"Thet sauce for goose ain't jest the They've left the axe an' saw, John,

Ole Uncle S. sez he, "I guess,
God's price is high," sez he;
"But nothin' else than wut He sells
Wears long, an' thet J. B.
May larn, like you an' me!"

No. III.

BIRDOFREDUM SAWIN, ESQ.,
MR. HOSEA BIGLOW.

With the following Letter from the REV-
EREND HOMER WILBUR, A. M.

TO THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC
MONTHLY.

man deep enough, our lead shall bring up the mud of human nature at last. The Bretons believe in an evil spirit which they call ar c'houskezik, whose office it is to make the congregation drowsy; and though I have never had reason to think that he was specially busy among my flock, yet have I seen enough to make nie sometimes regret the hinged seats of the ancient meeting-house, whose lively clatter, not unwillingly intensified by boys beyond eyeshot of the tithing-man, served at intervals as a TO wholesome réveil. It is true, I have numbered among my parishioners some who are proof against the prophylactick fennel, nay, whose gift of somnolence rivalled that of the Cretan Rip Van Winkle, Epimenides, and who, nevertheless, complained not so much of the substance as of the length of my (by them unheard) discourses. Some ingenious persons of a philosophick turn have assured us that our pulpits were set too high, and that the soporifick tendency increased with the ratio of the angle in which the hearer's eye was constrained to seek the preacher. This were a curious topick for investigation. There can be no doubt that some sermons are pitched too high, and I remember many struggles with the drowsy fiend in my youth. Happy Saint Anthony of Padua, whose finny acolytes, however they might profit, could never murmur! Quare fremuerunt gentes! Who is he that can twice a week be inspired, or has eloquence (ut ita dicam) always on tap? A good man, and, next to David, a sacred poet (himself, haply, not inexpert of evil in this particular), has said,

JAALAM, 7th Feb., 1862. RESPECTED FRIENDS, If I know myself, and surely a man can hardly be supposed to have overpassed the limit of fourscore years without attaining to some proficiency in that most useful branch of fearning (e coelo descendit, says the pagan poet), I have no great smack of that weakness which would press upon the publick attention any matter pertaining to my private affairs. But since the following letter of Mr. Sawin contains not only a direct allusion to myself, but that in connection with a topick of interest to all those engaged in the publick ministrations of the sanctuary, I may be pardoned for touching briefly thereupon. Mr. Sawin was never a stated attendant upon my preaching, never, as I believe, even an occasional one, since the erection of the new house (where we now worship) in 1845. He did, indeed, for a time, supply a not unacceptable bass in the choir; but, whether on some umbrage (omnibus hoc vitium est cantoribus) taken against the bass-viol, then, and till his decease in 1850 (t. 77,) under the charge of Mr. Asaph Perley, or, as was reported by others, on account of an imminent subscription for a new bell, he thenceforth absented himself from all outward and visible communion. Yet he seems to have preserved (alta mente repostum), as it were, in the pickle of a mind soured by prejudice, a lasting scanner, as he would call it, against our staid and decent form of worship; for I would rather in that wise interpret his fling, than suppose that any chance tares sown by my pulpit discourses should survive so long, while good seed too often fails to root itself. I humbly trust that I have no personal feeling in the matter; though I know that, if we sound any

"The worst speak something good: if all want sense,

God takes a text and preacheth patience."

There are one or two other points in Mr. Sawin's letter which I would also briefly animadvert upon. And first, concerning the claim he sets up to a certain superiority of blood and lineage in the people of our Southern States, now unhappily in rebellion against lawful authority and their own better interests. There is a sort of opinions, anachronisms at once and anachorisms, foreign both to the age and the country, that maintain a feeble and buzzing existence, scarce to be called life, like winter flies, which in mild weather crawl out from obscure nooks and crannies to expatiate in the sun, and sometimes acquire vigor enough to disturb with their enforced familiarity the studious hours of the scholar. One of the most stupid and pertinacious of these is the theory that the Southern States were settled by a class of emigrants

