in both respects so far as the British prov. inces are concerned. To me the dialect was native, was spoken all about me when a boy, at a time when an Irish day-laborer was as rare as an American one now. Since then I have made a study of it so far as opportunity allowed. But when I write in it, it is as in a mother tongue, and I am carried back far beyond any studies of it to long-ago noonings in my father's hay-fields, and to the talk of Sam and Job over their jug of blackstrap under the shadow of the ash-tree which still dapples the grass whence they have been gone so long.

"

"Of flowers ne'er sucked by th' theeving bee.") Without becomes athout and 'thout. Afterwards always retains its locative s, and is pronounced always ahterwurds', with a strong accent on the last syllable. This oddity has some support in the erratic towards' instead of towards, which we find in the poets and sometimes hear. The sound given to the first syllable of to'wards, I may remark, sustains the Yankee lengthening of the o in to. At the beginning of a sentence, alterwurds has the accent on the first syllable; at the end of one, on the last; as, "ah'terwurds' he tol' me," "he tol' me ahterwurds'.' The Yankee never makes a mistake in But life is short, and prefaces should be. his aspirates. U changes in many words And so, my good friends, to whom this to e, always in such, brush, tush, hush, introductory epistle is addressed, farewell. rush, blush, seldom in much, oftener in Though some of you have remonstrated trust and crust, never in mush, gust, bust, with me, I shall never write any more tumble, or (?) flush, in the latter case "Biglow Papers," however great the probably to avoid confusion with flesh. I temptation, great especially at the preshave heard flush with the sound, how-ent time, unless it be to complete the ever. For the same reason, I suspect, original plan of this Series by bringing out never in gush (at least, I never heard it), Mr. Sawin as an "original Union man.' because we have already one gesh for gash. The very favor with which they have been A and i short frequently become e short. received is a hindrance to me, by forcing U always becomes o in the prefix un (ex on me a self-consciousness from which cept unto), and o in return changes to u was entirely free when I wrote the First short in uv for of, and in some words be- Series. Moreover, I am no longer the ginning with om. T and d, b and p, v and same careless youth, with nothing to do w, remain intact. So much occurs to me but live to myself, my books, and my in addition to what I said on this head in friends, that I was then. I always hated the preface to the former volume. politics, in the ordinary sense of the word, Of course in what I have said I wish to and I am not likely to grow fonder of be understood as keeping in mind the dif- them, now that I have learned how rare it ference between provincialisms properly is to find a man who can keep principle so called and slang. Slang is always vul- clear from party and personal prejudice, gar, because it is not a natural but an or can conceive the possibility of another's affected way of talking, and all mere doing so. I feel as if I could in some sort tricks of speech or writing are offensive. claim to be an emeritus, and I am sure I do not think that Mr. Biglow can be that political satire will have full justice fairly charged with vulgarity, and I should done it by that genuine and delightful have entirely failed in my design, if I had humorist, the Rev. Petroleum V. Nasby. not made it appear that high and even I regret that I killed off Mr. Wilbur so refined sentiment may coexist with the soon, for he would have enabled me to shrewder and more comic elements of the bring into this preface a number of learned Yankee character. I believe that what is quotations, which must now go a-begging, essentially vulgar and mean-spirited in and also enabled me to dispersonalize my. politics seldom has its source in the body self into a vicarious egotism. He would of the people, but much rather among have helped me likewise in clearing myself those who are made timid by their wealth from a charge which I shall briefly touch or selfish by their love of power. A on, because my friend Mr. Hughes has democracy can afford much better than found it needful to defend me in his prefan aristocracy to follow out its convic-ace to one of the English editions of the tions, and is perhaps better qualified to "Biglow Papers." I thank Mr. Hughes build those convictions on plain princi-heartily for his friendly care of my good ples of right and wrong, rather than on the shifting sands of expediency. I had always thought "Sam Slick" a libel on the Yankee character, and a complete falsification of Yankee modes of speech, though, for aught I know, it may be true

name, and were his Preface accessible to my readers here (as I am glad it is not, for its partiality makes me blush), Í should leave the matter where he left it. The charge is of profanity, brought in by persons who proclaimed African slavery

of Divine institution, and is based (so far as I have heard) on two passages in the First Series

and,

"An' you've gut to git up airly,
Ef you want to take in God,"

"God 'll send the bill to you,"
and on some Scriptural illustrations by
Mr. Sawin.

and even the Poet, were as careful of
God's honor as my critics are ever likely
to be.
J. R. L.

THE COURTIN'.

GOD makes sech nights, all white an'
still

Moonshine an' snow on field an' hill,
Fur 'z you can look or listen,
All silence an' all glisten.

Zekle crep' up quite unbeknown
An' peeked in thru' the winder,
An' there sot Huldy all alone,
'ith no one nigh to hender.

A fireplace filled the room's one side

With half a cord o' wood in

There warn't no stoves (tell comfort died)

To bake ye to a puddin'.

The wa'nut logs shot sparkles out

Towards the pootiest, bless her,
An' leetle flames danced all about
The chiny on the dresser.

Now, in the first place, I was writing under an assumed character, and must talk as the person would whose mouthpiece I made myself. Will any one familiar with the New England countryman venture to tell me that he does not speak of sacred things familiarly? that Biblical allusions (allusions, that is, to the single book with whose language, from his church-going habits, he is intimate) are not frequent on his lips? If so, he cannot have pursued his studies of the character on so many long-ago muster-fields and at so many cattle-shows as I. But I scorn any such line of defence, and will confess at once that one of the things I am proud of in my countrymen is (I am not speaking now of such persons as I have assumed Mr. Sawin to be) that they do not put their Maker away far from them, or interpret the fear of God into being afraid of Him. The Talmudists had conceived a deep truth when they said, that "all things were in the power of God, save the fear of God"; and when people stand in great dread of an invisible power, I suspect they mistake quite another personage for the Deity. I might justify myself for the passages criticised by many parallel ones from Scripture, but I need not. The Reverend Homer Wilbur's note-books supply me with three apposite quotations. The first is from a Father of the Roman Church, the second from a Father of the Anglican, and the third from a Father of Modern English poetry. The Puritan divines would furnish me with many more such. St. Bernard says, Sapiens nummularius est Deus: nummum fictum non recipiet; "AT was kin' o' kingdom-come to look cunning money-changer is God: he will take in no base coin." Latimer says, "You shall perceive that God, by this example, shaketh us by the noses and taketh us by the ears.' Familiar enough, both of them, one would say! But Í should think Mr. Biglow had verily stolen the last of the two maligned passages from Dryden's Don Sebastian," where I find

"And beg of Heaven to charge the bill on me!"

And there I leave the matter, being willing to believe that the Saint, the Martyr,

Agin the chimbley crook-necks hung,
The ole queen's-arm thet gran'ther
An' in amongst 'em rusted
Young

Fetched back from Concord busted.

The very room, coz she was in,

Seemed warm from floor to ceilin',
An' she looked full ez rosy agin
Ez the apples she was peelin'.

On sech a blessed cretur,
A dogrose blushin' to a brook

Ain't modester nor sweeter.

He was six foot o' man, A I,

Clear grit an' human natur';
None could n't quicker pitch a ton
Nor dror a furrer straighter.