the sky;

Now the wind's full ez shifty in the mind

Ez wut it is ou'-doors, ef I ain't blind,

An' sometimes, in the fairest sou'west weather,

My innard vane pints east for weeks together,

My natur' gits all goose-flesh, an' my sins

Come drizzlin' on my conscience sharp ez pins :

Wal, et sech times I jes' slip out o' sight

An' take it out in a fair stan'-up fight

With the one cuss I can't lay on the shelf,

The crook'dest stick in all the heap, -Myself.

'Twuz so las' Sabbath arter meetin'

time :

Findin' my feelin's wouldn't noways rhyme

flew

An' took things from an east-wind pint o' view,

I started off to lose me in the hills Where the pines be, up back o' 'Siah's Mills:

Pines, ef you're blue, are the best friends I know,

They mope an' sigh an' sheer your feelin's so,

They hesh the ground beneath so, tu, I swan,

You half-forgit you've gut a body

on.

Ther's a small school-'us' there where four roads meet, The door-steps hollered out by little feet,

An' side-posts carved with names whose owners grew

To gret men, some on 'em, an' deacons, tu;

'Tain't used no longer, coz the town hez gut

A high school, where they teach the Lord knows wut: Three story larnin's pop'lar now; I

guess

We thriv' ez wal on jes' two stories less,

For it strikes me ther's sech a thing ez sinnin'

By overloadin' children's underpinnin':

Wal, here it wuz I larned my A BC,

An' it's a kind o' favourite spot with me.

We're curus critters: Now ain't jes' the minute

Thet ever fits us easy while we're in it;

Long ez 'twuz futur', 'twould be perfect bliss

Soon ez it's past, thet time's wuth ten o' this:

An' yit there ain't a man thet need be told

Thet Now's the only bird lays eggs o' gold.

A knee-high lad, I used to plot an' plan

An' think 'twuz life's cap-sheaf to be a man;

mem'ry ache,

An' can't skurce take a cat-nap in my cheer

'Thout hevin' 'em, some good, some bad, all queer.

Now I wuz settin' where I'd ben, it seemed,

An' ain't sure yit whether I r'ally dreamed,

Nor, ef I did, how long I might ha' slep',

When I hearn some un stompin' up the step,

An' lookin' round, ef two an' two make four,

I see a Pilgrim Father in the door. He wore a steeple-hat, tall boots, an' spurs

With rowels to 'em big ez ches'nutburrs,

An'

his gret sword behind him sloped away

"Twould prove, coz you wear spurs, you kep a horse : For brains," sez I, "wutever you may think,

Ain't boun' to cash the drafs o' pen-an'-ink,--

Though mos' folks write ez ef they

hoped jes' quickenin' The churn would argoo skim-milk into thickenin';

But skim-milk ain't a thing to change its view

O' wut it's meant for more'n a smoky flue.

But du pray tell me, 'fore we furder go,

How in all Natur' did you come to know

'Bout our affairs," sez I, "in Kingdom-Come?"

"Wal, I worked round at sperrit

rappin' some,

An' danced the tables till their legs wuz gone,

In hopes o' larnin' wut wuz goin'

on,

Sez he, "but mejums lie so like all-split

Thet warms ye now, an' will a twelvemonth hence.

You took to follerin' where the

Prophets beckoned, Au', fust you knowed on, back

come Charles the Second; Now wut I want's to hev all we gain stick,

An' not to start Millennium too quick;

We hain't to punish only, but to keep,

An' the cure's gut to go a cent'ry deep."

"Wal, milk-an'-water ain't the best o' glue,"

Sez he, "an' so you'll find before you're thru;

Efreshness venters sunthin', shillyshally

Loses ez often wut's ten times the vally.

Ef bagnets fail, the spellin'-book must du it. "Hosce," sez he, "I think you're goin' to fail:

The rettlesnake ain't dangerous in the tail;

This 'ere rebellion's nothin' but the rettle,

You'll stomp on thet an' think you've won the bettle; It's Slavery thet's the fangs an' thinkin' head,

An' ef you want selvation, cresh it dead,

An' cresh it suddin, or you'll larn by waitin'

Thet Chance wun't stop to listen to debatin'!"

"God's truth!" sez I,-"an' ef I

held the club,

No. VII.

LATEST VIEWS OF

MR. BIGLOW.

PRELIMINARY NOTE.

[IT is with feelings of the liveliest pain that we inform our readers of the death of the Reverend Homer Wilbur, A.M., which took place suddenly, by an apopletic stroke on the afternoon of Christmas day, 1862. Our venerable friend (for so we may venture to call him, though we never enjoyed the high privilege of his personal acquaintance) was in his eightyfourth year, having been born June 12, 1779, at Pigsgusset Precinct (now West Jerusha) in the then District of Maine. Graduated with distinction at Hubville College in 1805, he pursued his theological studies with the late Reverend Preserved Thacker, D.D., and was called to the charge of the First Society in Jaalam in 1809, where he remained till his death.

"As an antiquary he has probably left no superior, if, indeed, an equal," writes his friend and colleague, the Reverend Jeduthun Hitchcock, to whom we are indebted for the above facts; "in proof of which I need only allude to his History of Jaalam, Genealogical, Topographical, and Ecclesiastical,' 1849, which has won him an eminent and enduring place in our more solid and useful literature. It is only to be regretted that his intense application to historical studies should have so entirely withdrawn him from the pursuit of poetical composition, for which he was endowed by Nature with a remarkable aptitude. His well-known hymn, beginning 'With clouds of care encompassed round,' has been attributed in some collections to the late President Dwight, and it is hardly presumptuous to affirm that the simile of the rainbow in the eighth stanza would do no discredit to that polished pen."

We regret that we have not room at present for the whole of Mr. Hitchcock's exceedingly valuable communication. We hope to lay more liberal extracts from it before our readers at an early day. A summary of its contents will give some notion of its importance and interest. It contains: 1st, A biographical sketch of Mr. Wilbur, with notices of his predecessors in the pastoral office, and of eminent clerical contemporaries; 2d, Au obituary of deceased, from the Punkin-Falls " 'Weekly Parallel ; 3d, A list of his printed and manuscript productions and of projected works; 4th, Personal anecdotes and recollections, with specimens of table-talk; 5th, A tribute to his relict, Mrs. Dorcas (Pilcox) Wilbur; 6th, A list of graduates fitted for different colleges by Mr. Wilbur, with biographical memoranda touching the more distinguished; 7th, Concerning learned, charitable, and other societies, of which Mr. Wilbur was a member, and of those with which, had his life been prolonged, he would doubtless have been associated, with a complete catalogue of such Americans as have been Fellows of the Royal Society: 8th, A brief summary of Mr. Wilbur's latest conclusions concerning the Tenth Horn of the Beast in its special application to recent events for which the public, as Mr. Hitchcock assures us, have been waiting with feelings of lively anticipation; 9th, Mr. Hitchcock's own views on the same topic; and, 10th, A brief essay on the importance of local histories. It will be apparent that the duty of preparing Mr. Wilbur's biography could not have fallen into more sympathetic hands.

In a private letter with which the reverend gentleman has since favoured us, he expresses the opinion that Mr. Wilbur's life was shortened by our unhappy civil war. It disturbed his studies, dislocated all his habitual associations and trains of thought, and un