Chapter XVIII: Introduction (5)

It is not from any idle wish to obtrude my humble person with undue prominence upon the publick view that I resume my pen upon the present occasion. _Juniores ad labores_. But having been a main instrument in rescuing the talent of my young parishioner from being buried in the ground, by giving it such warrant with the world as could be derived from a name already widely known by several printed discourses (all of which I may be permitted without immodesty to state have been deemed worthy of preservation in the Library of Harvard College by my esteemed friend Mr. Sibley), it seemed becoming that I should not only testify to the genuineness of the following production, but call attention to it, the more as Mr. Biglow had so long been silent as to be in danger of absolute oblivion. I insinuate no claim to any share in the authorship (_vix ea nostra voco_) of the works already published by Mr. Biglow, but merely take to myself the credit of having fulfilled toward them the office of taster (_experto crede_), who, having first tried, could afterward bear witness (_credenzen_ it was aptly named by the Germans), an office always arduous, and sometimes even dangerous, as in the case of those devoted persons who venture their lives in the deglutition of patent medicines (_dolus latet in generalibus_, there is deceit in the most of them) and thereafter are wonderfully preserved long enough to append their signatures to testimonials in the diurnal and hebdomadal prints. I say not this as covertly glancing at the authors of certain manuscripts which have been submitted to my literary judgment (though an epick in twenty-four books on the 'Taking of Jericho' might, save for the prudent forethought of Mrs. Wilbur in secreting the same just as I had arrived beneath the walls and was beginning a catalogue of the various horns and their blowers, too ambitiously emulous in longanimity of Homer's list of ships, might, I say, have rendered frustrate any hope I could entertain _vacare Musis_ for the small remainder of my days), but only the further to secure myself against any imputation of unseemly forthputting. I will barely subjoin, in this connexion, that, whereas Job was left to desire, in the soreness of his heart, that his adversary had written a book, as perchance misanthropically wishing to indite a review thereof, yet was not Satan allowed so far to tempt him as to send Bildad, Eliphaz, and Zophar each with an unprinted work in his wallet to be submitted to his censure. But of this enough. Were I in need of other excuse, I might add that I write by the express desire of Mr. Biglow himself, whose entire winter leisure is occupied, as he assures me, in answering demands for autographs, a labor exacting enough in itself, and egregiously so to him, who, being no ready penman, cannot sign so much as his name without strange contortions of the face (his nose, even, being essential to complete success) and painfully suppressed Saint-Vitus-dance of every muscle in his body. This, with his having been put in the Commission of the Peace by our excellent Governor (_O, si sic omnes!_) immediately on his accession to office, keeps him continually employed. _Haud inexpertus loquor_, having for many years written myself J.P., and being not seldom applied to for specimens of my chirography, a request to which I have sometimes over weakly assented, believing as I do that nothing written of set purpose can properly be called an autograph, but only those unpremeditated sallies and lively runnings which betray the fireside Man instead of the hunted Notoriety doubling on his pursuers. But it is time that I should bethink me of St. Austin's prayer, _libera me a meipso_, if I would arrive at the matter in hand.

Moreover, I had yet another reason for taking up the pen myself. I am informed that 'The Atlantic Monthly' is mainly indebted for its success to the contributions and editorial supervision of Dr. Holmes, whose excellent 'Annals of America' occupy an honored place upon my shelves. The journal itself I have never seen; but if this be so, it might seem that the recommendation of a brother-clergyman (though _par magis quam similis_) should carry a greater weight. I suppose that you have a department for historical lucubrations, and should be glad, if deemed desirable, to forward for publication my 'Collections for the Antiquities of Jaalam,' and my (now happily complete) pedigree of the Wilbur family from its _fons et origo_, the Wild Boar of Ardennes. Withdrawn from the active duties of my profession by the settlement of a colleague-pastor, the Reverend Jeduthun Hitchcock, formerly of Brutus Four-Corners, I might find time for further contributions to general literature on similar topicks. I have made large advances towards a completer genealogy of Mrs. Wilbur's family, the Pilcoxes, not, if I know myself, from any idle vanity, but with the sole desire of rendering myself useful in my day and generation. _Nulla dies sine lineâ_. I inclose a meteorological register, a list of the births, deaths, and marriages, and a few _memorabilia_ of longevity in Jaalam East Parish for the last half-century. Though spared to the unusual period of more than eighty years, I find no diminution of my faculties or abatement of my natural vigor, except a scarcely sensible decay of memory and a necessity of recurring to younger eyesight or spectacles for the finer print in Cruden. It would gratify me to make some further provision for declining years from the emoluments of my literary labors. I had intended to effect an insurance on my life, but was deterred therefrom by a circular from one of the offices, in which the sudden death of so large a proportion of the insured was set forth as an inducement, that it seemed to me little less than a tempting of Providence. _Neque in summâ inopiâ levis esse senectus potest, ne sapienti quidem_.

Thus far concerning Mr. Biglow; and so much seemed needful (_brevis esse laboro_) by way of preliminary, after a silence of fourteen years. He greatly fears lest he may in this essay have fallen below himself, well knowing that, if exercise be dangerous on a full stomach, no less so is writing on a full reputation. Beset as he has been on all sides, he could not refrain, and would only imprecate patience till he shall again have 'got the hang' (as he calls it) of an accomplishment long disused. The letter of Mr. Sawin was received some time in last June, and others have followed which will in due season be submitted to the publick. How largely his statements are to be depended on, I more than merely dubitate. He was always distinguished for a tendency to exaggeration,--it might almost be qualified by a stronger term. _Fortiter mentire, aliquid hæret_ seemed to be his favorite rule of rhetoric. That he is actually where he says he is the postmark would seem to confirm; that he was received with the publick demonstrations he describes would appear consonant with what we know of the habits of those regions; but further than this I venture not to decide. I have sometimes suspected a vein of humor in him which leads him to speak by contraries; but since, in the unrestrained intercourse of private life, I have never observed in him any striking powers of invention, I am the more willing to put a certain qualified faith in the incidents and the details of life and manners which give to his narratives some portion of the interest and entertainment which characterizes a Century Sermon.

