Strove to make profit square with right,
Lived on his means, cut no great dash,
And paid his debts in honest cash.

On tother hand, his brother South
Lived very much from hand to mouth,
Played gentleman, nursed dainty hands,
Borrowed North's money on his lands,
And culled his morals and his graces
From cock-pits, bar-rooms, fights, and races;
His sole work in the farming line

Was keeping droves of long-legged swine,
Which brought great bothers and expenses
To North in looking after fences,

And, when they happened to break through,
Cost him both time and temper too,
For South insisted it was plain
He ought to drive them home again,
And North consented to the work
Because he loved to buy cheap pork.

Meanwhile, South's swine increasing fast,
His farm became too small at last,
So, having thought the matter over,
And feeling bound to live in clover
And never pay the clover's worth,
He said one day to brother North:-

"Our families are both increasing,
And, though we labor without ceasing,
Our produce soon will be too scant
To keep our children out of want;
They who wish fortune to be lasting
Must be both prudent and forecasting;
We soon shall need more land; a lot

I know, that cheaply can be bo't;
You lend the cash, I'll buy the acres,
And we'll be equally partakers."

Poor North, whose Anglo-Saxon blood
Gave him a hankering after mud,
Wavered a moment, then consented,
And, when the cash was paid, repented;
To make the new land worth a pin,
Thought he, it must be all fenced in,
For, if South's swine once get the run on't
No kind of farming can be done on't;
If that don't suit the other side,
'Tis best we instantly divide.

But somehow South could ne'er incline
This way or that to run the line,
And always found some new pretence
'Gainst setting the division fence;
At last he said:

"For peace's sake,

Liberal concessions I will make;
Though I believe, upon my soul,
I've a just title to the whole,
I'll make an offer which I call
Gen'rous, we'll have no fence at all;
Then both of us, whene'er we choose,
Can take what part we want to use;
If you should chance to need it first,
Pick you the best, I'll take the worst."

Agreed!" " cried North; thought he, this fall With wheat and rye I'll sow it all,

In that way I shall get the start,

And South may whistle for his part;
So thought, so done, the field was sown,
And, winter having come and gone,
Sly North walked blithely forth to spy,
The progress of his wheat and rye;
Heavens, what a sight! his brother's swine
Had asked themselves all out to dine,
Such grunting, munching, rooting, shoving,
The soil seemed all alive and moving,

As for his grain, such work they'd made on't,
He couldn't spy a single blade on't.

Off in a rage he rushed to South,

"My wheat and rye "-grief choked his mouth; "Pray don't mind me," said South, "but plant All of the new land that you want;'

"Yes, but your hogs," cried North;

"The grain

Won't hurt them," answered South again; "But they destroy my grain;"

"No doubt;

'Tis fortunate you've found it out; Misfortunes teach, and only they, You must not sow it in their way;'

"Nay, you," says North, "must keep them out;" "Did I create them with a snout?" Asked South demurely; " as agreed, "The land is open to your seed, And would you fain prevent my pigs From running there their harmless rigs? God knows I view this compromise With not the most approving eyes; I gave up my unquestioned rights

For sake of quiet days and nights,
I offered then, you know 'tis true,
To cut the piece of land in two."
"Then cut it now," growls North;

"Abate

Your heat," says South, "'tis now too late;

I offered you the rocky corner,

But you, of your own good the scorner,
Refused to take it; I am sorry;

No doubt you might have found a quarry,
Perhaps a gold-mine, for aught I know,
Containing heaps of native rhino;

You can't expect me to resign

My right"

"But where," quoth North, "are mine?" "Your rights,” says tother, "well, that's funny, I bought the land”

"I paid the money;

"That," answered South, "is from the point,
The ownership, you'll grant, is joint;
I'm sure my only hope and trust is
Not law so much as abstract justice,
Though, you remember, 'twas agreed
That so and so-consult the deed;
Objections now are out of date,

They might have answered once, but Fate
Quashes them at the point we've got to;
Obsta principiis, that's my motto."

So saying, South began to whistle

And looked as obstinate as gristle,

While North went homeward, each brown paw

Clenched like a knot of natural law,

And all the while, in either ear,

Heard something clicking wondrous clear.

To turn now to other matters, there are two things upon which it would seem fitting to dilate somewhat more largely in this place, the Yankee character and the Yankee dialect. And, first, of the Yankee character, which has wanted neither open maligners, nor even more dangerous enemies in the persons of those unskilful painters who have given to it that hardness, angularity, and want of proper perspective, which, in truth, belonged, not to their subject, but to their own niggard and unskilful pencil.

New England was not so much the colony of a mother country, as a Hagar driven forth into the wilderness. The little self-exiled band which came hither in 1620`came, not to seek gold, but to found a democracy.. They came that they might have the privilege to work and pray, to sit upon hard benches and listen to painful preachers as long as they would, yea, even unto thirty-seventhly, if the spirit so willed it. And surely, if the Greek might boast his Thermopyla, where three hundred men fell in resisting the Persian, we may well be proud of our Plymouth Rock, where a handful of men, women, and children not merely faced, but vanquished, winter, famine, the wilderness, and the yet more invincible storge that drew them back to the green island far away. These found no lotus