699 Scaliger, Chesterfield, Rousseau, Hakluyt, Boccaccio, South, De Foe, Diaz, Josephus, Richard Roe, Odin, Arminius, Charles _le gros_, Tiresias, the late James Crow, Casabianca, Grose, Prideaux, Old Grimes, Young Norval, Swift, Brissot, Malmonides, the Chevalier D'O, Socrates, Fénelon, Job, Stow. The inventor of _Elixir pro_, Euripides, Spinoza, Poe, 710 Confucius, Hiram Smith, and Fo, Came (as it seemed, somewhat _de trop_) With a disembodied Esquimaux, To say that it was so and so, With Franklin's expedition; One testified to ice and snow, One that the mercury was low, One that his progress was quite slow, One that he much desired to go, One that the cook had frozen his toe, 720 (Dissented from by Dandolo, Wordsworth, Cynaegirus, Boileau, La Hontan, and Sir Thomas Roe,) One saw twelve white bears in a row, One saw eleven and a crow, With other things we could not know (Of great statistic value, though,) By our mere mortal vision.

Sometimes the spirits made mistakes, And seemed to play at ducks and drakes. 730 With bold inquiry's heaviest stakes In science or in mystery: They knew so little (and that wrong) Yet rapped it out so bold and strong, One would have said the unnumbered throng Had been Professors of History; What made it odder was, that those Who, you would naturally suppose, Could solve a question, if they chose, As easily as count their toes, 740 Were just the ones that blundered; One day, Ulysses happening down, A reader of Sir Thomas Browne And who (with him) had wondered What song it was the Sirens sang, Asked the shrewd Ithacan--_bang! bang!_ With this response the chamber rang, 'I guess it was Old Hundred.' And Franklin, being asked to name The reason why the lightning came, 750 Replied, 'Because it thundered.'

On one sole point the ghosts agreed One fearful point, than which, indeed, Nothing could seem absurder; Poor Colonel Jones they all abused And finally downright accused The poor old man of murder; 'Twas thus; by dreadful raps was shown Some spirit's longing to make known A bloody fact, which he alone 760 Was privy to, (such ghosts more prone In Earth's affairs to meddle are;) _Who are you?_ with awe-stricken looks, All ask: his airy knuckles he crooks, And raps, 'I _was_ Eliab Snooks, That used to be a pedler; Some on ye still are on my books!' Whereat, to inconspicuous nooks, (More fearing this than common spooks) Shrank each indebted meddler; Further the vengeful ghost declared 771 That while his earthly life was spared, About the country he had fared, A duly licensed follower Of that much-wandering trade that wins Slow profit from the sale of tins And various kinds of hollow-ware; That Colonel Jones enticed him in, Pretending that he wanted tin, There slew him with a rolling-pin, Hid him in a potato-bin, 781 And (the same night) him ferried Across Great Pond to t'other shore, And there, on land of Widow Moore, Just where you turn to Larkin's store, Under a rock him buried; Some friends (who happened to be by) He called upon to testify That what he said was not a lie, And that he did not stir this 790 Foul matter, out of any spite But from a simple love of right;-- Which statements the Nine Worthies, Rabbi Akiba, Charlemagne, Seth, Golley Gibber, General Wayne, Cambyses, Tasso, Tubal-Cain, The owner of a castle in Spain, Jehanghire, and the Widow of Nain, (The friends aforesaid,) made more plain And by loud raps attested; 800 To the same purport testified Plato, John Wilkes, and Colonel Pride Who knew said Snooks before he died, Had in his wares invested, Thought him entitled to belief And freely could concur, in brief, In everything the rest did.

Eliab this occasion seized, (Distinctly here the spirit sneezed,) To say that he should ne'er be eased 810 Till Jenny married whom she pleased, Free from all checks and urgin's, (This spirit dropt his final g's) And that, unless Knott quickly sees This done, the spirits to appease, They would come back his life to tease, As thick as mites in ancient cheese, And let his house on an endless lease To the ghosts (terrific rappers these And veritable Eumenides) 820 Of the Eleven Thousand Virgins!

Knott was perplexed and shook his head, He did not wish his child to wed With a suspected murderer, (For, true or false, the rumor spread,) But as for this roiled life he led, 'It would not answer,' so he said, 'To have it go no furderer.' At last, scarce knowing what it meant, Reluctantly he gave consent 830 That Jenny, since 'twas evident That she _would_ follow her own bent, Should make her own election; For that appeared the only way These frightful noises to allay Which had already turned him gray And plunged him in dejection.

Accordingly, this artless maid Her father's ordinance obeyed, 839 And, all in whitest crape arrayed, (Miss Pulsifer the dresses made And wishes here the fact displayed That she still carries on the trade, The third door south from Bagg's Arcade,) A very faint 'I do' essayed And gave her hand to Hiram Slade, From which time forth, the ghosts were laid, And ne'er gave trouble after; But the Selectmen, be it known, Dug underneath the aforesaid stone, 850 Where the poor pedler's corpse was thrown, And found thereunder a jaw-bone, Though, when the crowner sat thereon, He nothing hatched, except alone Successive broods of laughter; It was a frail and dingy thing, In which a grinder or two did cling, In color like molasses, Which surgeons, called from far and wide. Upon the horror to decide, 860 Having put on their glasses, Reported thus: 'To judge by looks, These bones, by some queer hooks or crooks, May have belonged to Mr. Snooks, But, as men deepest read in books Are perfectly aware, bones, If buried fifty years or so, Lose their identity and grow From human bones to bare bones.'

Still, if to Jaalam you go down, You'll find two parties in the town, 871 One headed by Benaiah Brown, And one by Perez Tinkham; The first believe the ghosts all through And vow that they shall never rue The happy chance by which they knew That people in Jupiter are blue, And very fond of Irish stew, Two curious facts which Prince Lee Boo 879 Rapped clearly to a chosen few-- Whereas the others think 'em A trick got up by Doctor Slade With Deborah the chambermaid And that sly cretur Jinny. That all the revelations wise, At which the Brownites made big eyes, Might have been given by Jared Keyes, A natural fool and ninny, And, last week, didn't Eliab Snooks Come back with never better looks, 890 As sharp as new-bought mackerel hooks, And bright as a new pin, eh? Good Parson Wilbur, too, avers (Though to be mixed in parish stirs Is worse than handling chestnut-burrs) That no case to his mind occurs Where spirits ever did converse, Save in a kind of guttural Erse, (So say the best authorities;) And that a charge by raps conveyed 900 Should be most scrupulously weighed And searched into, before it is Made public, since it may give pain That cannot soon be cured again, And one word may infix a stain Which ten cannot gloss over, Though speaking for his private part, He is rejoiced with all his heart Miss Knott missed not her lover.