It may be expected of me that I should say something to justify myself with the world for a seeming inconsistency with my well-known principles in allowing my youngest son to raise a company for the war, a fact known to all through the medium of the publick prints. I did reason with the young man, but _expellas naturam furcâ tamen usque recurrit_. Having myself been a chaplain in 1812, I could the less wonder that a man of war had sprung from my loins. It was, indeed, grievous to send my Benjamin, the child of my old age; but after the discomfiture of Manassas, I with my own hands did buckle on his armor, trusting in the great Comforter and Commander for strength according to my need. For truly the memory of a brave son dead in his shroud were a greater staff of my declining years than a living coward (if those may be said to have lived who carry all of themselves into the grave with them), though his days might be long in the land, and he should get much goods. It is not till our earthen vessels are broken that we find and truly possess the treasure that was laid up in them. _Migravi in animam meam_, I have sought refuge in my own soul; nor would I be shamed by the heathen comedian with his _Neqwam illud verbum, bene vult, nisi bene facit_. During our dark days, I read constantly in the inspired book of Job, which I believe to contain more food to maintain the fibre of the soul for right living and high thinking than all pagan literature together, though I would by no means vilipend the study of the classicks. There I read that Job said in his despair, even as the fool saith in his heart there is no God,--'The tabernacles of robbers prosper, and they that provoke God are secure.' (Job xii. 6.) But I sought farther till I found this Scripture also, which I would have those perpend who have striven to turn our Israel aside to the worship of strange gods.--'If I did despise the cause of my manservant or of my maid-servant, when they contended with me, what then shall I do when God riseth up? and when he visiteth, what shall I answer him?' (Job xxxi. 13, 14.) On this text I preached a discourse on the last day of Fasting and Humiliation with general acceptance, though there were not wanting one or two Laodiceans who said that I should have waited till the President announced his policy. But let us hope and pray, remembering this of Saint Gregory, _Vult Deus rogari, vult cogi, vult quâdam importunitate vinci_.

We had our first fall of snow on Friday last. Frosts have been unusually backward this fall. A singular circumstance occurred in this town on the 20th October, in the family of Deacon Pelatiah Tinkham. On the previous evening, a few moments before family prayers,

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[The editors of the 'Atlantic' find it necessary here to cut short the letter of their valued correspondent, which seemed calculated rather on the rates of longevity in Jaalam than for less favored localities. They have every encouragement to hope that he will write again.]

With esteem and respect, Your obedient servant, Homer Wilbur, A.M.

It's some consid'ble of a spell sence I hain't writ no letters, An' ther' 's gret changes hez took place in all polit'cle metters: Some canderdates air dead an' gone, an' some hez ben defeated, Which 'mounts to pooty much the same; fer it's ben proved repeated A betch o' bread thet hain't riz once ain't goin' to rise agin, An' it's jest money throwed away to put the emptins in: But thet's wut folks wun't never larn; they dunno how to go, Arter you want their room, no more 'n a bullet-headed bean; Ther' 's ollers chaps a-hangin' roun' thet can't see peatime's past, Mis'ble as roosters in a rain, heads down an' tails half-mast: 10 It ain't disgraceful bein' beat, when a holl nation doos it, But Chance is like an amberill,--it don't take twice to lose it.

I spose you're kin' o' cur'ous, now, to know why I hain't writ. Wal, I've ben where a litt'ry taste don't somehow seem to git Th' encouragement a feller'd think, thet's used to public schools, An' where sech things ez paper 'n' ink air clean agin the rules: A kind o' vicyvarsy house, built dreffle strong an' stout, So 's 't honest people can't get in, ner t'other sort git out. An' with the winders so contrived, you'd prob'ly like the view Better alookin' in than out, though it seems sing'lar, tu; 20 But then the landlord sets by ye, can't bear ye out o' sight, And locks ye up ez reg'lar ez an outside door at night.

This world is awfle contrary: the rope may stretch your neck Thet mebby kep' another chap frum washin' off a wreck; An' you may see the taters grow in one poor feller's patch, So small no self-respectin' hen thet vallied time 'ould scratch, So small the rot can't find 'em out, an' then agin, nex' door, Ez big ez wut hogs dream on when they're 'most too fat to snore. But groutin' ain't no kin' o' use; an' ef the fust throw fails, Why, up an' try agin, thet's all,--the coppers ain't all tails, 30 Though I _hev_ seen 'em when I thought they hedn't no more head Than 'd sarve a nussin' Brigadier thet gits some Ink to shed.

When I writ last, I'd ben turned loose by thet blamed nigger, Pomp, Ferlorner than a musquash, ef you'd took an' dreened his swamp; But I ain't o' the meechin' kind, thet sets an' thinks fer weeks The bottom's out o' th' univarse coz their own gillpot leaks. I hed to cross bayous an' criks, (wal, it did beat all natur',) Upon a kin' o' corderoy, fust log, then alligator; Luck'ly, the critters warn't sharp-sot; I guess 'twuz overruled They 'd done their mornin's marketin' an' gut their hunger cooled; 40 Fer missionaries to the Creeks an' runaways are viewed By them an' folks ez sent express to be their reg'lar food; Wutever 'twuz, they laid an' snoozed ez peacefully ez sinners, Meek ez disgestin' deacons be at ordination dinners; Ef any on 'em turned an' snapped, I let 'em kin' o' taste My live-oak leg, an' so, ye see, ther' warn't no gret o' waste; Fer they found out in quicker time than ef they'd ben to college 'Twarn't heartier food than though 'twuz made out o' the tree o' knowledge. But I tell _you_ my other leg hed larned wut pizon-nettle meant, An' var'ous other usefle things, afore I reached a settlement, 50 An' all o' me thet wuzn't sore an' sendin' prickles thru me Wuz jest the leg I parted with in lickin' Montezumy: A useful limb it's ben to me, an' more of a support Than wut the other hez ben,--coz I dror my pension for 't.