honest tradesmen and artisans, in some
measure exiles for conscience' sake, who
would have smiled at the high-flying non-
sense of their descendants. Some of the
more respectable were Jews. The absurd-
ity of supposing a population of eight mil-
lions all sprung from gentle loins in the
course of a century and a half is too mani-
fest for confutation. But of what use to
discuss the matter? An expert genealogist
will provide any solvent man with a genus
et proavos to order. My Lord Burleigh
said (and the Emperor Frederick II. before
him), that "nobility was ancient riches,"
whence also the Spanish were wont to call
their nobles ricos hombres, and the aris-
tocracy of America are the descendants of
those who first became wealthy, by what-
ever means. Petroleum will in this wise
be the source of much good blood among
our posterity. The aristocracy of the
South, such as it is, has the shallowest of
all foundations, for it is only skin-deep, -
the most odious of all, for, while affecting
to despise trade, it traces its origin to a
successful traffick in men, women, and
children, and still draws its chief revenues
thence. And though, as Doctor Chamber-
layne consolingly says in his Present State
of England, "to become a Merchant of
Foreign Commerce, without serving any
Apprentisage, hath been allowed no dis-
paragement to a Gentleman born, especial-
ly to a younger Brother," yet I conceive
that he would hardly have made a like ex-
'ception in favour of the particular trade in
question. Oddly enough this trade reverses
the ordinary standards of social respecta-
bility no less than of morals, for the retail
and domestick is as creditable as the whole-
sale and foreign is degrading to him who
follows it. Are our morals, then, no better
than mores after all? I do not believe that
such aristocracy as exists at the South (for
I hold with Marius, fortissimum quemque
generosissimum) will be found an element
of anything like persistent strength in war,
-- thinking the saying of Lord Bacon (whom
one quaintly called inductionis dominus et
Verulamii) as true as it is pithy, that "the
more gentlemen, ever the more books of
subsidies." It is odd enough as an histori-
cal precedent, that, while the fathers of
New England were laying deep in religion,
education, and freedom the basis of a pol
ity which has substantially outlasted any
then existing, the first work of the founders
of Virginia, as may be seen in Wingfield's
Memorial, was conspiracy and rebellion,

from the Old World socially superior to those who founded the institutions of New England. The Virginians especially lay claim to this generosity of lineage, which were of no possible account, were it not for the fact that such superstitions are sometimes not without their effect on the course of human affairs. The early adventurers to Massachusetts at least paid their passages; no felons were ever shipped thither; and though it be true that many deboshed younger brothers of what are called good families may have sought refuge in Virginia, it is equally certain that a great part of the early deportatious thither were the sweepings of the London streets and the leavings of the London stews. It was this my Lord Bacon had in mind when he wrote: "It is a shameful and unblessed thing to take the scum of people and wicked condemned men to be the people with whom you plant." That certain names are found there is nothing to the purpose, for, even had an alias been beyond the invention of the knaves of that generation, it is known that servants were often called by their masters' names, as slaves are now. On what the heralds call the spindle side, some, at least, of the oldest Virginian families are descended from matrons who were exported and sold for so many hogsheads of tobacco the head. So notorious was this, that it became one of the jokes of contenporary playwrights, not only that men bankrupt in purse and character were "food for the Plantations" (and this before the settlement of New England), but also that any drab would suffice to wive such pitiful adventurers. "Never choose a wife as if you were going to Virginia," says Middleton in one of his comedies. The mule is apt to forget all but the equine side of his pedigree. How early the counterfeit nobility of the Old Dominion became a topick of ridicule in the Mother Country may be learned from a play of Mrs. Behn's, founded on the Rebellion of Bacon: for even these kennels of literature may yield a fact or two to pay the raking. Mrs. Flirt, the keeper of a Virginia ordinary, calls herself the daughter of a baronet "undone in the late rebellion," her father having in truth been a tailor, and three of the Council, assuming to themselves an equal splendor of origin, are shown to have been, one "a broken exciseman who came over a poor servant," another a tinker transported for theft, and the third "a common pickpocket often flogged at the cart's tail." The ancestry of South Carolina will as lit- odder yet, as showing the changes which tle pass muster at the Herald's Visitation, are wrought by circumstance, that the first though I hold them to have been more rep-insurrection in South Carolina was against utable, inasmuch as many of them were the aristocratical scheme of the Proprietary

To

Government. I do not find that the cutic- | I HED it on my min' las' time, when I ular aristocracy of the South has added to write ye started, anything to the refinements of civilization except the carrying of bowie-knives and the chewing of tobacco, - a high-toned Southern gentleman being commonly not only quadrumanous but quidruminant.