FRAGMENTS OF AN UNFINISHED POEM

I am a man of forty, sirs, a native of East Haddam, And have some reason to surmise that I descend from Adam; But what's my pedigree to you? That I will soon unravel; I've sucked my Haddam-Eden dry, therefore desire to travel, And, as a natural consequence, presume I needn't say, I wish to write some letters home and have those letters p---- [I spare the word suggestive of those grim Next Morns that mount _Clump, Clump_, the stairways of the brain with--'_Sir, my small account_,' And, after every good we gain--Love, Fame, Wealth, Wisdom--still, As punctual as a cuckoo clock, hold up their little bill, 10 The _garçons_ in our Café of Life, by dreaming us forgot-- Sitting, like Homer's heroes, full and musing God knows what,-- Till they say, bowing, _S'il vous plait, voila, Messieurs, la note!_] I would not hint at this so soon, but in our callous day, The Tollman Debt, who drops his bar across the world's highway, Great Cæsar in mid-march would stop, if Cæsar could not pay; Pilgriming's dearer than it was: men cannot travel now Scot-free from Dan to Beersheba upon a simple vow; Nay, as long back as Bess's time,--when Walsingham went over Ambassador to Cousin France, at Canterbury and Dover 20 He was so fleeced by innkeepers that, ere he quitted land, He wrote to the Prime Minister to take the knaves in hand. If I with staff and scallop-shell should try my way to win, Would Bonifaces quarrel as to who should take me in? Or would my pilgrim's progress end where Bunyan started his on, And my grand tour be round and round the backyard of a prison? I give you here a saying deep and therefore, haply true; 'Tis out of Merlin's prophecies, but quite as good as new: The question boath for men and meates longe voyages yt beginne Lyes in a notshell, rather saye lyes in a case of tinne. 20 But, though men may not travel now, as in the Middle Ages, With self-sustaining retinues of little gilt-edged pages, Yet one may manage pleasantly, where'er he likes to roam, By sending his small pages (at so much per small page) home; And if a staff and scallop-shell won't serve so well as then, Our outlay is about as small--just paper, ink, and pen. Be thankful! Humbugs never die, more than the wandering Jew; Bankrupt, they publish their own deaths, slink for a while from view, Then take an _alias_, change the sign, and the old trade renew; Indeed, 'tis wondrous how each Age, though laughing at the Past, 40 Insists on having its tight shoe made on the same old last; How it is sure its system would break up at once without The bunion which it _will_ believe hereditary gout; How it takes all its swans for geese, nay, stranger yet and sadder, Sees in its treadmill's fruitless jog a heavenward Jacob's-ladder, Shouts, _Lo, the Shining Heights are reached! One moment, more aspire!_ Trots into cramps its poor, dear legs, gets never an inch the higher, And like the others, ends with pipe and mug beside the fire. There, 'tween each doze, it whiffs and sips and watches with a sneer The green recruits that trudge and sweat where it had swinked whilere, 50 And sighs to think this soon spent zeal should be in simple truth, The only interval between old Fogyhood and Youth: 'Well,' thus it muses, 'well, what odds? 'Tis not for us to warn; 'Twill be the same when we are dead, and was ere we were born; Without the Treadmill, too, how grind our store of winter's corn? Had we no stock, nor twelve per cent received from Treadmill shares, We might ... but these poor devils at last will get our easy chairs. High aims and hopes have great rewards, they, too, serene and snug, Shall one day have their soothing pipe and their enlivening mug; From Adam, empty-handed Youth hath always heard the hum 60 Of Good Times Coming, and will hear until the last day come; Young ears Hear forward, old ones back, and, while the earth rolls on, Full-handed Eld shall hear recede the steps of Good Times Gone; Ah what a cackle we set up whene'er an egg was laid! _Cack-cack-cack-cackle!_ rang around, the scratch for worms was stayed, _Cut-cut-ca-dah-cut!_ from _this_ egg the coming cock shall stalk! The great New Era dawns, the age of Deeds and not of Talk! And every stupid hen of us hugged close his egg of chalk, Thought,--sure, I feel life stir within, each day with greater strength, When lo, the chick! from former chicks he differed not a jot, 70 But grew and crew and scratched and went, like those before, to pot!' So muse the dim _Emeriti_, and, mournful though it be, I must confess a kindred thought hath sometimes come to me, Who, though but just of forty turned, have heard the rumorous fame Of nine and ninety Coming Men, all--coming till they came. Pure Mephistopheles all this? the vulgar nature jeers? Good friend, while I was writing it, my eyes were dim with tears; Thrice happy he who cannot see, or who his eyes can shut, Life's deepest sorrow is contained in that small word there--But!

* * * * *

We're pretty nearly crazy here with change and go ahead, 80 With flinging our caught bird away for two i' th' bush instead, With butting 'gainst the wall which we declare _shall_ be a portal, And questioning Deeps that never yet have oped their lips to mortal; We're growing pale and hollow-eyed, and out of all condition, With _mediums_ and prophetic chairs, and crickets with a mission, (The most astounding oracles since Balaam's donkey spoke,-- 'Twould seem our furniture was all of Dodonean oak.) Make but the public laugh, be sure 'twill take you to be somebody; 'Twill wrench its button from your clutch, my densely earnest glum body; 'Tis good, this noble earnestness, good in its place, but why 90 Make great Achilles' shield the pan to bake a penny pie? Why, when we have a kitchen-range, insist that we shall stop, And bore clear down to central fires to broil our daily chop? Excalibur and Durandart are swords of price, but then Why draw them sternly when you wish to trim your nails or pen? Small gulf between the ape and man; you bridge it with your staff; But it will be impassable until the ape can laugh;-- No, no, be common now and then, be sensible, be funny, And, as Siberians bait their traps for bears with pots of honey, From which ere they'll withdraw their snouts, they'll suffer many a club-lick, 100 So bait your moral figure-of-fours to catch the Orson public. Look how the dead leaves melt their way down through deep-drifted snow; They take the sun-warmth down with them--pearls could not conquer so; There _is_ a moral here, you see: if you would preach, you must Steep all your truths in sunshine would you have them pierce the crust; Brave Jeremiah, you are grand and terrible, a sign And wonder, but were never quite a popular divine; Fancy the figure you would cut among the nuts and wine! I, on occasion, too, could preach, but hold it wiser far To give the public sermons it will take with its cigar, 110 And morals fugitive, and vague as are these smoke-wreaths light In which ... I trace ... a ... let me see--bless me! 'tis out of sight.