Wal, I gut in at last where folks wuz civerlized an' white, Ez I diskivered to my cost afore 'twarn't hardly night; Fer 'z I wuz settin' in the bar a-takin' sunthin' hot, An' feelin' like a man agin, all over in one spot, A feller thet sot oppersite, arter a squint at me, Lep' up an' drawed his peacemaker, an', 'Dash it, Sir,' suz he, 60 'I'm doubledashed ef you ain't him thet stole my yaller chettle, (You're all the stranger thet's around,) so now you've gut to settle; It ain't no use to argerfy ner try to cut up frisky, I know ye ez I know the smell of ole chain-lightnin' whiskey; We're lor-abidin' folks down here, we'll fix ye so's 't a bar Wouldn' tech ye with a ten-foot pole; (Jedge, you jest warm the tar;) You'll think you'd better ha' gut among a tribe o' Mongrel Tartars, 'fore we've done showin' how we raise our Southun prize tar-martyrs; A moultin' fallen cherubim, ef he should see ye, 'd snicker, Thinkin' he warn't a suckemstance. Come, genlemun, le' 's liquor; 70 An', Gin'ral, when you've mixed the drinks an' chalked 'em up, tote roun' An' see ef ther' 's a feather-bed (thet's borryable) in town. We'll try ye fair, ole Grafted-Leg, an' ef the tar wun't stick, Th' ain't not a juror here but wut'll 'quit ye double-quick,' To cut it short, I wun't say sweet, they gi' me a good dip, (They ain't _perfessin'_ Bahptists here,) then give the bed a rip,-- The jury'd sot, an' quicker 'n a flash they hetched me out, a livin' Extemp'ry mammoth turkey-chick fer a Fejee Thanksgivin'. Thet I felt some stuck up is wut it's nat'ral to suppose, When poppylar enthusiasm hed funnished me sech clo'es; 80 (Ner 'tain't without edvantiges, this kin' o' suit, ye see, It's water-proof, an' water's wut I like kep' out o' me;) But nut content with thet, they took a kerridge from the fence An' rid me roun' to see the place, entirely free 'f expense, With forty-'leven new kines o' sarse without no charge acquainted me, Gi' me three cheers, an' vowed thet I wuz all their fahncy painted me; They treated me to all their eggs; (they keep 'em I should think, Fer sech ovations, pooty long, for they wuz mos' distinc'); They starred me thick 'z the Milky-Way with indiscrim'nit cherity, Fer wut we call reception eggs air sunthin' of a rerity; 90 Green ones is plentifle anough, skurce wuth a nigger's getherin', But your dead-ripe ones ranges high fer treatin' Nothun bretherin; A spotteder, ring-streakeder child the' warn't in Uncle Sam's Holl farm,--a cross of striped pig an' one o' Jacob's lambs; 'Twuz Dannil in the lions' den, new an' enlarged edition, An' everythin' fust-rate o' 'ts kind; the' warn't no impersition. People's impulsiver down here than wut our folks to home be, An' kin' o' go it 'ith a resh in raisin' Hail Columby: Thet's _so:_ an' they swarmed out like bees, for your real Southun men's Time isn't o' much more account than an ole settin' hen's; 100 (They jest work semioccashnally, or else don't work at all, An' so their time an' 'tention both air at saci'ty's call.) Talk about hospatality! wut Nothun town d' ye know Would take a totle stranger up an' treat him gratis so? You'd better b'lleve ther' 's nothin' like this spendin' days an' nights Along 'ith a dependent race fer civerlizin' whites.