I confess that the present letter of Mr. Sawin increases my doubts as to the sincerity of the convictions which he professes, and I am inclined to think that the triumph of the legitimate Government, sure sooner or later to take place, will find him and a large majority of his newly adopted fellow-citizens (who hold with Daedalus, the primal sitter-on-the-fence, that medium tenere tutissimum) original Union men. The criticisms towards the

close of his letter on certain of our failings are worthy to be seriously perpended; for he is not, as I think, without a spice of vulgar shrewdness. Fas est et ab hoste doceri: there is no reckoning without your host. As to the good-nature in us which he seems to gird at, while I would not consecrate a chapel, as they have not scrupled to do in France, to Notre Dame de la Haine (Our Lady of Hate), yet I cannot forget that the corruption of good-nature is the generation of laxity of principle. Good-nature is our national characteristick; and though it be, perhaps, nothing more than a culpable weakness or cowardice, when it leads us to put up tamely with manifold impositions and breaches of implied contracts, (as too frequently in our publick conveyances,) it becomes a positive crime, when it leads us to look unresentfully on peculation, and to regard treason to the best Government that ever existed

as something with which a gentleman may shake hands without soiling his fingers. I do not think the gallows-tree the most profitable member of our Sylva; but, since it continues to be planted, I would fain see a Northern limb ingrafted on it, that it may bear some other fruit than loyal Ten

nesseeans.

A relick has recently been discovered on the east bank of Bushy Brook in North Jaalam, which I conceive to be an inscription in Runick characters relating to the early expedition of the Northmen to this continent. I shall make fuller investigations, and communicate the result in due

season.

Respectfully,

Your obedient servant,

HOMER WILBUR, A. M.

tech the leadin' featurs o' my gittin' But, ez my letters hez to go clearn roun' me converted; by way o' Cuby,

T

wun't seem no staler now than then, by th' time it gits where you be. You know up North, though sees an' things air plenty ez you please, Ther' warn't nut one on 'em thet come jes' square with my idees : They all on 'em wuz too much mixed with Covenants o' Works, would hev answered jest ez wal for Afrikins an' Turks,

An'

Fer

Ef

I

where's a Christian's privilege an' his rewards ensuin',

't ain't perfessin' right an eend
'thout nary need o' doin'?
dessay they suit workin'-folks thet
ain't noways pertic'lar,

But nut your Southun gen'leman thet
don't blame nary man thet casts his
keeps his parpendic'lar;
lot along o' his folks,

I

But ef you cal'late to save me, 't must
be with folks thet is folks ;
Cov'nants o' works go 'ginst my grain,
but down here I've found out
The true fus'-fem'ly A 1 plan, here's
how it come about.

When I fus' sot up with Miss S., sez she to me, sez she,

"Without

you git religion, Sir, the thing can't never be;

Nut but wut I respeck," sez she, "your intellectle part,

But you wun't noways du for me athout a change o' heart:

Nothun religion works wal North, but it's ez soft ez spruce,

Compared to ourn, for keepin' sound," sez she, "upon the goose;

A

It

day's experunce 'd prove to ye, ez easy z pull a trigger,

takes the Southun pint o' view to raise ten bales a nigger; You'll fin' thet human natur', South, ain't wholesome more 'n skin-deep, An' once 't a darkie's took with it, he wun't be wuth his keep."

"How shell I git it, Ma'am?" sez I. "Attend the nex' camp-meetin',"

P. S.-I inclose a year's subscription Sez she, "an' it 'll come to ye ez cheap from Deacon Tinkham.

ez onbleached sheetin'."

Wal, so I went along an' hearn most an | For why should Cæsar git his dues impressive sarmon more 'n Juno, Pomp, an' Cuffy About besprinklin' Afriky with fourth-It's justifyin' Ham to spare a nigger proof dew o' Harmon: