Wut wuz there in them from this vote to pervent him? A man thet lets all sorts o' folks git a sight on 't Ough' to hey it all took right away, every mite on 't; Ef he can't keep it all to himself wen it 's wise to, He aint one it 's fit to trust nothin' so nice to. Besides, ther 's a wonderful power in latitude To shift a man's morril relations au' attitude; Some flossifers think thet a fakkilty 's granted The minnit it's proved to be thoroughly wanted, Thet a change o' demand makes a change o' condition, An' thet everythin' 's nothin' except by position; Ez, fer instance, thet rubber-trees fust begun bearin' Wen p'litikle conshunces come into wearin', Thet the fears of a monkey, whose holt chanced to fail, Drawed the vertibry out to a prehensile tail; So, wen one's chose to Congriss, ez soon ez he 's in it, A collar grows right round his neck in a minnit, A marciful Providunce fashioned us hol-An' sartin it is thet a man cannot be ler strict tem satis est, quasi artem aliquam, nisi utare. and from our Milton, who says: "I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat."- Areop. He had taken the words out of the Roman's mouth, without knowing it, and might well exclaim with Donatus (if Saint Jerome's tutor may stand sponsor for a curse), Pereant qui ante nos nostra dixerint ! — II. W. Resolves air a thing we most gen'ally | Wen they 're on'y jest changin' the keep ill, They 're a cheap kind o' dust fer the eyes o' the people; A parcel o' delligits jest git together An' chat fer a spell o' the crops an' the weather, Then, comin' to order, they squabble awile An' let off the speeches they're ferful 'll spile; Then - Resolve, Thet we wunt hev an inch o' slave territory; Thet Presidunt Polk's holl perceedins air very tory; Thet the war is a damned war, an' them thet enlist in it Should hev a cravat with a dreffle tight twist in it; Thet the war is a war fer the spreadin' o' slavery; Thet our army desarves our best thanks fer their bravery; Thet we 're the original friends o' the nation, All the rest air a paltry an' base fabrication; Thet we highly respect Messrs. A, B, an' C, An' ez deeply despise Messrs. E, F, an' G. In this way they go to the eend o' the chapter, An' then they bust out in a kind of a raptur About their own vartoo, an' folks's stone-blindness holders of offices; Is ollers unpop'lar an' never gits pitied, Because it's a crime no one never committed; But he mus' n't be hard on partickler sins, Coz then he'll be kickin' the people's own shins; On'y look at the Demmercrats, see wut they 've done Jest simply by stickin' together like fun; They 've sucked us right into a mis'able war Thet no one on airth aint responsible for; They 've run us a hundred cool millions in debt (An' fer Demmererat Horners ther 's good plums left yet); They talk agin tayriffs, but act fer a high one, An' so coax all parties to build up their Zion; To the people they 're ollers ez slick ez | Who compose wut they call a State Cen molasses, An' butter their bread on both sides with The Masses, Half o' whom they've persuaded, by way of a joke, Thet Washinton's mantelpiece fell upon Polk. Now all o' these blessin's the Wigs might enjoy, Ef they'd gumption enough the right means to imploy ;* Fer the silver spoon born in Dermoc'acy's mouth Is a kind of a scringe thet they hev to the South; Their masters can cuss 'em an' kick 'em an' wale 'em, An' they notice it less 'an the ass did to Balaam; In this way they screw into second-rate offices Wich the slaveholder thinks 'ould substract too much off his ease; The file-leaders, I mean, du, fer they, by their wiles, Unlike the old viper, grow fat on their files. Wal, the Wigs hev been tryin' to grab all this prey frum 'em An' to hook this nice spoon o' good fortin' away frum 'em, An' they might ha' succeeded, ez likely ez not, In lickin' the Demmercrats all round the lot, Ef it warn't thet, wile all faithful Wigs were their knees on, Some stuffy old codger would holler out, "Treason! You must keep a sharp eye on a dog thet hez bit you once, An' I aint agoin' to cheat my constitoounts, Wen every fool knows thet a man repre sents Not the fellers thet sent him, but them on the fence, Impartially ready to jump either side An' make the fust use of a turn o' the tide, The waiters on Providunce here in the city, That was a pithy saying of Persius, and fits our politicians without a wrinkle, Magister artis, ingeniique largitor venter.