"I'll return ye good fer evil Jest ez suits your mean idees,— An' the friend o' God an' Peace!" Ef I'd my way I hed ruther We should go to work an' part,- 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 indi. vidual 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 кar' ¿oxý 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. [This letter of Mr. Sawin's was not originally 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. In 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 Anglo-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, with 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 heerd nothin bad on him let Alone his havin what Parson Wilbur cals a pongshong 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 ain't 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' aint a mite like our October trainin', An' th' Cunnles, tu, could kiver up their shappoes with bandanners, Up there to Waltham plain last fall, along o' the Cornwallis ? † It's glory, but, in spite o' all my tryin' to git callous, * 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 Περὶ Ὕψους has 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. ti hait the Site of a feller with a muskit as I do pizn But their is fun to a cornwallis I aint agoin' to deny it.-H. B. he means Not quite so fur I guess.-H. B. But wen it comes to bein' killed,-I tell ye I felt streaked Sez I, "I'm up to all thet air, I guess I've been to muster; Wal, it beats all how big I felt hoorawin' in ole Funnel 'em; How dreffle slick he reeled it off, (like Blitz at our lyceum I felt, I swon, ez though it wuz a dreffle kind o' privilege An' it did bonyfidy seem millanyum wuz acomin' Wen all on us got suits (darned like them wore in the state prison) An' every feller felt ez though all Mexico wuz hisn.† * the ignerant creeter means Sekketary; but he ollers stuck to his books like cobbler's wax to an ile-stone.-H. B. + i must be aloud that thare's a streak o' natur in lovin' sho, but it sartinly is 1 of the curusest things in nater to see a rispecktable dri goods This 'ere's about the meanest place a skunk could wal diskiver He talked about delishis froots, but then it wuz a whopper all, The holl on't's mud an' prickly pears, with here an' there a chapparal; You see a feller peekin' out, an', fust you know, a lariat Is round your throat an' you a copse, 'fore you can say, "Wut air ye at ? "* You never see sech darned gret bugs (it may not be irrelevant To say I've seen a scarabæus pilularius † big ez a year old elephant,) The rigiment come up one day in time to stop a red bug From runnin' off with Cunnle Wright,-'twuz jest a common cimex lectularius. One night I started up on eend an' thought I wuz to hum agin, I heern a horn, thinks I it's Sol the fisherman hez come agin, His bellowses is sound enough,- -ez I'm a livin' creeter, I felt a thing go thru my leg,-'twuz nothin' more 'n a skeeter! My gracious! it's a scorpion thet's took a shine to play with't, dealer (deek on off a chutch mayby) a riggin' himself out in the Weigh they du and struttin' round in the Reign aspilin' his trowsis and makin' wet goods of himself. Ef any thin's foolisher and more dicklus than militerry gloary it is milishy gloary.-H. B. * these fellers are very proppilly called Rank Heroes, and the more tha kill the ranker and more Herowick tha bekum.-H. B. † it wuz "tumblebug as he Writ it, but the parson put the Latten instid. i sed tother maid better meeter, but he said tha was eddykated peepl to Boston and tha wouldn't stan' it no how. idnow as tha wood and idnow as tha wood.-H. B. the means human beins, that's wut he means. i spose he kinder thought tha wuz human beans ware the Xisle Poles comes from.-H. B. |