* * * * *

There are some goodish things at sea; for instance, one can feel A grandeur in the silent man forever at the wheel, That bit of two-legged intellect, that particle of drill, Who the huge floundering hulk inspires with reason, brain, and will, And makes the ship, though skies are black and headwinds whistle loud, Obey her conscience there which feels the loadstar through the cloud; And when by lusty western gales the full-sailed barque is hurled, Towards the great moon which, setting on, the silent underworld, 120 Rounds luridly up to look on ours, and shoots a broadening line, Of palpitant light from crest to crest across the ridgy brine, Then from the bows look back and feel a thrill that never stales, In that full-bosomed, swan-white pomp of onward-yearning sails; Ah, when dear cousin Bull laments that you can't make a poem, Take him aboard a clipper-ship, young Jonathan, and show him A work of art that in its grace and grandeur may compare With any thing that any race has fashioned any where; 'Tis not a statue, grumbles John; nay, if you come to that, We think of Hyde Park Corner, and concede you beat us flat 130 With your equestrian statue to a Nose and a Cocked hat; But 'tis not a cathedral; well, e'en that we will allow, Both statues and cathedrals are anachronistic now; Your minsters, coz, the monuments of men who conquered you, You'd sell a bargain, if we'd take the deans and chapters too; No; mortal men build nowadays, as always heretofore, Good temples to the gods which they in very truth adore; The shepherds of this Broker Age, with all their willing flocks, Although they bow to stones no more, do bend the knee to stocks, And churches can't be beautiful though crowded, floor and gallery, 140 If people worship preacher, and if preacher worship salary; 'Tis well to look things in the face, the god o' the modern universe, Hermes, cares naught for halls of art and libraries of puny verse, If they don't sell, he notes them thus upon his ledger--say, _per Contra_ to a loss of so much stone, best Russia duck and paper; And, after all, about this Art men talk a deal of fudge, Each nation has its path marked out, from which it must not budge; The Romans had as little art as Noah in his ark, Yet somehow on this globe contrived to make an epic mark; 149 Religion, painting, sculpture, song--for these they ran up jolly ticks With Greece and Egypt, but they were great artists in their politics, And if we make no minsters, John, nor epics, yet the Fates Are not entirely deaf to men who _can_ build ships and states; The arts are never pioneers, but men have strength and health Who, called on suddenly, can improvise a commonwealth, Nay, can more easily go on and frame them by the dozen, Than you can make a dinner-speech, dear sympathizing cousin; And, though our restless Jonathan have not your graver bent, sure he Does represent this hand-to-mouth, pert, rapid nineteenth century; This is the Age of Scramble; men move faster than they did 160 When they pried up the imperial Past's deep-dusted coffin-lid, Searching for scrolls of precedent; the wire-leashed lightning now Replaces Delphos--men don't leave the steamer for the scow; What public, were they new to-day, would ever stop to read The Iliad, the Shanàmeh, or the Nibelungenlied? _Their_ public's gone, the artist Greek, the lettered Shah, the hairy Graf-- Folio and plesiosaur sleep well; _we_ weary o'er a paragraph; The mind moves planet-like no more, it fizzes, cracks, and bustles; From end to end with journals dry the land o'ershadowed rustles, As with dead leaves a winter-beech, and, with their breath-roused jars 170 Amused, we care not if they hide the eternal skies and stars; Down to the general level of the Board of Brokers sinking, The Age takes in the newspapers, or, to say sooth unshrinking, The newspapers take in the Age, and stocks do all the thinking.

AN ORIENTAL APOLOGUE

Somewhere in India, upon a time,
(Read it not Injah, or you spoil the verse,)
There dwelt two saints whose privilege sublime
It was to sit and watch the world grow worse,
Their only care (in that delicious clime)
At proper intervals to pray and curse;
Pracrit the dialect each prudent brother
Used for himself, Damnonian for the other.

One half the time of each was spent in praying
For blessings on his own unworthy head, 10
The other half in fearfully portraying
Where certain folks would go when they were dead;
This system of exchanges--there's no saying
To what more solid barter 'twould have led,
But that a river, vext with boils and swellings
At rainy times, kept peace between their dwellings.

So they two played at wordy battledore
And kept a curse forever in the air,
Flying this way or that from shore to shore;
Nor other labor did this holy pair, 20
Clothed and supported from the lavish store
Which crowds lanigerous brought with daily care;
They toiled not, neither did they spin; their bias
Was tow'rd the harder task of being pious.

Each from his hut rushed six score times a day,
Like a great canon of the Church full-rammed
With cartridge theologic, (so to say,)
Touched himself off, and then, recoiling, slammed
His hovel's door behind him in away
That to his foe said plainly,--_you'll_ be damned; 30
And so like Potts and Wainwright, shrill and strong
The two D---- D'd each other all day long.

One was a dancing Dervise, a Mohammedan,
The other was a Hindoo, a gymnosophist;
One kept his whatd'yecallit and his Ramadan,
Laughing to scorn the sacred rites and laws of his
Transfluvial rival, who, in turn, called Ahmed an
Old top, and, as a clincher, shook across a fist
With nails six inches long, yet lifted not
His eyes from off his navel's mystic knot. 40

'Who whirls not round six thousand times an hour
Will go,' screamed Ahmed, 'to the evil place;
May he eat dirt, and may the dog and Giaour
Defile the graves of him and all his race;
Allah loves faithful souls and gives them power
To spin till they are purple in the face;
Some folks get you know what, but he that pure is
Earns Paradise and ninety thousand houris.'

'Upon the silver mountain, South by East,
Sits Brahma fed upon the sacred bean; 30
He loves those men whose nails are still increased,
Who all their lives keep ugly, foul, and lean;
'Tis of his grace that not a bird or beast
Adorned with claws like mine was ever seen;
The suns and stars are Brahma's thoughts divine,
Even as these trees I seem to see are mine.'

'Thou seem'st to see, indeed!' roared Ahmed back;
'Were I but once across this plaguy stream,
With a stout sapling in my hand, one whack
On those lank ribs would rid thee of that dream! 60
Thy Brahma-blasphemy is ipecac
To my soul's stomach; couldst thou grasp the scheme
Of true redemption, thou wouldst know that Deity
Whirls by a kind of blessed spontaneity.

'And this it is which keeps our earth here going
With all the stars.'--'Oh, vile! but there's a place
Prepared for such; to think of Brahma throwing
Worlds like a juggler's balls up into Space!
Why, not so much as a smooth lotos blowing
Is e'er allowed that silence to efface 70
Which broods round Brahma, and our earth, 'tis known,
Rests on a tortoise, moveless as this stone.'

So they kept up their banning amoebæan,
When suddenly came floating down the stream
A youth whose face like an incarnate pæan
Glowed, 'twas so full of grandeur and of gleam;
'If there _be_ gods, then, doubtless, this must be one,'
Thought both at once, and then began to scream,
'Surely, whate'er immortals know, thou knowest,
Decide between us twain before thou goest!' 80

The youth was drifting in a slim canoe
Most like a huge white water-lily's petal,
But neither of our theologians knew
Whereof 'twas made; whether of heavenly metal
Seldseen, or of a vast pearl split in two
And hollowed, was a point they could not settle;
'Twas good debate-seed, though, and bore large fruit
In after years of many a tart dispute.

There were no wings upon the stranger's shoulders.
And yet he seemed so capable of rising 90
That, had he soared like thistle-down, beholders
Had thought the circumstance noways surprising;
Enough that he remained, and, when the scolders
Hailed him as umpire in their vocal prize-ring,
The painter of his boat he lightly threw
Around a lotos-stem, and brought her to.

The strange youth had a look as if he might
Have trod far planets where the atmosphere
(Of nobler temper) steeps the face with light,
Just as our skins are tanned and freckled here; 100
His air was that of a cosmopolite
In the wide universe from sphere to sphere;
Perhaps he was (his face had such grave beauty)
An officer of Saturn's guards off duty.

Both saints began to unfold their tales at once,
Both wished their tales, like simial ones, prehensile,
That they might seize his ear; _fool! knave!_ and _dunce!_
Flew zigzag back and forth, like strokes of pencil
In a child's fingers; voluble as duns,
They jabbered like the stones on that immense hill 110
In the Arabian Nights; until the stranger
Began to think his ear-drums in some danger.

In general those who nothing have to say
Contrive to spend the longest time in doing it;
They turn and vary it in every way,
Hashing it, stewing it, mincing it, _ragouting_ it;
Sometimes they keep it purposely at bay,
Then let it slip to be again pursuing it;
They drone it, groan it, whisper it and shout it,
Refute it, flout it, swear to 't, prove it, doubt it. 120

Our saints had practised for some thirty years;
Their talk, beginning with a single stem,
Spread like a banyan, sending down live piers,
Colonies of digression, and, in them,
Germs of yet new dispersion; once by the ears,
They could convey damnation in a hem,
And blow the pinch of premise-priming off
Long syllogistic batteries, with a cough.

