his day, yet we have determined to print them here partly as belonging to the es gesta of this collection, and partly as a warning to their putative author which may keep him from such indecorous pranks for the future. KETTELOPOTOMACHIA. P. Ovidii Nasonis carmen heroicum macaronicum perplexametrum, inter Getas getico more compostum, denuo per medium ardentispiritualem, adjuvante mensa diabolice obsessa, recuperatum, curaque Jo. Conradi Schwarzii umbræ, aliis necnon plurimis adjuvantibus, restitutum. LIBER I. PUNCTORUM garretos colens et cellara Quinque, Gutteribus quæ et gaudes sundayam abstingere frontem, Tanglepedem quem homines appellant Di quoque rotgut, Ampla aquile invicta fausto est sub tegmine terra, Condidit hanc Smithius Dux, Captinus inclytus ille 5 ΤΟ 15 20 25 30 35 Poppere fellerum a tergo, aut stickere clam bowiknifo, Larrupere et nigerum, factum præstantius ullo : 40 Ast chlamydem piciplumatam, Icariam, flito et ineptam, Insuper acri equitare docere est hospitio uti. Nescio an ille Polardus duplefveoribus ortus, Sed reputo potius de radice poorwitemanorum; 45 Fortuiti proles, ni fallor, Tylerus erat Præsidis, omnibus ab Whiggis nominatus a poor cuss; Et nobilem tertium evincit venerabile nomen. Ast animosi omnes bellique ad tympana ha ! ha ! Vociferant læti, procul et si proelia, sive 50 Hostem incautum atsito possunt shootere salvi; 55 60 65 70 75 Readere ibi non posse est casus commoner ullo ; 80 Colemanus impavidus nondum, atque in purpure natus 85 Tales circumstabant nunc nostri inopes hoc job. Primum autem, veluti est mos, præceps quisque liquorat, Quisque et Nicotianum ingens quid inserit atrum, 9c Heroûm nitidum decus et solamen avitum, 95 Masticat ac simul altisonans, spittatque profuse ; Pluggos incumbunt maxillis, uterque vicissim Mirum aspicit duplumque bibententem, astante Lyæo ; Illi nam gravidum caput et laterem habet in hatto. 100 105 110 115 120 125 [The Editors of the "Atlantic" have received so many letters of inquiry concerning the literary remains of the late Mr. Wilbur, mentioned by his colleague and successor, Rev. Jeduthan Hitchcock, in a communication from which we made some extracts in our number for Februry, 1863, and have been so repeatedly urged to print some part of them for the gratification of the public, that they felt it their duty at least to make some effort to satisfy so urgent a demand. They have accordingly carefully examined the papers intrusted to them, but find most of the productions of Mr. Wilbur's pen so fragmentary, and even chaotic, written as they are on the backs of letters in an exceedingly cramped chirography,-here a memorandum for a sermon; there an observation of the weather; now the measurement of an extraordinary head of cabbage, and then of the cerebral capacity of some reverend brother deceased; a calm inquiry into the state of modern literature, ending in a method of detecting if milk be impoverished with water, and the amount thereof; one leaf beginning with a genealogy, to be interrupted half-way down with an entry that the brindle cow had calved,-that any attempts at selection seemed desperate. His only complete work, "An Enquiry concerning the Tenth Horn of the Beast," even in the abstract of it given by Mr. Hitchcock, would, by a rough computation of the printers, fill five entire numbers of our journal, and as he attempts, by a new application of decimal fractions, to identify it with the Emperor Julian, seems hardly of immediate concern to the general reader. Even the Table-Talk, though doubtless originally highly interesting in the domestic circle, is so largely made up of theological discussion and matters of local or preterite interest, that we have found it hard to extract anything that would at all satisfy expectation. But, in order to silence further inquiry, we subjoin a few passages as illustrations of its general character.] I think I could go near to be a perfect Christian if I were always a visitor, as I have sometimes been, at the house of some hospitable friend. I can show a great deal of self-denial where the best of everything is urged upon me with kindly importunity. It is not so very hard to turn the other cheek for a kiss. And when I meditate upon the pains taken for our entertainment in this life, on the endless variety of seasons, of human character and fortune, on the costliness of the hangings and furniture of our dwelling here, I sometimes feel a singular joy in looking upon myself as God's guest, and cannot but believe that we should all be wiser and happier, because more grateful, if we were always mindful of our privilege in this regard. And should we not rate more cheaply any honour that men could pay us, if we remembered that every day we sat at the table of the Great King? Yet must we not forget that we are in strictest bonds His servants also; for there is no impiety so abject as that which expects to be dead-headed (ut ita dicam) through life, and which, calling itself trust in Providence, is in reality asking Providence to trust us and taking up all our goods on false pretences. It