There's nothin' thet my natur so shuns So, to begin at the beginnin', Thet is, I mean, it seems to me so, An', fact, it don't smell very strong; An' say wich party hez most sense; There may be folks o' greater talence Thet can't set stiddier on the fence. I'm an eclectic; ez to choosin' 'Twixt this an' thet, I'm plaguy lawth; I leave a side thet looks like losin', But (wile there's doubt) I stick to both; I stan' upon the Constitution, Ez preudunt statesmun say, who've planned A way to git the most profusion O' chances ez to ware they'll stand. Ez fer the war, I go agin it, I mean to say I kind o' du, Thet is, I mean thet, bein' in it, The best way wuz to fight it thru; Not but wut abstract war is horrid, I sign to thet with all my heart,But civlyzation doos git forrid Sometimes upon a powder-cart. About thet darned Proviso matter Ez to the answerin' o' questions, Fer the holl country, an' the ground I don't appruve o' givin' pledges; Thet preudunt farmers don't turn out,--- Ez to the slaves, there's no confusion I think they air an Institution, Ez to my princerples, I glory P. S. Ez we're a sort o' privateerin', O' course, you know, it's sheer an' sheer, An' there is sutthin' wuth your hearin' I'll mention in your privit ear; Ef you git me inside the White House, Your head with ile I'll kin' o''nint By gittin' you inside the Light-house Down to the eend o' Jaalam Pint. An' ez the North hez took to brustlin' An' give our side a harnsome boost,— An' leaves me frontin' South by North. [And now of epistles candidatial, which are of two kinds,—namely, letters of acceptance, and letters definitive of position. Our republic, on the eve of an election, may safely enough be called a republic of letters. Epistolary composition becomes then an epidemic, which seizes one candidate after another, not seldom cutting short the thread of political life. It has come to such a pass, that a party dreads less the attacks of its opponents than a letter from its candidate. Litera scripta manet, and it will go hard if something bad cannot be made of it. General Harrison, it is well understood, was surrounded, during his candidacy, with the cordon sanitaire of a vigilance committee. No prisoner in Spielberg was ever more cautiously deprived of writing materials. The soot was scraped carefully from the chimney-places; outposts of expert rifle-shooters rendered it sure death for any goose (who came clad in feathers) to approach within a certain limited distance of North Bend; and all domestic fowls about the premises were reduced to the condition of Plato's original man. By these precautions the General was saved. Parva componere magnis, I remember, that, when party-spirit once ran high among my people, upon occasion of the choice of a new deacon, I, having my preferences, yet not caring too openly to express them, made use of an innocent fraud to bring about that result which I deemed most desirable. stratagem was no other than the throwing a copy of the Complete Letter-Writer in the way of the candidate whom I wished to defeat. He caught the infection, and addressed a short note to his constituents, in which the opposite party detected so many and so grave improprieties, (he had modelled it upon the letter of a young lady accepting a proposal of marriage,) that he not only lost nis election, but, falling under a suspicion of Sabellianism and I know not what, (the widow Endive assured me that My he was a Paralipomenon, to her certain knowledge,) was forced to leave the town. Thus it is that the letter killeth. The object which candidates propose to themselves in writing is to convey no meaning at all. And here is a quite unsuspected pitfall into which they successively plunge headlong. For it is precisely in such cryptographies that mankind are prone to seek for and find a wonderful amount and variety of significance. Omne ignotum pro mirifico. How do we admire at the antique world striving to crack those oracular nuts from Delphi, Hammon, and elsewhere, in only one of which can I so much as surmise that any kernel had ever lodged; that, namely, wherein Apollo confessed that he was mortal. One Didymus is, moreover, related to have written six thousand books on the single subject of grammar, a topic rendered only more tenebrific by the labors of his successors, and which seems still to possess an attraction for authors in proportion as they can make nothing of it. A singular loadstone for theologians, also, is the Beast in the Apocalypse, whereof, in the course of my studies, I have noted two hundred and three several interpretations, each lethiferal to all the rest. Non nostrum est tantas componere lites, yet I have myself ventured upon a two hundred and fourth, which I embodied in a discourse preached on occasion of the demise of the late usurper, Napoleon Bonaparte, and which quieted, in a large measure, the minds of my people. It is true that my views on this important point were ardently controverted by Mr. Shearjashub Holden, the then preceptor of our academy, and in other particulars a very deserving and sensible young man, though possessing a somewhat limited knowledge of the Greek tongue. But his heresy struck down no deep root, and, he having been lately removed by the hand of Providence, I had the satisfaction of re |