No. I.

A LETTER

FROM MR. EZEKIEL BIGLOW OF JAALAM TO THE HON. JOSEPH T. BUCKINGHAM, EDITOR OF THE BOSTON COURIER, INCLOSING A POEM OF HIS SON, MR. HOSEA BIGLOW.

JAYLEM, june 1846. MISTER EDDYTER :- -Our Hosea wuz down to Boston last week, and he see a cruetin Sarjunt a struttin round as popler as a hen with 1 chicking, with 2 fellers a drummin and fifin arter him like all nater. the Sarjunt he thout Hosea hedn't gut his i teeth cut cos he looked a kindo's though he'd jest com down, so he cal'lated to hook him in, but Hosy woodn't take none o' his sarse for all he hed much as 20 Rooster's tales stuck onto his hat and eenamost enuf brass a bobbin up and down on his shoulders and figureed onto his coat and trousis, let alone wut nater hed sot in his featers, to make a pounder out

on.

wal, Hosea he com home considerabal riled, and arter I'd gone to bed I heern Him a thrashin round like a short-tailed Bull in fli-time. The old Woman ses she to me ses she, Zekle, ses she, our Hosee's gut the chollery or suthin anuther ses she, don't you Bee skeered, ses I, he's oney amakin pottery,* ses i, he's ollers on hand at that ere busynes like Da and martin, and shure enuf, cum mor

* Aut insanit, aut versos facit.-H. WV.

nin, Hosy he cum down stares full chizzle, hare on eend and cote tales flyin, and sot rite of to go reed his varses to Parson Wilbur bein he haint aney grate shows o' book larnin himself, bimeby he cum back and sed the parson wuz dreffle tickled with 'em as i hoop you will Be, and said they wuz True grit.

Hosea ses taint hardly fair to call 'em hisn now, cos the parson kind 'o slicked off sum o' the last varses, but he told Hosee he didn't want to put his ore in to tetch to the Rest on 'em, bein they wuz verry well As thay wuz, and then Hosy ses he sed suthin a nuther about Simplex Mundishes or sum sech feller, but I guess Hosea kind

didn't hear him, for I never hearn o' nobody o' that name in this villadge, and I've lived here man and boy 76 year cum next tater diggin, and thair aint no wheres a kitting spryer 'n I be.

If you print 'em I wish you'd jest let folks know who hosy's father is, cos my aunt Keziah used to say it's nater to be curus ses she, she ain't livin though and he's a likely kind o' lad.

EZEKIEL BIGLOW.

I dunno but wut it's pooty

Trainin' round in bobtail coats,But it's curus Christian dooty

This 'ere cuttin' folks's throats.

They may talk o' Freedom's airy Tell they're pupple in the face,It's a grand gret cemetary

Fer the barthrights of our race; They jest want this Californy So's to lug new slave-states in To abuse ye, an' to scorn ye, An' to plunder ye like sin.

Ain't it cute to see a Yankee

Take sech everlastin' pains, All to git the Devil's thankee Helpin' on 'em weld their chains? Wy, it's jest ez clear ez figgers,

Clear ez one an' one make two, Chaps thet make black slaves o' niggers

Want to make wite slaves o' you.

Tell ye jest the eend I've come to Arter cipherin' plaguy smart, An' it makes a handy sum, tu,

Any gump could larn by heart; Laborin' man an' laborin' woman

Hev one glory an' one shame. Ev'y thin' thet's done inhuman Injers all on 'em the same.

Tain't by turnin' out to hack folks You're agoin' to git your right, Nor by lookin' down on black folks Coz you're put upon by wite; Slavery ain't o' nary colour,

Tain't the hide thet makes it wus, All it keers fer in a feller

'S jest to make him fill its pus.

Want to tackle me in, du ye?
I expect you'll hev to wait;
Wen cold lead puts daylight thru ye
You'll begin to kal❜late;
S'pose the crows wun't fall to
pickin'

All the carkiss from your bones,
Coz you helped to give a lickin'
To them poor half - Spanish
drones?

Jest go home an' ask our Nancy Wether I'd be sech a goose

Ez to jine ye,-guess you'd fancy
The etarnal bung wuz loose!
She wants me fer home consump-
tion,

Let alone the hay's to mow,
Ef you're arter folks o' gumption,
You've a darned long row to hoe.

Take them editors thet's crowin' Like a cockerel three months old,

Don't ketch any on em goin',

Though they be so blasted bold; Ain't they a prime lot o' fellers? 'Fore they think on't they will sprout

(Like a peach thet's got the yellers), With the meanness bustin' out.

Wal, go 'long to help 'em stealin'

Bigger pens to cram with slaves, Help the men thet's ollers dealin'

Insults on your fathers' graves; Help the strong to grind the feeble, Help the many agin the few, Help the men thet call your people Witewashed slaves an' peddlin'

crew!