is a wise rule to take the world as we find it, not always to leave it so. It has often set me thinking when I find that I can always pick up plenty of empty nuts under my shagbark-tree. The squirrels know them by their lightness, and I have seldom seen one with the marks of their teeth in it. What a school-house is the world, if our wits would only not play truant! For I observe that men set most store by forms and symbols in proportion as they are mere shells. It is the outside they want and not the kernel. What stores of such do not many, who in material things are as shrewd as the squirrels, lay up for the spiritual winter-supply of themselves and their children! I have seen churches that seemed to me garners of these withered nuts, for it is wonderful how prosaic is the apprehension of symbols by the minds of most men. It is not one sect nor another, but all, who, like the dog of the fable, have let drop the spiritual substance of symbols for their material shadow. If one attribute miraculous virtues to mere holy water, that beautiful emblem of inward purification at the door of God's house, another cannot comprehend the significance of baptism without being ducked over head and ears in the liquid vehicle thereof. Perhaps a word of historical comment may be permitted here. My late revered predecessor was, I would humbly affirm, as free from prejudice, as falls to the lot of the most highly favoured individuals of our species. To be sure, I have heard him say that, "what were called strong prejudices were in fact only the repulsion of sensitive organization from that moral and even physical effluvium through which some natures by providential appointment, like certain unsavoury quadrupeds, gave warning of their neighbourhood. Better ten mistaken suspicions of this kind than one close encounter." ." This he said somewhat in heat, on being questioned as to his motives for always refusing his pulpit to those itinerant professors of vicarious benevolence who end their discourses by taking up a collection. But at another time I remember his saying, "that there was one large thing which small minds always found room for, and that was great preju dices." This, however, by the way. The statement which I purposed to make was simply this. Down to A.D. 1830, Jaalam had consisted of a single parish, with one house set apart for religious services. In that year the foundations of a Baptist Society were laid by the labours of Elder Joash Q. Balcom, 2d. As the members of the new body were drawn from the First Parish, Mr. Wilbur was for a time cousiderably exercised in mind. He even went so far as on one occasion to follow the reprehensible practice of the earlier Puritan divines in choosing a punning text, and preached from Hebrews xiii. 9: "Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines." He afterwards, in accordance with one of his own maxims,-"to get a dead injury out of the mind as soon as is decent, bury it, and then ventilate,"—in accordance with this maxim, I say, he lived on very friendly terms with Rev. Shearjashub Scrimgour, present pastor of the Baptist Society in Jaalam. Yet, I think it was never unpleasing to him that the church edifice of that society (though otherwise a creditable specimen of architecture) remained without a bell, as indeed it does to this day. So much seemed necessary to do away with any appearance of acerbity toward a respectable community of professing Christians, which might be suspected in the conclusion of the above paragraph.-J. H.] In lighter moods he was not averse from an innocent play upon words. Looking up from his newspaper one morning as I entered his study he said, "When I read a debate in Congress, I feel as if I were sitting at the feet of Zeno in the shadow of the Portico." On my expressing a natural surpise, he added, smiling, "Why, at such times the only view which honourable members give me of what goes on in the world is through their intercalumniations." I smiled at this after a moment's reflection, and he added gravely, "The most punctilious refinement of manners is the only salt that will keep a democracy from stinking; and what are we to expect from the people, if their representatives set them such lessons? Mr. Everett's whole life has been a sermon from this text. There was, at least, this advantage in duelling, that it set a certain limit on the tongue." In this connection, I may be permitted to recall a playful remark of his upon another occasion. The painful divisions in the First Parish, A.D. 1844, occasioned by the wild notions in respect to the rights of (what Mr. Wilbur, so far as concerned the reasoning faculty, always called) the unfairer part of creation, put forth by Miss Parthenia Almira Fitz, are too well known to need more than a passing allusion. It was during these heats, long since happily allayed, that Mr. Wilbur remarked that "The Church had more trouble in dealing with one sheresiarch than with twenty heresiarchs," and that the men's conscia recti, or certainty o! being right, was nothing to the women's. |