But this wuz all prelim'nary; it's so Gran' Jurors here Fin' a true bill, a hendier way than ourn, an' nut so dear; So arter this they sentenced me, to make all tight 'n' snug, Afore a reg'lar court o' law, to ten years in the Jug. 110 I didn't make no gret defence: you don't feel much like speakin', When, ef you let your clamshells gape, a quart o' tar will leak in: I _hev_ hearn tell o' winged words, but pint o' fact it tethers The spoutin' gift to hev your words _tu_ thick sot on with feathers, An' Choate ner Webster wouldn't ha' made an A 1 kin' o' speech Astride a Southun chestnut horse sharper 'n a baby's screech. Two year ago they ketched the thief, 'n' seein' I wuz innercent, They jest uncorked an' le' me run, an' in my stid the sinner sent To see how _he_ liked pork 'n' pone flavored with wa'nut saplin', An' nary social priv'ledge but a one-hoss, starn-wheel chaplin. 120 When I come out, the folks behaved mos' gen'manly an' harnsome; They 'lowed it wouldn't be more 'n right, ef I should cuss 'n' darn some: The Cunnle he apolergized; suz he, 'I'll du wut's right, I'll give ye settisfection now by shootin' ye at sight, An' give the nigger (when he's caught), to pay him fer his trickin' In gittin' the wrong man took up, a most H fired lickin',-- It's jest the way with all on 'em, the inconsistent critters, They're 'most enough to make a man blaspheme his mornin' bitters; I'll be your frien' thru thick an' thin an' in all kines o' weathers, An' all you'll hev to pay fer's jest the waste o' tar an' feathers: 130 A lady owned the bed, ye see, a widder, tu, Miss Shennon; It wuz her mite; we would ha' took another, ef ther' 'd ben one: We don't make _no_ charge for the ride an' all the other fixins. Le' 's liquor; Gin'ral, you can chalk our friend for all the mixins.' A meetin' then wuz called, where they 'RESOLVED, Thet we respec' B.S. Esquire for quallerties o' heart an' intellec' Peculiar to Columby's sile, an' not to no one else's, Thet makes European tyrans scringe in all their gilded pel'ces, An' doos gret honor to our race an' Southun institootions:' (I give ye jest the substance o' the leadin' resolootions:) 140 'RESOLVED, Thet we revere In him a soger 'thout a flor, A martyr to the princerples o' libbaty an' lor: RESOLVED, Thet other nations all, ef sot 'longside o' us, For vartoo, larnin', chivverlry, ain't noways wuth a cuss.' They got up a subscription, tu, but no gret come o' _thet;_ I 'xpect in cairin' of it roun' they took a leaky hat; Though Southun genelmun ain't slow at puttin' down their name, (When they can write,) fer in the eend it comes to jes' the same, Because, ye see, 't 's the fashion here to sign an' not to think A critter'd be so sordid ez to ax 'em for the chink: 150 I didn't call but jest on one, an' _he_ drawed tooth-pick on me, An' reckoned he warn't goin' to stan' no sech dog-gauned econ'my: So nothin' more wuz realized, 'ceptin' the good-will shown, Than ef 't had ben from fust to last a regular Cotton Loan. It's a good way, though, come to think, coz ye enjy the sense O' lendin' lib'rally to the Lord, an' nary red o' 'xpense: Sence then I've gut my name up for a gin'rous-hearted man By jes' subscribin' right an' left on this high-minded plan; I've gin away my thousans so to every Southun sort O' missions, colleges, an' sech, ner ain't no poorer for 't. 160

I warn't so bad off, arter all; I needn't hardly mention That Guv'ment owed me quite a pile for my arrears o' pension,-- I mean the poor, weak thing we _hed:_ we run a new one now, Thet strings a feller with a claim up ta the nighes' bough, An' _prectises_ the rights o' man, purtects down-trodden debtors, Ner wun't hev creditors about ascrougin' o' their betters: Jeff's gut the last idees ther' is, poscrip', fourteenth edition, He knows it takes some enterprise to run an oppersition; Ourn's the fust thru-by-daylight train, with all ou'doors for deepot; Yourn goes so slow you'd think 'twuz drawed by a las' cent'ry teapot;-- 170 Wal, I gut all on 't paid in gold afore our State seceded, An' done wal, for Confed'rit bonds warn't jest the cheese I needed: Nut but wut they're ez _good_ ez gold, but then it's hard a-breakin' on 'em, An' ignorant folks is ollers sot an' wun't git used to takin' on 'em; They're wuth ez much ez wut they wuz afore ole Mem'nger signed 'em, An' go off middlin' wal for drinks, when ther' 's a knife behind 'em; We _du_ miss silver, jes' fer thet an' ridin' in a bus, Now we've shook off the desputs thet wuz suckin' at our pus; An' it's _because_ the South's so rich; 'twuz nat'ral to expec' Supplies o' change wuz jes' the things we shouldn't recollec'; 180 We'd ough' to ha' thought aforehan', though, o' thet good rule o' Crockett's, For 't 's tiresome cairin' cotton-bales an' niggers in your pockets, Ner 'tain't quite hendy to pass off one o' your six-foot Guineas An' git your halves an' quarters back in gals an' pickaninnies: Wal, 'tain't quite all a feller'd ax, but then ther's this to say, It's on'y jest among ourselves thet we expec' to pay; Our system would ha' caird us thru in any Bible cent'ry, 'fore this onscripterl plan come up o' books by double entry; We go the patriarkle here out o' all sight an' hearin', For Jacob warn't a suckemstance to Jeff at financierin'; 190 _He_ never'd thought o' borryin' from Esau like all nater An' then cornfiscatin' all debts to sech a small pertater; There's p'litickle econ'my, now, combined 'ith morril beauty Thet saycrifices privit eends (your in'my's, tu) to dooty! Wy, Jeff 'd ha' gin him five an' won his eye-teeth 'fore he knowed it, An', stid o' wastin' pottage, he'd ha' eat it up an' owed it. But I wuz goin' on to say how I come here to dwall;-- 'Nough said, thet, arter lookin' roun', I liked the place so wal, Where niggers doos a double good, with us atop to stiddy 'em, By bein' proofs o' prophecy an' suckleatin' medium, 200 Where a man's sunthin' coz he's white, an' whiskey's cheap ez fleas, An' the financial pollercy jes' sooted my idees, Thet I friz down right where I wuz, merried the Widder Shennon, (Her thirds wuz part in cotton-land, part in the curse o' Canaan,) An' here I be ez lively ez a chipmunk on a wall, With nothin' to feel riled about much later 'n Eddam's fall.

Ez fur ez human foresight goes, we made an even trade: She gut an overseer, an' I a fem'ly ready-made, The youngest on 'em 's 'mos' growed up, rugged an' spry ez weazles, So 's 't ther' 's no resk o' doctors' bills fer hoopin'-cough an' measles. Our farm's at Turkey-Buzzard Roost, Little Big Boosy River, 211 Wal located in all respex,--fer 'tain't the chills 'n' fever Thet makes my writin' seem to squirm; a Southuner'd allow I'd Some call to shake, for I've jest hed to meller a new cowhide. Miss S. is all 'f a lady; th' ain't no better on Big Boosy Ner one with more accomplishmunts 'twist here an' Tuscaloosy; She's an F.F., the tallest kind, an' prouder 'n the Gran' Turk, An' never hed a relative thet done a stroke o' work; Hern ain't a scrimpin' fem'ly sech ez _you_ git up Down East, Th' ain't a growed member on 't but owes his thousuns et the least: She _is_ some old; but then agin ther' 's drawbacks in my sheer: 221 Wut's left o' me ain't more 'n enough to make a Brigadier: Wust is, thet she hez tantrums; she's like Seth Moody's gun (Him thet wuz nicknamed from his limp Ole Dot an' Kerry One); He'd left her loaded up a spell, an' hed to git her clear, So he onhitched,--Jeerusalem! the middle o' last year Wuz right nex' door compared to where she kicked the critter tu (Though _jest_ where he brought up wuz wut no human never knew); His brother Asaph picked her up an' tied her to a tree, An' then she kicked an hour 'n' a half afore she'd let it be: 230 Wal, Miss S. _doos_ hev cuttins-up an' pourins-out o' vials, But then she hez her widder's thirds, an' all on us hez trials. My objec', though, in writin' now warn't to allude to sech, But to another suckemstance more dellykit to tech,-- I want thet you should grad'lly break my merriage to Jerushy, An' there's a heap of argymunts thet's emple to indooce ye: Fust place, State's Prison,--wal, it's true it warn't fer crime, o' course, But then it's jest the same fer her in gittin' a disvorce; Nex' place, my State's secedin' out hez leg'lly lef' me free To merry any one I please, pervidin' it's a she; 240 Fin'lly, I never wun't come back, she needn't hev no fear on 't, But then it's wal to fix things right fer fear Miss S. should hear on 't; Lastly, I've gut religion South, an' Rushy she's a pagan Thet sets by th' graven imiges o' the gret Nothun Dagon; (Now I hain't seen one in six munts, for, sence our Treashry Loan, Though yaller boys is thick anough, eagles hez kind o' flown;) An' ef J wants a stronger pint than them thet I hev stated, Wy, she's an aliun in'my now, an' I've been cornfiscated,-- For sence we've entered on th' estate o' the late nayshnul eagle, She hain't no kin' o' right but jes' wut I allow ez legle: 250 Wut _doos_ Secedin' mean, ef 'tain't thet nat'rul rights hez riz, 'n' Thet wut is mine's my own, but wut's another man's ain't his'n?

Besides, I couldn't do no else; Miss S. suz she to me, 'You've sheered my bed,' [thet's when I paid my interduction fee To Southun rites,] 'an' kep' your sheer,' [wal, I allow it sticked So 's 't I wuz most six weeks in jail afore I gut me picked,] 'Ner never paid no demmiges; but thet wun't do no harm, Pervidin' thet you'll ondertake to oversee the farm; (My eldes' boy he's so took up, wut with the Ringtail Rangers An' settin' in the Jestice-Court for welcomin' o' strangers;') 260 [He sot on _me;_] 'an' so, ef you'll jest ondertake the care Upon a mod'rit sellery, we'll up an' call it square; But ef you _can't_ conclude,' suz she, an' give a kin' o' grin, 'Wy, the Gran' Jurymen, I 'xpect, 'll hev to set agin.' That's the way metters stood at fust; now wut wuz I to du, But jes' to make the best on 't an' off coat an' buckle tu? Ther' ain't a livin' man thet finds an income necessarier Than me,--bimeby I'll tell ye how I fin'lly come to merry her. She hed another motive, tu: I mention of it here T' encourage lads thet's growin' up to study 'n' persevere, 270 An' show 'em how much better 't pays to mind their winter-schoolin' Than to go off on benders 'n' sech, an' waste their time in foolin'; Ef 'twarn't for studyin' evenins, why, I never 'd ha' ben here A orn'ment o' saciety, in my approprut spear: She wanted somebody, ye see, o' taste an' cultivation, To talk along o' preachers when they stopt to the plantation; For folks in Dixie th't read an' rite, onless it is by jarks, Is skurce ez wut they wuz among th' origenle patriarchs; To fit a feller f' wut they call the soshle higherarchy, All thet you've gut to know is jes' beyond an evrage darky; 280 Schoolin' 's wut they can't seem to stan', they 're tu consarned high-pressure, An' knowin' t' much might spile a boy for hem' a Secesher. We hain't no settled preachin' here, ner ministeril taxes; The min'ster's only settlement's the carpet-bag he packs his Razor an' soap-brush intu, with his hym-book an' his Bible,-- But they _du_ preach, I swan to man, it's puf'kly indescrib'le! They go it like an Ericsson's ten-hoss-power coleric ingine, An' make Ole Split-Foot winch an' squirm, for all he's used to singein'; Hawkins's whetstone ain't a pinch o' primin' to the innards To hearin' on 'em put free grace t' a lot o' tough old sinhards! 290 But I must eend this letter now: 'fore long I'll send a fresh un; I've lots o' things to write about, perticklerly Seceshun: I'm called off now to mission-work, to let a leetle law in To Cynthy's hide: an' so, till death, Yourn, BIRDOFREDUM SAWIN.

No. II

MASON AND SLIDELL: A YANKEE IDYLL

TO THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY

JAALAM, 6th Jan., 1862.

Gentlemen,--I was highly gratified by the insertion of a portion of my letter in the last number of your valuable and entertaining Miscellany, though in a type which rendered its substance inaccessible even to the beautiful new spectacles presented to me by a Committee of the Parish on New Year's Day. I trust that I was able to bear your very considerable abridgment of my lucubrations with a spirit becoming a Christian. My third granddaughter, Rebekah, aged fourteen years, and whom I have trained to read slowly and with proper emphasis (a practice too much neglected in our modern systems of education), read aloud to me the excellent essay upon 'Old Age,' the author of which I cannot help suspecting to be a young man who has never yet known what it was to have snow (_canities morosa_) upon his own roof. _Dissolve frigus, large super foco ligna reponens_, is a rule for the young, whose woodpile is yet abundant for such cheerful lenitives. A good life behind him is the best thing to keep an old man's shoulders from shivering at every breath of sorrow or ill-fortune. But methinks it were easier for an old man to feel the disadvantages of youth than the advantages of age. Of these latter I reckon one of the chiefest to be this: that we attach a less inordinate value to our own productions, and, distrusting daily more and more our own wisdom (with the conceit whereof at twenty we wrap ourselves away from knowledge as with a garment), do reconcile ourselves with the wisdom of God. I could have wished, indeed, that room might have been made for the residue of the anecdote relating to Deacon Tinkham, which would not only have gratified a natural curiosity on the part of the publick (as I have reason to know from several letters of inquiry already received), but would also, as I think, have largely increased the circulation of your Magazine in this town. _Nihil humani alienum_, there is a curiosity about the affairs of our neighbors which is not only pardonable, but even commendable. But I shall abide a more fitting season.

As touching the following literary effort of Esquire Biglow, much might be profitably said on the topick of Idyllick and Pastoral Poetry, and concerning the proper distinctions to be made between them, from Theocritus, the inventor of the former, to Collins, the latest authour I know of who has emulated the classicks in the latter style. But in the time of a Civil War worthy a Milton to defend and a Lucan to sing, it may be reasonably doubted whether the publick, never too studious of serious instruction, might not consider other objects more deserving of present attention. Concerning the title of Idyll, which Mr. Biglow has adopted at my suggestion, it may not be improper to animadvert, that the name properly signifies a poem somewhat rustick in phrase (for, though the learned are not agreed as to the particular dialect employed by Theocritus, they are universanimous both as to its rusticity and its capacity of rising now and then to the level of more elevated sentiments and expressions), while it is also descriptive of real scenery and manners. Yet it must be admitted that the production now in question (which here and there bears perhaps too plainly the marks of my correcting hand) does partake of the nature of a Pastoral, inasmuch as the interlocutors therein are purely imaginary beings, and the whole is little better than [Greek: kapnou skias onar]. The plot was, as I believe, suggested by the 'Twa Brigs' of Robert Burns, a Scottish poet of the last century, as that found its prototype in the 'Mutual Complaint of Plainstanes and Causey' by Fergusson, though, the metre of this latter be different by a foot in each verse. Perhaps the Two Dogs of Cervantes gave the first hint. I reminded my talented young parishioner and friend that Concord Bridge had long since yielded to the edacious tooth of Time. But he answered me to this effect: that there was no greater mistake of an authour than to suppose the reader had no fancy of his own; that, if once that faculty was to be called into activity, it were _better_ to be in for the whole sheep than the shoulder; and that he knew Concord like a book,--an expression questionable in propriety, since there are few things with which he is not more familiar than with the printed page. In proof of what he affirmed, he showed me some verses which with others he had stricken out as too much delaying the action, but which I communicate in this place because they rightly define 'punkin-seed' (which Mr. Bartlett would have a kind of perch,--a creature to which I have found a rod or pole not to be so easily equivalent in our inland waters as in the books of arithmetic) and because it conveys an eulogium on the worthy son of an excellent father, with whose acquaintance (_eheu, fugaces anni!_) I was formerly honoured.

'But nowadays the Bridge ain't wut they show, So much ez Em'son, Hawthorne, an' Thoreau. I know the village, though; was sent there once A-schoolin', 'cause to home I played the dunce; An' I 've ben sence a visitin' the Jedge, Whose garding whispers with the river's edge, Where I 've sot mornin's lazy as the bream, Whose on'y business is to head upstream, (We call 'em punkin-seed,) or else in chat Along 'th the Jedge, who covers with his hat More wit an' gumption an' shrewd Yankee sense Than there is mosses on an ole stone fence.'

Concerning the subject-matter of the verses. I have not the leisure at present to write so fully as I could wish, my time being occupied with the preparation of a discourse for the forthcoming bicentenary celebration of the first settlement of Jaalam East Parish. It may gratify the publick interest to mention the circumstance, that my investigations to this end have enabled me to verify the fact (of much historick importance, and hitherto hotly debated) that Shearjashub Tarbox was the first child of white parentage born in this town, being named in his father's will under date August 7th, or 9th, 1662. It is well known that those who advocate the claims of Mehetable Goings are unable to find any trace of her existence prior to October of that year. As respects the settlement of the Mason and Slidell question, Mr. Biglow has not incorrectly stated the popular sentiment, so far as I can judge by its expression in this locality. For myself, I feel more sorrow than resentment: for I am old enough to have heard those talk of England who still, even after the unhappy estrangement, could not unschool their lips from calling her the Mother-Country. But England has insisted on ripping up old wounds, and has undone the healing work of fifty years; for nations do not reason, they only feel, and the _spretæ injuria formæ_ rankles in their minds as bitterly as in that of a woman. And because this is so, I feel the more satisfaction that our Government has acted (as all Governments should, standing as they do between the people and their passions) as if it had arrived at years of discretion. There are three short and simple words, the hardest of all to pronounce in any language (and I suspect they were no easier before the confusion of tongues), but which no man or nation that cannot utter can claim to have arrived at manhood. Those words are, _I was wrong;_ and I am proud that, while England played the boy, our rulers had strength enough from the People below and wisdom enough from God above to quit themselves like men.

The sore points on both sides have been skilfully exasperated by interested and unscrupulous persons, who saw in a war between the two countries the only hope of profitable return for their investment in Confederate stock, whether political or financial. The always supercilious, often insulting, and sometimes even brutal tone of British journals and publick men has certainly not tended to soothe whatever resentment might exist in America.

'Perhaps it was right to dissemble your love, But why did you kick me down stairs?'

We have no reason to complain that England, as a necessary consequence of her clubs, has become a great society for the minding of other people's business, and we can smile good-naturedly when she lectures other nations on the sins of arrogance and conceit: but we may justly consider it a breach of the political _convenances_ which are expected to regulate the intercourse of one well-bred government with another, when men holding places in the ministry allow themselves to dictate our domestic policy, to instruct us in our duty, and to stigmatize as unholy a war for the rescue of whatever a high-minded people should hold most vital and most sacred. Was it in good taste, that I may use the mildest term, for Earl Russell to expound our own Constitution to President Lincoln, or to make a new and fallacious application of an old phrase for our benefit, and tell us that the Rebels were fighting for independence and we for empire? As if all wars for independence were by nature just and deserving of sympathy, and all wars for empire ignoble and worthy only of reprobation, or as if these easy phrases in any way characterized this terrible struggle,--terrible not so truly in any superficial sense, as from the essential and deadly enmity of the principles that underlie it. His Lordship's bit of borrowed rhetoric would justify Smith O'Brien, Nana Sahib, and the Maori chieftains, while it would condemn nearly every war in which England has ever been engaged. Was it so very presumptuous in us to think that it would be decorous in English statesmen if they spared time enough to acquire some kind of knowledge, though of the most elementary kind, in regard to this country and the questions at issue here, before they pronounced so off-hand a judgment? Or is political information expected to come Dogberry-fashion in England, like reading and writing, by nature?

And now all respectable England is wondering at our irritability, and sees a quite satisfactory explanation of it in our national vanity. _Suave mari magno_, it is pleasant, sitting in the easy-chairs of Downing Street, to sprinkle pepper on the raw wounds of a kindred people struggling for life, and philosophical to find in self-conceit the cause of our instinctive resentment. Surely we were of all nations the least liable to any temptation of vanity at a time when the gravest anxiety and the keenest sorrow were never absent from our hearts. Nor is conceit the exclusive attribute of any one nation. The earliest of English travellers, Sir John Mandeville, took a less provincial view of the matter when he said, 'For fro what partie of the erthe that men duellen, other aboven or beneathen, it semethe alweys to hem that duellen that thei gon more righte than any other folke.' The English have always had their fair share of this amiable quality. We may say of them still, as the authour of the 'Lettres Cabalistiques' said of them more than a century ago, _'Ces derniers disent naturellement qu'il n'y a qu'eux qui soient estimables_'. And, as he also says,_'J'aimerois presque autant tomber entre les mains d'un Inquisiteur que d'un Anglois qui me fait sentir sans cesse combien il s'estime plus que moi, et qui ne daigne me parler que pour injurier ma Nation et pour m'ennuyer du récit des grandes qualités de la sienne_.' Of _this_ Bull we may safely say with Horace, _habet fænum in cornu._ What we felt to be especially insulting was the quiet assumption that the descendants of men who left the Old World for the sake of principle, and who had made the wilderness into a New World patterned after an Idea, could not possibly be susceptible of a generous or lofty sentiment, could have no feeling of nationality deeper than that of a tradesman for his shop. One would have thought, in listening to England, that we were presumptuous in fancying that we were a nation at all, or had any other principle of union than that of booths at a fair, where there is no higher notion of government than the constable, or better image of God than that stamped upon the current coin.

It is time for Englishmen to consider whether there was nothing in the spirit of their press and of their leading public men calculated to rouse a just indignation, and to cause a permanent estrangement on the part of any nation capable of self-respect, and sensitively jealous, as ours then was, of foreign interference. Was there nothing in the indecent haste with which belligerent rights were conceded to the Rebels, nothing in the abrupt tone assumed in the Trent case, nothing in the fitting out of Confederate privateers, that might stir the blood of a people already overcharged with doubt, suspicion, and terrible responsibility? The laity in any country do not stop to consider points of law, but they have an instinctive perception of the _animus_ that actuates the policy of a foreign nation; and in our own case they remembered that the British authorities in Canada did not wait till diplomacy could send home to England for her slow official tinder-box to fire the 'Caroline.' Add to this, what every sensible American knew, that the moral support of England was equal to an army of two hundred thousand men to the Rebels, while it insured us another year or two of exhausting war. It was not so much the spite of her words (though the time might have been more tastefully chosen) as the actual power for evil in them that we felt as a deadly wrong. Perhaps the most immediate and efficient cause of mere irritation was, the sudden and unaccountable change of manner on the other side of the water. Only six months before, the Prince of Wales had come over to call us cousins; and everywhere it was nothing but 'our American brethren,' that great offshoot of British institutions in the New World, so almost identical with them in laws, language, and literature,--this last of the alliterative compliments being so bitterly true, that perhaps it will not be retracted even now. To this outburst of long-repressed affection we responded with genuine warmth, if with something of the awkwardness of a poor relation bewildered with the sudden tightening of the ties of consanguinity when it is rumored that he has come into a large estate. Then came the Rebellion, and, _presto!_ a flaw in our titles was discovered, the plate we were promised at the family table is flung at our head, and we were again the scum of creation, intolerably vulgar, at once cowardly and overbearing,--no relations of theirs, after all, but a dreggy hybrid of the basest bloods of Europe. Panurge was not quicker to call Friar John his _former_ friend. I cannot help thinking of Walter Mapes's jingling paraphrase of Petronius,--

'Dummodo sim splendidis vestibus ornatus, Et multa familia sim circumvallatus, Prudens sum et sapiens et morigeratus, Et tuus nepos sum et tu meus cognatus,'--

which I may freely render thus:--

So long as I was prosperous, I'd dinners by the dozen, Was well-bred, witty, virtuous, and everybody's cousin; If luck should turn, as well she may, her fancy is so flexile, Will virtue, cousinship, and all return with her from exile?