Each had a theory that the human ear
A providential tunnel was, which led 130
To a huge vacuum (and surely here
They showed some knowledge of the general head,)
For cant to be decanted through, a mere
Auricular canal or mill-race fed
All day and night, in sunshine and in shower,
From their vast heads of milk-and-water-power.

The present being a peculiar case,
Each with unwonted zeal the other scouted,
Put his spurred hobby through its every pace, 139
Pished, pshawed, poohed, horribled, bahed, jeered, sneered, flouted,
Sniffed, nonsensed, infideled, fudged, with his face
Looked scorn too nicely shaded to be shouted,
And, with each inch of person and of vesture,
Contrived to hint some most disdainful gesture.

At length, when their breath's end was come about,
And both could now and then just gasp 'impostor!'
Holding their heads thrust menacingly out,
As staggering cocks keep up their fighting posture,
The stranger smiled and said, 'Beyond a doubt
'Tis fortunate, my friends, that you have lost your 150
United parts of speech, or it had been
Impossible for me to get between.

'Produce! says Nature,--what have you produced?
A new strait-waistcoat for the human mind;
Are you not limbed, nerved, jointed, arteried, juiced,
As other men? yet, faithless to your kind,
Rather like noxious insects you are used
To puncture life's fair fruit, beneath the rind
Laying your creed-eggs, whence in time there spring
Consumers new to eat and buzz and sting. 160

'Work! you have no conception how 'twill sweeten
Your views of Life and Nature, God and Man;
Had you been forced to earn what you have eaten,
Your heaven had shown a less dyspeptic plan;
At present your whole function is to eat ten
And talk ten times as rapidly as you can;
Were your shape true to cosmogonic laws,
You would be nothing but a pair of jaws.

'Of all the useless beings in creation
The earth could spare most easily you bakers 170
Of little clay gods, formed in shape and fashion
Precisely in the image of their makers;
Why it would almost move a saint to passion,
To see these blind and deaf, the hourly breakers
Of God's own image in their brother men,
Set themselves up to tell the how, where, when,

'Of God's existence; one's digestion's worse--
So makes a god of vengeance and of blood;
Another,--but no matter, they reverse
Creation's plan, out of their own vile mud 180
Pat up a god, and burn, drown, hang, or curse
Whoever worships not; each keeps his stud
Of texts which wait with saddle on and bridle
To hunt down atheists to their ugly idol.

'This, I perceive, has been your occupation;
You should have been more usefully employed;
All men are bound to earn their daily ration,
Where States make not that primal contract void
By cramps and limits; simple devastation
Is the worm's task, and what he has destroyed 190
His monument; creating is man's work,
And that, too, something more than mist and murk.'

So having said, the youth was seen no more,
And straightway our sage Brahmin, the philosopher,
Cried, 'That was aimed at thee, thou endless bore,
Idle and useless as the growth of moss over
A rotting tree-trunk!' 'I would square that score
Full soon,' replied the Dervise, 'could I cross over
And catch thee by the beard. Thy nails I'd trim
And make thee work, as was advised by him. 200

'Work? Am I not at work from morn till night
Sounding the deeps of oracles umbilical
Which for man's guidance never come to light,
With all their various aptitudes, until I call?'
'And I, do I not twirl from left to right
For conscience' sake? Is that no work? Thou silly gull,
He had thee in his eye; 'twas Gabriel
Sent to reward my faith, I know him well.'

'Twas Vishnu, thou vile whirligig!' and so
The good old quarrel was begun anew; 210
One would have sworn the sky was black as sloe,
Had but the other dared to call it blue;
Nor were the followers who fed them slow
To treat each other with their curses, too,
Each hating t'other (moves it tears or laughter?)
Because he thought him sure of hell hereafter.

At last some genius built a bridge of boats
Over the stream, and Ahmed's zealots filed
Across, upon a mission to (cut throats
And) spread religion pure and undefiled; 220
They sowed the propagandist's wildest oats,
Cutting off all, down to the smallest child,
And came back, giving thanks for such fat mercies,
To find their harvest gone past prayers or curses.

All gone except their saint's religious hops,
Which he kept up with more than common flourish;
But these, however satisfying crops
For the inner man, were not enough to nourish
The body politic, which quickly drops
Reserve in such sad junctures, and turns currish; 230
So Ahmed soon got cursed for all the famine
Where'er the popular voice could edge a damn in.

At first he pledged a miracle quite boldly.
And, for a day or two, they growled and waited;
But, finding that this kind of manna coldly
Sat on their stomachs, they erelong berated
The saint for still persisting in that old lie,
Till soon the whole machine of saintship grated,
Ran slow, creaked, stopped, and, wishing him in Tophet,
They gathered strength enough to stone the prophet. 240

Some stronger ones contrived (by eatting leather,
Their weaker friends, and one thing or another)
The winter months of scarcity to weather;
Among these was the late saint's younger brother,
Who, in the spring, collecting them together,
Persuaded them that Ahmed's holy pother
Had wrought in their behalf, and that the place
Of Saint should be continued to his race.

Accordingly, 'twas settled on the spot
That Allah favored that peculiar breed; 250
Beside, as all were satisfied, 'twould not
Be quite respectable to have the need
Of public spiritual food forgot;
And so the tribe, with proper forms, decreed
That he, and, failing him, his next of kin,
Forever for the people's good should spin.

THE BIGLOW PAPERS

FIRST SERIES

NOTICES OF AN INDEPENDENT PRESS

[I have observed, reader (bene-or male-volent, as it may happen), that it is customary to append to the second editions of books, and to the second works of authors, short sentences commendatory of the first, under the title of _Notices of the Press_. These, I have been given to understand, are procurable at certain established rates, payment being made either in money or advertising patronage by the publisher, or by an adequate outlay of servility on the part of the author. Considering these things with myself, and also that such notices are neither intended, nor generally believed, to convey any real opinions, being a purely ceremonial accompaniment of literature, and resembling certificates to the virtues of various morbiferal panaceas, I conceived that it would be not only more economical to prepare a sufficient number of such myself, but also more immediately subservient to the end in view to prefix them to this our primary edition rather than to await the contingency of a second, when they would seem to be of small utility. To delay attaching the _bobs_ until the second attempt at flying the kite would indicate but a slender experience in that useful art. Neither has it escaped my notice nor failed to afford me matter of reflection, that, when a circus or a caravan is about to visit Jaalam, the initial step is to send forward large and highly ornamented bills of performance, to be hung in the bar-room and the post-office. These having been sufficiently gazed at, and beginning to lose their attractiveness except for the flies, and, truly, the boys also (in whom I find it impossible to repress, even during school-hours, certain oral and telegraphic communications concerning the expected show), upon some fine morning the band enters in a gayly painted wagon, or triumphal chariot, and with noisy advertisement, by means of brass, wood, and sheepskin, makes the circuit of our startled village streets. Then, as the exciting sounds draw nearer and nearer, do I desiderate those eyes of Aristarchus, 'whose looks were as a breeching to a boy.' Then do I perceive, with vain regret of wasted opportunities, the advantage of a pancratic or pantechnic education, since he is most reverenced by my little subjects who can throw the cleanest summerset or walk most securely upon the revolving cask. The story of the Pied Piper becomes for the first time credible to me (albeit confirmed by the Hameliners dating their legal instruments from the period of his exit), as I behold how those strains, without pretence of magical potency, bewitch the pupillary legs, nor leave to the pedagogic an entire self-control. For these reasons, lest my kingly prerogative should suffer diminution, I prorogue my restless commons, whom I follow into the street, chiefly lest some mischief may chance befall them. After the manner of such a band, I send forward the following notices of domestic manufacture, to make brazen proclamation, not unconscious of the advantage which will accrue, if our little craft, _cymbula sutilis_, shall seem to leave port with a clipping breeze, and to carry, in nautical phrase, a bone in her mouth. Nevertheless, I have chosen, as being more equitable, to prepare some also sufficiently objurgatory, that readers of every taste may find a dish to their palate. I have modelled them upon actually existing specimens, preserved in my own cabinet of natural curiosities. One, in particular, I had copied with tolerable exactness from a notice of one of my own discourses, which, from its superior tone and appearance of vast experience, I concluded to have been written by a man at least three hundred years of age, though I recollected no existing instance of such antediluvian longevity. Nevertheless, I afterwards discovered the author to be a young gentleman preparing for the ministry under the direction of one of my brethren in a neighboring town, and whom I had once instinctively corrected in a Latin quantity. But this I have been forced to omit, from its too great length.--H.W.]