Massachusetts, God forgive her,

She's akneelin' with the rest, She, thet ough' to ha' clung fer ever In her grand old eagle-nest; She thet ough' to stand so fearless Wile the wracks are round her hurled,

Holdin' up a beacon peerless

To the oppressed of all the world!

Hain't they sold your coloured seamen?

Hain't they made your env'ys wiz? Wut 'll make ye act like freemen? Wut 'll git your dander riz? Come, I'll tell ye wut I'm thinkin' Is our dooty in this fix, They'd ha' done 't ez quick ez winkin'

In the days o' seventy-six. Clang the bells in every steeple,

Call all true men to disown The tradoocers of our people,

The enslavers o' their own; Let our dear old Bay State proudly Put the trumpet to her mouth,

Let her ring this messidge loudly In the ears of all the South :

"I'll return ye good fer evil

Much ez we frail mortils can, But I wun't go help the Devil

Makin' man the cus o' man; Call me coward, call me traiter, Jest ez suits your mean idees,Here I stand a tyrant-hater,

An' the friend o' God an' Peace!"

Ef I'd my way I hed ruther We should go to work an' part,They take one way, we take t'other,Guess it wouldn't break my heart; Man hed ough' to put asunder

Them thet God has noways jined; An' I shouldn't gretly wonder

Ef there's thousands o' my mind.

[The first recruiting sergeant on record I conceive to have been that individual who is mentioned in the Book of Job as going to and fro in the earth, and walking up and down in it. Bishop Latimer will have him to have been a bishop, but to me that other calling would appear more congenial. The sect of Cainites is not yet extinct, who esteemed the first-born of Adam to be the most worthy, not only because of that privilege of primogeniture, but inasmuch as he was able to overcome and slay his younger brother. That was a wise saying of the famous Marquis Pescara to the Papal Legate, that it was impossible for men to serve Mars and Christ at the same time. Yet in time past the profession of arms was judged to be κατ' ἐξοχήν that of a gentleman, nor does this opinion want for strenuous upholders even in our day. Must we suppose, then, that the profession of Christianity was only intended for losels, or, at best, to afford an opening for plebeian ambition? Or shall we hold with that nicely metaphysical Pomeranian, Captain Vratz, who was Count Königsmark's chief instrument in the murder of Mr. Thynne, that the Scheme of Salvation has been arranged with an especial eye to the necessities of the upper classes, and that "God would consider a gentleman and deal with him suitably to the condition and profession He had placed him in?" It may be said of us all, Exemplo plus quam ratione vivimus.-H. W.]

No. II.

A LETTER.

FROM MR. HOSEA BIGLOW TO THE HON. J. T. BUCKINGHAM, EDITOR OF THE BOSTON COURIER, COVERING A LETTER FROM MR. B. SAWIN, PRIVATE IN THE MASSACHUSETTS REGIMENT.

In

[This letter of Mr. Sawin's was not orginally written in verse. Mr. Biglow thinking it peculiarly susceptible of metrical adornment, translated it, so to speak, into his own vernacular tongue. This is not the time to consider the question, whether rhyme be a mode of expression natural to the human race. If leisure from other and more important avocations be granted, I will handle the matter more at large in an appendix to the present volume. this place I will barely remark, that I have sometimes noticed in the unlanguaged prattlings of infants a fondness for alliteration, assonance, and even rhyme, in which natural predisposition we may trace the three degrees through which our Angle-Saxon verse rose to its culmination in the poetry of Pope. I would not be understood as questioning in these remarks that pious theory which supposes that children, if left entirely to themselves, would naturally discourse in Hebrew. For this the authority of one experiment is claimed, and I could, witli Sir Thomas Browne, desire its establishment, inasmuch as the acquirement of that sacred tongue would thereby be facilitated. I am aware that Herodotus states the conclusion of Psammeticus to have been in favour of a dialect of the Phrygian. But, beside the chance that a trial of this importance would hardly be blessed to a Pagan monarch whose only motive was curiosity, we have on the Hebrew side the comparatively recent investigation of James the Fourth of Scotland. I will add to this prefatory remark, that Mr. Sawin, though a native of Jaalam, has never been a stated attendant on the religious exercises of my congregation. I consider my humble efforts prospered in that not one of my sheep hath ever indued the wolf's clothing of war, save for the comparatively innocent diversion of a militia training. Not that my flock are backward to undergo the hardships of defensive warfare. They serve cheerfully in the great army which fights even unto death pro aris et focis,

accoutred with the spade, the axe, the plane, the sledge, the spelling-book, and other such effectual weapons against want and ignorance and unthrift. I have taught them (under God) to esteem our human institutions as but tents of a night, to be stricken whenever Truth puts the bugle to her lips and sounds a march to the heights of wider-viewed intelligence and more perfect organization.-H. W.