There was nothing in all this to exasperate a philosopher, much to make him smile rather; but the earth's surface is not chiefly inhabited by philosophers, and I revive the recollection of it now in perfect good-humour, merely by way of suggesting to our _ci-devant_ British cousins, that it would have been easier for them to hold their tongues than for us to keep our tempers under the circumstances.

The English Cabinet made a blunder, unquestionably, in taking it so hastily for granted that the United States had fallen forever from their position as a first-rate power, and it was natural that they should vent a little of their vexation on the people whose inexplicable obstinacy in maintaining freedom and order, and in resisting degradation, was likely to convict them of their mistake. But if bearing a grudge be the sure mark of a small mind in the individual, can it be a proof of high spirit in a nation? If the result of the present estrangement between the two countries shall be to make us more independent of British twaddle (_Indomito nec dira ferens stipendia Tauro_), so much the better; but if it is to make us insensible to the value of British opinion in matters where it gives us the judgment of an impartial and cultivated outsider, if we are to shut ourselves out from the advantages of English culture, the loss will be ours, and not theirs. Because the door of the old homestead has been once slammed in our faces, shall we in a huff reject all future advances of conciliation, and cut ourselves foolishly off from any share in the humanizing influences of the place, with its ineffable riches of association, its heirlooms of immemorial culture, its historic monuments, ours no less than theirs, its noble gallery of ancestral portraits? We have only to succeed, and England will not only respect, but, for the first time, begin to understand us. And let us not, in our justifiable indignation at wanton insult, forget that England is not the England only of snobs who dread the democracy they do not comprehend, but the England of history, of heroes, statesmen, and poets, whose names are dear, and their influence as salutary to us as to her.

Let us strengthen the hands of those in authority over us, and curb our own tongues, remembering that General Wait commonly proves in the end more than a match for General Headlong, and that the Good Book ascribes safety to a multitude, indeed, but not to a mob, of counsellours. Let us remember and perpend the words of Paulus Emilius to the people of Rome; that, 'if they judged they could manage the war to more advantage by any other, he would willingly yield up his charge; but if they confided in him, _they were not to make themselves his colleagues in his office, or raise reports, or criticise his actions, but, without talking, supply him with means and assistance necessary to the carrying on of the war; for, if they proposed to command their own commander, they would render this expedition more ridiculous than the former.' (Vide Plutarchum in Vitâ P.E._) Let us also not forget what the same excellent authour says concerning Perseus's fear of spending money, and not permit the covetousness of Brother Jonathan to be the good fortune of Jefferson Davis. For my own part, till I am ready to admit the Commander-in-Chief to my pulpit, I shall abstain from planning his battles. If courage be the sword, yet is patience the armour of a nation; and in our desire for peace, let us never be willing to surrender the Constitution bequeathed us by fathers at least as wise as ourselves (even with Jefferson Davis to help us), and, with those degenerate Romans, _tuta et præsentia quam vetera et periculosa malle_.

And not only should we bridle our own tongues, but the pens of others, which are swift to convey useful intelligence to the enemy. This is no new inconvenience; for, under date, 3d June, 1745, General Pepperell wrote thus to Governor Shirley from Louisbourg: 'What your Excellency observes of the _army's being made acquainted with any plans proposed, until ready to be put in execution_, has always been disagreeable to me, and I have given many cautions relating to it. But when your Excellency considers that _our Council of War consists of more than twenty members_, I am persuaded you will think it _impossible for me to hinder it_, if any of them will persist in communicating to inferior officers and soldiers what ought to be kept secret. I am informed that the Boston newspapers are filled with paragraphs from private letters relating to the expedition. Will your Excellency permit me to say I think it may be of ill consequence? Would it not be convenient, if your Excellency should forbid the Printers' inserting such news?' Verily, if _tempora mutantur_, we may question the _et nos mutamur in illis;_ and if tongues be leaky, it will need all hands at the pumps to save the Ship of State. Our history dotes and repeats itself. If Sassycus (rather than Alcibiades) find a parallel in Beauregard, so Weakwash, as he is called by the brave Lieutenant Lion Gardiner, need not seek far among our own Sachems for his anti-type.

With respect,
Your ob't humble serv't
Homer Wilbur, A.M.

I love to start out arter night's begun, An' all the chores about the farm are done, The critters milked an' foddered, gates shet fast, Tools cleaned aginst to-morrer, supper past. An' Nancy darnin' by her ker'sene lamp,-- I love, I say, to start upon a tramp, To shake the kinkles out o' back an' legs, An' kind o' rack my life off from the dregs Thet's apt to settle in the buttery-hutch Of folks thet foller in one rut too much: 10 Hard work is good an' wholesome, past all doubt; But 't ain't so, ef the mind gits tuckered out. Now, bein' born in Middlesex, you know, There's certin spots where I like best to go: The Concord road, for instance (I, for one, Most gin'lly ollers call it _John Bull's Run_). The field o' Lexin'ton where England tried The fastest colours thet she ever dyed, An' Concord Bridge, thet Davis, when he came, Found was the bee-line track to heaven an' fame, 20 Ez all roads be by natur', ef your soul Don't sneak thru shun-pikes so's to save the toll.