* * * * *

_From the Universal Littery Universe_.

Full of passages which rivet the attention of the reader.... Under a rustic garb, sentiments are conveyed which should be committed to the memory and engraven on the heart of every moral and social being.... We consider this a _unique_ performance.... We hope to see it soon introduced into our common schools.... Mr. Wilbur has performed his duties as editor with excellent taste and judgment.... This is a vein which we hope to see successfully prosecuted.... We hail the appearance of this work as a long stride toward the formation of a purely aboriginal, indigenous, native, and American literature. We rejoice to meet with an author national enough to break away from the slavish deference, too common among us, to English grammar and orthography.... Where all is so good, we are at a loss how to make extracts.... On the whole, we may call it a volume which no library, pretending to entire completeness, should fail to place upon its shelves.

* * * * *

_From the Higginbottomopolis Snapping-turtle_.

A collection of the merest balderdash and doggerel that it was ever our bad fortune to lay eyes on. The author is a vulgar buffoon, and the editor a talkative, tedious old fool. We use strong language, but should any of our readers peruse the book, (from which calamity Heaven preserve them!) they will find reasons for it thick as the leaves of Vallum-brozer, or, to use a still more expressive comparison, as the combined heads of author and editor. The work is wretchedly got up.... We should like to know how much _British gold_ was pocketed by this libeller of our country and her purest patriots.

* * * * *

_From the Oldfogrumville Mentor_.

We have not had time to do more than glance through this handsomely printed volume, but the name of its respectable editor, the Rev. Mr. Wilbur, of Jaalam, will afford a sufficient guaranty for the worth of its contents.... The paper is white, the type clear, and the volume of a convenient and attractive size.... In reading this elegantly executed work, it has seemed to us that a passage or two might have been retrenched with advantage, and that the general style of diction was susceptible of a higher polish.... On the whole, we may safely leave the ungrateful task of criticism to the reader. We will barely suggest, that in volumes intended, as this is, for the illustration of a provincial dialect and turns of expression, a dash of humor or satire might be thrown in with advantage.... The work is admirably got up.... This work will form an appropriate ornament to the centre table. It is beautifully printed, on paper of an excellent quality.

* * * * *

_From the Dekay Bulwark_.

We should be wanting in our duty as the conductor of that tremendous engine, a public press, as an American, and as a man, did we allow such an opportunity as is presented to us by 'The Biglow Papers' to pass by without entering our earnest protest against such attempts (now, alas! too common) at demoralizing the public sentiment. Under a wretched mask of stupid drollery, slavery, war, the social glass, and, in short, all the valuable and time-honored institutions justly dear to our common humanity and especially to republicans, are made the butt of coarse and senseless ribaldry by this low-minded scribbler. It is time that the respectable and religious portion of our community should be aroused to the alarming inroads of foreign Jacobinism, sansculottism, and infidelity. It is a fearful proof of the widespread nature of this contagion, that these secret stabs at religion and virtue are given from under the cloak (_credite, posteri!_) of a clergyman. It is a mournful spectacle indeed to the patriot and Christian to see liberality and new ideas (falsely so called,--they are as old as Eden) invading the sacred precincts of the pulpit.... On the whole, we consider this volume as one of the first shocking results which we predicted would spring out of the late French 'Revolution' (!)

* * * * *

_From the Bungtown Copper and Comprehensive Tocsin (a try-weakly family journal)_.

Altogether an admirable work.... Full of humor, boisterous, but delicate,--of wit withering and scorching, yet combined with a pathos cool as morning dew,--of satire ponderous as the mace of Richard, yet keen as the scymitar of Saladin.... A work full of 'mountain-mirth,' mischievous as Puck, and lightsome as Ariel.... We know not whether to admire most the genial, fresh, and discursive concinnity of the author, or his playful fancy, weird imagination, and compass of style, at once both objective and subjective.... We might indulge in some criticisms, but, were the author other than he is, he would be a different being. As it is, he has a wonderful _pose_, which flits from flower to flower, and bears the reader irresistibly along on its eagle pinions (like Ganymede) to the 'highest heaven of invention.' ... We love a book so purely objective ... Many of his pictures of natural scenery have an extraordinary subjective clearness and fidelity.... In fine, we consider this as one of the most extraordinary volumes of this or any age. We know of no English author who could have written it. It is a work to which the proud genius of our country, standing with one foot on the Aroostook and the other on the Rio Grande, and holding up the star-spangled banner amid the wreck of matter and the crush of worlds, may point with bewildering scorn of the punier efforts of enslaved Europe.... We hope soon to encounter our author among those higher walks of literature in which he is evidently capable of achieving enduring fame. Already we should be inclined to assign him a high position in the bright galaxy of our American bards.

* * * * *

_From the Saltriver Pilot and Flag of Freedom._

A volume in bad grammar and worse taste.... While the pieces here collected were confined to their appropriate sphere in the corners of obscure newspapers, we considered them wholly beneath contempt, but, as the author has chosen to come forward in this public manner, he must expect the lash he so richly merits.... Contemptible slanders.... Vilest Billingsgate.... Has raked all the gutters of our language.... The most pure, upright, and consistent politicians not safe from his malignant venom.... General Cushing comes in for a share of his vile calumnies.... The _Reverend_ Homer Wilbur is a disgrace to his cloth....

* * * * *

_From the World-Harmonic-Æolian-Attachment_.

Speech is silver: silence is golden. No utterance more Orphic than this. While, therefore, as highest author, we reverence him whose works continue heroically unwritten, we have also our hopeful word for those who with pen (from wing of goose loud-cackling, or seraph God-commissioned) record the thing that is revealed.... Under mask of quaintest irony, we detect here the deep, storm-tost (nigh ship-wracked) soul, thunder-scarred, semi-articulate, but ever climbing hopefully toward the peaceful summits of an Infinite Sorrow.... Yes, thou poor, forlorn Hosea, with Hebrew fire-flaming soul in thee, for thee also this life of ours has not been without its aspects of heavenliest pity and laughingest mirth. Conceivable enough! Through coarse Thersites-cloak, we have revelation of the heart, wild-glowing, world-clasping, that is in him. Bravely he grapples with the life-problem as it presents itself to him, uncombed, shaggy, careless of the 'nicer proprieties,' inexpert of 'elegant diction,' yet with voice audible enough to whoso hath ears, up there on the gravelly side-hills, or down on the splashy, indiarubber-like salt-marshes of native Jaalam. To this soul also the _Necessity of Creating_ somewhat has unveiled its awful front. If not Oedipuses and Electras and Alcestises, then in God's name Birdofredum Sawins! These also shall get born into the world, and filch (if so need) a Zingali subsistence therein, these lank, omnivorous Yankees of his. He shall paint the Seen, since the Unseen will not sit to him. Yet in him also are Nibelungen-lays, and Iliads, and Ulysses-wanderings, and Divine Comedies,--if only once he could come at them! Therein lies much, nay all; for what truly is this which we name _All_, but that which we do _not_ possess?... Glimpses also are given us of an old father Ezekiel, not without paternal pride, as is the wont of such. A brown, parchment-hided old man of the geoponic or bucolic species, gray-eyed, we fancy, _queued_ perhaps, with much weather-cunning and plentiful September-gale memories, bidding fair in good time to become the Oldest Inhabitant. After such hasty apparition, he vanishes and is seen no more.... Of 'Rev. Homer Wilbur, A.M., Pastor of the First Church in Jaalam,' we have small care to speak here. Spare touch in him of his Melesigenes namesake, save, haply, the--blindness! A tolerably caliginose, nephelegeretous elderly gentleman, with infinite faculty of sermonizing, muscularized by long practice and excellent digestive apparatus, and, for the rest, well-meaning enough, and with small private illuminations (somewhat tallowy, it is to be feared) of his own. To him, there, 'Pastor of the First Church in Jaalam,' our Hosea presents himself as a quite inexplicable Sphinx-riddle. A rich poverty of Latin and Greek,--so far is clear enough, even to eyes peering myopic through horn-lensed editorial spectacles,--but naught farther? O purblind, well-meaning, altogether fuscous Melesigenes-Wilbur, there are things in him incommunicable by stroke of birch! Did it ever enter that old bewildered head of thine that there was the _Possibility of the Infinite_ in him? To thee, quite wingless (and even featherless) biped, has not so much even as a dream of wings ever come? 'Talented young parishioner'? Among the Arts whereof thou art _Magister_, does that of _seeing_ happen to be one? Unhappy _Artium Magister!_ Somehow a Nemean lion, fulvous, torrid-eyed, dry-nursed in broad-howling sand-wildernesses of a sufficiently rare spirit-Libya (it may be supposed) has got whelped among the sheep. Already he stands wild-glaring, with feet clutching the ground as with oak-roots, gathering for a Remus-spring over the walls of thy little fold. In heaven's name, go not near him with that flybite crook of thine! In good time, thou painful preacher, thou wilt go to the appointed place of departed Artillery-Election Sermons, Right-hands of Fellowship, and Results of Councils, gathered to thy spiritual fathers with much Latin of the Epitaphial sort; thou too, shalt have thy reward; but on him the Eumenides have looked, not Xantippes of the pit, snake-tressed, finger-threatening, but radiantly calm as on antique gems; for him paws impatient the winged courser of the gods, champing unwelcome bit; him the starry deeps, the empyrean glooms, and far-flashing splendors await.

* * * * *

_From the Onion Grove Phoenix._

A talented young townsman of ours, recently returned from a Continental tour, and who is already favorably known to our readers by his sprightly letters from abroad which have graced our columns, called at our office yesterday. We learn from him, that, having enjoyed the distinguished privilege, while in Germany, of an introduction to the celebrated Von Humbug, he took the opportunity to present that eminent man with a copy of the 'Biglow Papers.' The next morning he received the following note, which he has kindly furnished us for publication. We prefer to print it _verbatim_, knowing that our readers will readily forgive the few errors into which the lllustrious writer has fallen, through ignorance of our language.

'HIGH-WORTHY MISTER!

'I shall also now especially happy starve, because I have more or less a work of one those aboriginal Red-Men seen in which have I so deaf an interest ever taken full-worthy on the self shelf with our Gottsched to be upset.

'Pardon my in the English-speech un-practice!

'Von Humbug.'

He also sent with the above note a copy of his famous work on 'Cosmetics,' to be presented to Mr. Biglow; but this was taken from our friend by the English custom-house officers, probably through a petty national spite. No doubt, it has by this time found its way into the British Museum. We trust this outrage will be exposed in all our American papers. We shall do our best to bring it to the notice of the State Department. Our numerous readers will share in the pleasure we experience at seeing our young and vigorous national literature thus encouragingly patted on the head by this venerable and world-renowned German. We love to see these reciprocations of good-feeling between the different branches of the great Anglo-Saxon race.

[The following genuine 'notice' having met my eye, I gladly insert a portion of it here, the more especially as it contains one of Mr. Biglow's poems not elsewhere printed.--H.W.]

_From the Jaalam Independent Blunderbuss._

... But, while we lament to see our young townsman thus mingling in the heated contests of party politics, we think we detect in him the presence of talents which, if properly directed, might give an innocent pleasure to many. As a proof that he is competent to the production of other kinds of poetry, we copy for our readers a short fragment of a pastoral by him, the manuscript of which was loaned us by a friend. The title of it is 'The Courtin'.'

Zekle crep' up, quite unbeknown,
An' peeked in thru the winder,
An' there sot Huldy all alone,
'ith no one nigh to hender.

Agin' the chimbly crooknecks hung,
An' in amongst 'em rusted
The ole queen's-arm thet gran'ther Young
Fetched back frum Concord busted.

The wannut logs shot sparkles out
Towards the pootiest, bless her!
An' leetle fires danced all about
The chlny on the dresser.

The very room, coz she wuz in,
Looked warm frum floor to ceilin',
An' she looked full ez rosy agin
Ez th' apples she wuz peelin'.

She heerd a foot an' knowed it, tu,
Araspin' on the scraper,--
All ways to once her feelins flew
Like sparks in burnt-up paper.

He kin' o' l'itered on the mat,
Some doubtfle o' the seekle;
His heart kep' goin' pitypat,
But hern went pity Zekle.

An' yet she gin her cheer a jerk
Ez though she wished him furder,
An' on her apples kep' to work
Ez ef a wager spurred her.

'You want to see my Pa, I spose?'
'Wall, no; I come designin'--'
'To see my Ma? She's sprinklin' clo'es
Agin to-morrow's i'nin'.'

He stood a spell on one foot fust,
Then stood a spell on tother,
An' on which one he felt the wust
He couldn't ha' told ye, nuther.

Sez he, 'I'd better call agin;'
Sez she,'Think likely, _Mister;_'
The last word pricked him like a pin,
An'--wal, he up and kist her.

When Ma bimeby upon 'em slips,
Huldy sot pale ez ashes,
All kind o'smily round the lips
An' teary round the lashes.

Her blood riz quick, though, like the tide
Down to the Bay o' Fundy,
An' all I know is they wuz cried
In meetin', come nex Sunday.