MISTER BUCKINUM, the follerin Billet was writ hum by a Yung feller of our town that wuz cussed fool enuff to goe atrottin inter Miss Chiff arter a Drum and fife. it ain't Nater for a feller to let on that he's sick o' any bizness that He went intu off his own free will and a Cord, but I rather cal'late he's middlin tired o' voluntearin By this Time. I bleeve u may put dependunts on his statemence. For I never heered nothin bad on him let Alone his havin what Parson Wilbur cals a pong shong for cocktales, and he ses it wuz a soshiashun of idees sot him agoin arter the Crootin Sargient cos he wore a cocktale onto his hat.

his Folks gin the letter to me and i shew it to parson Wilbur and he ses it oughter Bee printed. send It to mister Buckinum, ses he, i don't ollers agree with him, ses he, but by Time,* ses he, I du like a feller that aint a Feared.

I have intusspussed a Few refleckshuns hear and thair. We're kind o' prest with Hayin. Ewers respecfly

HOSEA BIGLOW.

THIS kind o' sogerin' ain't a mite like our October trainin',

* In relation to this expression, I cannot but think that Mr Biglow has been too hasty in attributing it to me. Though Time be a comparatively innocent personage to swear by, and though Longinus in his discourse Пepì Ύψους have commended timely oaths as not only a useful but sublime figure of speech, yet I have always kept my lips free from that abomination. Odi profanum vulgus, I hate your swearing and hectoring fellows.-H. W.

An' th' Cunnles, tu, could kiver up their shappoes with bandanners,

An' send the insines skootin' to the bar-room with their banners (Fear o' gittin' on 'em spotted), an' a feller could cry quarter Ef he fired away his ramrod arter tu much rum and water. Recollect wut fun we hed, you'n' I

an' Ezry Hollis,

Up there to Waltham plain last

fall, along o' the Cornwallis? * This sort o' thing ain't jest like

thet, I wish thet I wuz furder,-+ Nimepunce a day fer killin' folks

comes kind o' low fer murder, (Wy I've worked out to slarterin'

some fer Deacon Cephas Billins, An' in the hardest times there wuz I ollers tetched ten shillins,) There's sutthin' gits into my throat

thet makes it hard to swaller, It comes so nateral to think about a hempen collar;

It's glory,but, in spite o' all my tryin' to get callous,

I feel a kind o' in a cart, aridin' to the gallus.

But wen it comes to bein' killed,

I tell ye I felt streaked The fust time't ever I found out wy baggonets wuz peaked; Here's how it wuz: I started out to go to a fandango,

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The sentinul he ups an' sez, "Thet's furder 'an you can go. "None o' your sarse, sez I; sez. he, "Stan' back!" 'Ain't you a buster?" Sez I, "I'm up to all thet air, I guess I've ben to muster;

I know wy sentinuls air sot; you ain't agoin' to eat us; Caleb hain't no monopoly to court the seenoreetas;

*i hait the Site of a feller with a muskit as I du pizn But their is fun to a cornwallis I ain't agoin' to deny it.-H. B.

the means Not quite so fur I guess.-H. B.

ez hisn be, by golly!". An' so ez I wuz goin' by, not

thinkin' wut would folly, The everlastin' cus he stuck his one-pronged pitchfork in me An' made a hole right thru my close ez ef I wuz an in'my.

Wal, it beats all how big I felt hoorawin' in ole Funnel, Wen Mister Bolles he gin the

sword to our Leftenant Cunnle, (It's Mister Secondary Bolles,* thet writ the prize peace essay; Thet's why he didn't list himself along o' us, I dessay,) An' Rantoul, tu, talked pooty loud, but don't put his foot in it, Coz human life's so sacred thet he's principled agin it,— Though I myself can't rightly see

it's any wus achokin' on 'em, Than puttin' bullets thru their lights, or with a bagnet pokin' on 'em ;

How dreffle slick he reeled it off (like Blitz at our lyceum Ahaulin' ribbins from his chops so

quick you skeercely see 'em), About the Anglo-Saxon race (an' saxons would be handy

To du the buryin' down here upon the Rio Grandy),

About our patriotic pas an' our star-spangled banner,

Our country's bird alookin' on an'

singin' out hosanner,

An' how he (Mister B. himself) wuz happy fer Ameriky,

I felt, ez sister Patience sez, a leetle mite histericky.

I felt, I swon, ez though it wuz a dreffle kind o' privilege Atrampin' round thru Boston

streets among the gutter's drivelage;

I act'lly thought it wuz a treat to hear a little drummin', An' it did bonyfidy seem millanyuni wuz acomin'

Wen all on us got suits (darned like

them wore in the state prison)

*the ignerant creeter means Sekketary; but he ollers stuck to his book, like cobbler's wax to an ile-stone.-H. B.