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An' come wut will, I think it's grand Abe's gut his will et last bloom-furnaced

In trial-flames till it 'll stand

quadrupedal one, weighing about thirty pounds, three feet seven inches and a half in height, four feet square on the top, and of beech or maple, I am not definitely pre

The strain o' bein' in deadly earnest: pared to say which. It had once belonged

Thet's wut we want,

know

we want to

The folks on our side hez the bravery To b'lieve ez hard, come weal, come woe, In Freedom ez Jeff' doos in Slavery.

Set the two forces foot to foot,

to my respected predecessor, and had been, so far as I can learn upon careful inquiry, of perfectly regular and correct habits up to the evening in question. On that occasion the young man previously alluded to had been sitting with his hands resting carelessly upon it, while I read over to him at his request certain portions of my last

An' every man knows who'll be win- Sabbath's discourse. On a sudden the rap

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IN the month of February, 1866, the editors of the "Atlantic Monthly received from the Rev. Mr. Hitchcock of Jaalam a letter enclosing the macaronic verses which follow, and promising to send more, if more should be communicated. "They were rapped out on the evening of Thursday last past," he says, "by what claimed to be the spirit of my late predecessor in the ministry here, the Rev. Dr. Wilbur, through the medium of a young man at present domiciled in my family. As to the possibility of such spiritual manifestations, or whether they be properly so entitled, I express no opinion, as there is a division of sentiment on that subject in the parish, and many persons of the highest respectability in social standing entertain opposing views. The young man who was improved as a medium submitted himself to the experiment with manifest reluctance, and is still unprepared to believe in the authenticity of the manifestations. During his residence with me his deportment has always been exemplary; he has been constant in his attendance upon our family devotions and the public ministrations of the Word, and has more than once privately stated to me, that the latter had often brought him under deep concern of mind. The table is an ordinary

pings, as they are called, commenced to render themselves audible, at first faintly, but in process of time more distinctly and with violent agitation of the table. The young man expressed himself both surprised and pained by the wholly unexpected, and, so far as he was concerned, unprecedented occurrence. At the earnest solicitation, however, of several who happened to be present, he consented to go on with the experiment, and with the assistance of the alphabet commonly employed in similar emergencies, the following communication was obtained and written down

immediately by myself. Whether any, and if so, how much weight should be attached to it, I venture no decision. That Dr. Wilbur had sometimes employed his leisure in Latin versification I have ascertained to be the case, though all that has been discovered of that nature among his papers consists of some fragmentary passages of a version into hexameters of portions of the Song of Solomon. These I had communicated about a week or ten days previous [ly] to the young gentleman who officiated as medium in the communication afterwards received. I have thus, I believe, stated all the material facts that have any elucidative bearing upon this mysterious occurrence."

So far Mr. Hitchcock, who seems perfectly master of Webster's unabridged quarto, and whose flowing style leads him into certain further expatiations for which we have not room. We have since learned that the young man he speaks of was a sophomore, put under his care during a sentence of rustication from College, where he had distinguished himself rather by physical experiments on the comparative power of resistance in window-glass to various solid substances, than in the more regular studies of the place. In answer to a letter of inquiry, the professor of Latin says, "There was no harm in the boy that I know of beyond his loving mischief more than Latin, nor can I think of any spirits likely to possess him except

those commonly called animal. He was certainly not remarkable for his Latinity, but I see nothing in the verses you enclose that would lead me to think them beyond his capacity, or the result of any special inspiration whether of beech or maple. Had that of birch been tried upon him earlier and more faithfully, the verses would perhaps have been better in quality and certainly in quantity." This exact and thorough scholar then goes on to point out many false quantities and barbarisms. It is but fair to say, however, that the author, whoever he was, seems not to have been

unaware of some of them himself, as is shown by a great many notes appended to the verses as we received then, and purporting to be by Scaliger, Bentley and others, among them the Esprit de Voltaire! These we have omitted as clearly meant to be humorous and altogether failing therein.

Though entirely satisfied that the verses are altogether unworthy of Mr. Wilbur, who seems to have been a tolerable Latin scholar after the fashion of his day, yet we

have determined to print them here partly as belonging to the res geste of this collection, and partly as a warning to their putative author which may keep him from such indecorous pranks for the future.

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Est his prisca fides jurare et breakere | Polko ut consule, gemens, Billy im

wordum; Poppere fellerum a tergo, aut stickere clam bowiknifo,

Haud sane facinus, dignum sed victrice lauro;

Larrupere et nigerum, factum præstantius ullo :

40

Ast chlamydem piciplumatam, Icariam, flito et ineptamı, Yanko gratis induere, illum et valido railo

Insuper acri equitare docere est hospitio

uti.

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Speechisque articulisque hominum quis | Colemanus hos mæstus, triste ruminans

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Sese promptum (hic) jactans Yankos lickere centum,

Atque ad lastum invictus non surrendidit unquam?

Ergo haud meddlite, posco, mique relinquite (hic) hoc job,

Si non — knifumque enormiem mostrat spittatque tremendus.

Dixerat: ast alii reliquorant et sine

pauso

105

Pluggos incumbunt maxillis, uterque

vicissim

Certamine innocuo valde madidam inquinat assem

Tylerus autem, dumque liquorat aridus
hostis,

Mirum aspicit duplumque bibentem,
astante Lyæo ;
Ardens impavidusque edidit tamen im-
pia verba;
110
Duplum quamvis te aspicio, esses atque
viginti,
Mendacem dicerem totumque (hic)
thrasherem acervum ;
Nempe et thrasham, doggonatus (hic)
sim nisi faxem;
Lambastabo omnes catawompositer-(hic)
que chawam!

Dixit et impulsus Ryeo ruitur bene ti

tus,

115

Illi nam gravidum caput et laterem

habet in hatto.

Hunc inhiat titubansque Polardus,
optat et illum
Stickere inermem, protegit autem rite
Lyæus,

Et pronos geminos, oculis dubitantibus,
heros

que solamen,

Inspicit hiccans, circumspittat terque cubantes;

Funereisque his ritibus humidis inde solutis,

125

Sternitur, invalidusque illis superincidit infans ;

Hos sepelit somnus et snorunt corniso

nantes,

Watchmanus inscios ast caly booso deinde reponit.

No. IX.

[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 February, 1863, and have been so repeatedly urged to print some part of them for the gratification of least to make some effort to satisfy so urthe public, that they felt it their duty at gent 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 halfway 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 ab. stract 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 immedi

Cernit et irritus hostes, dumque excogiate concern to the general reader. Even

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the Table-Talk, though doubtless origicircle, is so largely made up of theological nally highly interesting in the domestic 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 fur

ther 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, be-cause more grateful, if we were always mindful of our privilege in this regard. And should we not rate more cheaply any honor 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 favored 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 organizations from that moral and even physical effluvium through which some natures by providential appointment, like certain unsavory quadrupeds, gave warning of their neighborhood. Better ten nistaken 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 prejudices." 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 labors 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 considerably 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 Ï read a debate in Congress, I feel as if I were

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