SATIS multis sese emptores futuros libri professis, Georgius Nichols, Cantabrigiensis, opus emittet de parte gravi sed adhuc neglecta historiæ naturalis, cum titulo sequente, videlicet:

_Conatus ad Delineationem naturalem nonnihil perfectiorem Scarabæi Bombilatoris, vulgo dicti_ HUMBUG, ab HOMERO WILBUR, Artium Magistro, Societatis historico-naturalis Jaalamensis Præside (Secretario, Socioque (eheu!) singulo), multarumque aliarum Societatum eruditarum (sive ineruditarum) tam domesticarum quam transmarinarum Socio--forsitan futuro.

PROEMIUM

LECTORI BENEVOLO S.

Toga scholastica nondum deposita, quum systemata varia entomologica, a viris ejus scientiæ cultoribus studiosissimis summa diligentia ædificata, penitus indagassem, non fuit quin luctuose omnibus in iis, quamvis aliter laude dignissimis, hiatum magni momenti perciperem. Tunc, nescio quo motu superiore impulsus, aut qua captus dulcedine operis, ad eum implendum (Curtius alter) me solemniter devovi. Nec ab isto labore, [Greek: daimonios] imposito, abstinui antequam tractatulum sufficienter inconcinnum lingua vernacula perfeceram. Inde, juveniliter tumefactus, et barathro ineptiæ [Greek: ton bibliopolon] (necnon 'Publici Legentis') nusquam explorato, me composuisse quod quasi placentas præfervidas (ut sic dicam) homines ingurgitarent credidi. Sed, quum huic et alio bibliopolæ MSS. mea submisissem et nihil solidius responsione valde negativa in Musæum meum retulissem, horror ingens atque misericordia, ob crassitudinem Lambertianam in cerebris homunculorum istius muneris coelesti quadam ira infixam, me invasere. Extemplo mei solius impensis librum edere decrevi, nihil omnino dubitans quin 'Mundus Scientificus' (ut aiunt) crumenam meam ampliter repleret. Nullam, attamen, ex agro illo meo parvulo segetem demessui præter gaudium vacuum bene de Republica merendi. Iste panis meus pretiosus super aquas literarias fæculentas præfidenter jactus, quasi Harpyiaram quarundam (scilicet bibliopolarum istorum facinorosorum supradictorum) tactu rancidus, intra perpaucos dies mihi domum rediit. Et, quum ipse tali victu ali non tolerarem, primum in mentem venit pistori (typographo nempe) nihilominus solvendum esse. Animum non idcirco demisi, imo æque ac pueri naviculas suas penes se lino retinent (eo ut e recto cursu delapsas ad ripam retrahant), sic ego Argâ meam chartaceam fluctibus laborantem a quæsitu velleris aurei, ipse potius tonsus pelleque exutus, mente solida revocavi. Metaphoram ut mutem, _boomarangam_ meam a scopo aberrantem, retraxi, dum majore vi, occasione ministrante, adversus Fortunam intorquerem. Ast mihi, talia volventi, et, sicut Saturnus ille [Greek: paidoboros], liberos intellectûs mei depascere fidenti, casus miserandus, nec antea inauditus, supervenit. Nam, ut ferunt Scythas pietatis causa et parsimoniæ, parentes suos mortuos devorâsse, sic filius hic meus primogenitus, Scythis ipsis minus mansuetus, patrem vivum totum et calcitrantem exsorbere enixus est. Nec tamen hac de causa sobolem meam esurientem exheredavi. Sed famem istam pro valido testimonio virilitatis roborisque potius habui, cibumque ad eam satiandam, salva paterna mea carne, petii. Et quia bilem illam scaturientem ad æs etiam concoquendum idoneam esse estimabam, unde æs alienum, ut minoris pretii, haberem, circumspexi. Rebus ita se habentibus, ab avunculo meo Johanne Doolittie, Armigero, impetravi ut pecunias necessarias suppeditaret, ne opus esset mihi universitatem relinquendi antequam ad gradum primum in artibus pervenissem. Tune ego, salvum facere patronum meum munificum maxime cupiens, omnes libros primæ editionis operis mei non venditos una cum privilegio in omne ævum ejusdem imprimendi et edendi avunculo meo dicto pigneravi. Ex illo die, atro lapide notando, curæ vociferantes familiæ singulis annis crescentis eo usque insultabant ut nunquam tam carum pignus e vinculis istis aheneis solvere possem.

Avunculo vero nuper mortuo, quum inter alios consanguineos testamenti ejus lectionem audiendi causa advenissem, erectis auribus verba talia sequentia accepi: 'Quoniam persuasum habeo meum dilectum nepotem Homerum, longa et intima rerum angustarum domi experientia, aptissimum esse qui divitias tueatur, beneficenterque ac prudenter iis divinis creditis utatur,--ergo, motus hisce cogitationibus, exque amore meo in illum magno, do, legoque nepoti caro meo supranominato omnes singularesque istas possessiones nec ponderabiles nec computabiles meas quæ sequuntur, scilicet: quingentos libros quos mihi pigneravit dictus Homerus, anno lucis 1792, cum privilegio edendi et repetendi opus istud "scientificum" (quod dicunt) suum, si sic elegerit. Tamen D.O.M, precor oculos Homeri nepotis mei ita aperiat eumque moveat, ut libros istos in bibliotheca unius e plurimis castellis suis Hispaniensibus tuto abscondat.'

His verbis vix credibilibus, auditis, cor meum in pectore exsultavit. Deinde, quoniam tractatus Anglice scriptus spem auctoris fefellerat, quippe quum studium Historiæ Naturalis in Republica nostra inter factionis strepitum languescat, Latine versum edere statui, et eo potius quia nescio quomodo disciplina academica et duo diplomata proficiant, nisi quod peritos linguarum omnino mortuarum (et damnandarum, ut dicebat iste [Greek: panourgos] Guilielmus Cobbett) nos faciant.

Et mihi adhue superstes est tota illa editio prima, quam quasi crepitaculum per quod dentes caninos dentibam retineo.

* * * * *

OPERIS SPECIMEN

(_Ad exemplum Johannis Physiophili speciminis Monachologiæ_)

12. S.B. _Militaris_, WILBUR. _Carnifex_, JABLONSK. _Profanus_, DESFONT.

[Male hanece speciem _Cyclopem_ Fabricius vocat, ut qui singulo oculo ad quod sui interest distinguitur. Melius vero Isaacus Outis nullum inter S. milit. S. que Belzebul (Fabric. 152) discrimen esse defendit]

Habitat civitat. Americ. austral.

Aureis lineis splendidus; plerumque tamen sordidus, utpote lanienas valde frequentans, foetore sanguinis allectus. Amat quoque insuper septa apricari, neque inde, nisi maxima conatione detruditur. _Candidatus_ ergo populariter vocatus. Caput cristam quasi pennarum ostendit. Pro cibo vaccam publicam callide mulget; abdomen enorme; facultas suctus haud facile estimanda. Otiosus, fatuus; ferox nihilominus, semperque dimicare paratus. Tortuose repit.

Capite sæpe maxima cum cura dissecto, ne illud rudimentum etiam cerebri commune omnibus prope insectis detegere poteram.

Unam de hoc S. milit. rem singularem notavi; nam S. Guineens. (Fabric. 143) servos facit, et idcirco a multis summa in reverentia habitus, quasi scintillas rationis pæne humanæ demonstrans.

24. S.B. _Criticus_, WILBUR. _Zoilus_, FABRIC. _Pygmæus_, CARLSEN.

[Stultissime Johannes Stryx cum S. punctato (Fabric. 64-109) confundit. Specimina quamplurima scrutationi microscopicæ subjeci, nunquam tamen unum ulla indicia puncti cujusvis prorsus ostendentem inveni.]

Præcipue formidolosus, insectatusque, in proxima rima anonyma sese abscondit, _we, we_, creberrime stridens. Ineptus, segnipes.

Habitat ubique gentium; in sicco; nidum suum terebratione indefessa ædificans. Cibus. Libros depascit; siccos præcipue.

MELIBOEUS-HIPPONAX

* * * * *

THE

Biglow Papers

EDITED,

WITH AN INTRODUCTION, NOTES, GLOSSARY, AND COPIOUS INDEX,

BY

HOMER WILBUR, A.M.,

PASTOR OF THE FIRST CHURCH IN JAALAM, AND (PROSPECTIVE) MEMBER OF MANY LITERARY, LEARNED, AND SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES,

(_for which see page 227_.)

The ploughman's whistle, or the trivial flute, Finds more respect than great Apollo's lute. _Quarles's Emblems_, B. ii. E. 8.

Margaritas, munde porcine, calcasti: en, siliquas accipe. _Jac. Car. Fil. ad Pub. Leg._ Section 1.

NOTE TO TITLE-PAGE

It will not have escaped the attentive eye, that I have, on the title-page, omitted those honorary appendages to the editorial name which not only add greatly to the value of every book, but whet and exacerbate the appetite of the reader. For not only does he surmise that an honorary membership of literary and scientific societies implies a certain amount of necessary distinction on the part of the recipient of such decorations, but he is willing to trust himself more entirely to an author who writes under the fearful responsibility of involving the reputation of such bodies as the _S. Archæol. Dahom._ or the _Acad. Lit. et Scient. Kamtschat_. I cannot but think that the early editions of Shakespeare and Milton would have met with more rapid and general acceptance, but for the barrenness of their respective title-pages; and I believe that, even now, a publisher of the works of either of those justly distinguished men would find his account in procuring their admission to the membership of learned bodies on the Continent,--a proceeding no whit more incongruous than the reversal of the judgment against Socrates, when he was already more than twenty centuries beyond the reach of antidotes, and when his memory had acquired a deserved respectability. I conceive that it was a feeling of the importance of this precaution which induced Mr. Locke to style himself 'Gent.' on the title-page of his Essay, as who should say to his readers that they could receive his metaphysics on the honor of a gentleman.

Nevertheless, finding that, without descending to a smaller size of type than would have been compatible with the dignity of the several societies to be named, I could not compress my intended list within the limits of a single page, and thinking, moreover, that the act would carry with it an air of decorous modesty, I have chosen to take the reader aside, as it were, into my private closet, and there not only exhibit to him the diplomas which I already possess, but also to furnish him with a prophetic vision of those which I may, without undue presumption, hope for, as not beyond the reach of human ambition and attainment. And I am the rather induced to this from the fact that my name has been unaccountably dropped from the last triennial catalogue of our beloved _Alma Mater_. Whether this is to be attributed to the difficulty of Latinizing any of those honorary adjuncts (with a complete list of which I took care to furnish the proper persons nearly a year beforehand), or whether it had its origin in any more culpable motives, I forbear to consider in this place, the matter being in course of painful investigation. But, however this may be, I felt the omission the more keenly, as I had, in expectation of the new catalogue, enriched the library of the Jaalam Athenæum with the old one then in my possession, by which means it has come about that my children will be deprived of a never-wearying winter evening's amusement in looking out the name of their parent in that distinguished roll. Those harmless innocents had at least committed no--but I forbear, having intrusted my reflections and animadversions on this painful topic to the safe-keeping of my private diary, intended for posthumous publication. I state this fact here, in order that certain nameless individuals, who are, perhaps, overmuch congratulating themselves upon my silence, may know that a rod is in pickle which the vigorous hand of a justly incensed posterity will apply to their memories.

The careful reader will note that, in the list which I have prepared, I have included the names of several Cisatlantic societies to which a place is not commonly assigned in processions of this nature. I have ventured to do this, not only to encourage native ambition and genius, but also because I have never been able to perceive in what way distance (unless we suppose them at the end of a lever) could increase the weight of learned bodies. As far as I have been able to extend my researches among such stuffed specimens as occasionally reach America, I have discovered no generic difference between the antipodal _Fogrum Japonicum_ and the _F. Americanum_, sufficiently common in our own immediate neighborhood. Yet, with a becoming deference to the popular belief that distinctions of this sort are enhanced in value by every additional mile they travel, I have intermixed the names of some tolerably distant literary and other associations with the rest.

I add here, also, an advertisement, which, that it may be the more readily understood by those persons especially interested therein, I have written in that curtailed and otherwise maltreated canine Latin, to the writing and reading of which they are accustomed.

OMNIB. PER TOT. ORB. TERRAR. CATALOG. ACADEM, EDD.

Minim. gent, diplom. ab inclytiss. acad. vest. orans, vir. honorand. operosiss., at sol. ut sciat. quant. glor. nom. meum (dipl. fort. concess.) catal. vest. temp. futur. affer., ill. subjec., addit. omnib. titul. honorar. qu. adh. non tant. opt. quam probab. put.

*** _Litt. Uncial, distinx. ut Præs. S. Hist. Nat. Jaal_.

HOMERUS WILBUR, Mr., Episc. Jaalam, S.T.D. 1850, et Yal. 1849, et Neo-Cæs. et Brun. et Gulielm. 1852, et Gul. et Mar. et Bowd. et Georgiop. et Viridimont. et Columb. Nov. Ebor. 1853, et Amherst. et Watervill. et S. Jarlath. Hib. et S. Mar. et S. Joseph, et S. And. Scot. 1854. et Nashvill. et Dart. et Dickins. et Concord. et Wash. et Columbian. et Charlest. et Jeff. et Dubl. et Oxon. et Cantab. et Cæt. 1855. P.U.N.C.H. et J.U.D. Gott. et Osnab. et Heidelb. 1860, et Acad. BORE US. Berolin. Soc., et SS. RR. Lugd. Bat. et Patav. et Lond. et Edinb. et Ins. Feejee. et Null. Terr. et Pekin. Soc. Hon. et S.H.S et S.P.A. et A.A.S. et S. Humb. Univ. et S. Omn. Rer. Quarund. q. Aliar. Promov. Passamaquod. et H.P.C. et I.O.H, et [Greek: A.D.Ph.] et [Greek: P.K.P.] et [Greek: Ph.B.K.] et Peucin. et Erosoph. et Philadelph. et Frat. in Unit. et [Greek: S.T.] et S. Archæolog. Athen. et Acad. Scient, et Lit. Panorm. et SS.R.H. Matrit. et Beeloochist. et Caffrar. et Caribb. et M.S. Reg. Paris, et S. Am. Antiserv. Soc. Hon. et P.D. Gott. et LL.D. 1852, et D.C.L. et Mus. Doc. Oxon. 1860, et M.M.S.S. et M.D. 1854, et Med. Fac. Univ. Harv. Soc. et S. pro Convers. Pollywog. Soc. Hon. et Higgl. Piggl. et LL.B. 1853, et S. pro Christianiz. Moschet. Soc. et SS. Ante-Diluv. ubiq. Gent. Soc. Hon. et Civit. Cleric. Jaalam. et S. pro Diffus. General. Tenebr. Secret. Corr.