-H. W. terl Committy. Constitoounts air hendy to helpa man in, But arterwards don't weigh the heft of a pin. Wy, the people can't all live on Uncle Sam's pus, So they 've nothin' to du with 't fer better or wus; It's the folks thet air kind o' brought Thet hev any consarn in 't, an' thet is the up to depend on 't end on 't. Now here wuz New England ahevin' the honor Of a chance at the Speakership showered upon her ; Do you say, "She don't want no more Speakers, but fewer; She 's hed plenty o' them, wut she wants is a doer"? Fer the matter o' thet, it's notorous in town Thet her own representatives du her quite brown. But thet 's nothin' to du with it; wut right hed Palfrey To mix himself up with fanatical small fry? Warn't we gittin' on prime with our hot an' cold blowin', Acondemnin' the war wilst we kep' it agoin'? We'd assumed with gret skill a commandin' position, On this side or thet, no one could n't tell wich one, So, wutever side wipped, we 'd a chance at the plunder An' could sue fer infringin' our paytented thunder; We were ready to vote fer whoever wuz eligible, Ef on all pints at issoo he 'd stay unintelligible. Wal, sposin' we hed to gulp down our perfessions, We were ready to come out next mornin' with fresh ones; Besides, ef we did, 't was our business alone, Fer could n't we du wut we would with our own? Eat up his own words, it's a marcy it An' efa man can, wen pervisions hev riz so, is so. driv on, Wy, these chaps frum the North, with | We don't go an' fight it, nor aint to be back-bones to 'em, darn 'em, 'Ould be wuth more 'an Gennle Tom Thumb is to Barnum: Ther's enough thet to office on this very plan grow, By exhibitin' how very small a man can grow; But an M. C. frum here ollers hastens to state he Belongs to the order called invertebraty, Wence some gret filologists judge primy fashy Thet M. C. is M. T. by paronomashy; An' these few exceptions air loosus naytury Folks 'ould put down their quarters to stare at, like fury. It's no use to open the door o' success, Ef a member can bolt so fer nothin' or less; Wy, all o' them grand constitootional pillers Our fore-fathers fetched with 'em over the billers, Them pillers the people so soundly hev slep' on, Wile to slav'ry, invasion, an' debt they were swep' on, Wile our Destiny higher an' higher kep' mountin' (Though I guess folks 'll stare wen she hends her account in), Ef members in this way go kicken' agin 'em, They wunt hev so much ez a feather left in 'em. An', ez fer this Palfrey,* we thought wen we 'd gut him in, He'd go kindly in wutever harness we put him in; Supposin' we did know thet he wuz a peace man? Doos he think he can be Uncle Sammle's policeman, An' wen Sam gits tipsy an' kicks up a riot, Lead him off to the lockup to snooze till he 's quiet? Wy, the war is a war thet true paytriots can bear, ef It leads to the fat promised land of a tayriff; There is truth yet in this of Juvenal, "Dat veniam corvis, vexat censura columbas." H. W. Nor Demmercrats nuther, thet hev wut to live on; Ef it aint jest the thing thet 's well pleasin' to God, It makes us thought highly on elsewhere abroad; The Rooshian black eagle looks blue in his eerie An' shakes both his heads wen he hears o' Monteery; In the Tower Victory sets, all of a fluster, An' reads, with locked doors, how we won Cherry Buster; An' old Philip Lewis-thet come an' kep' school here Fer the mere sake o' scorin' his ryalist ruler On the tenderest part of our kings in futuro Hides his crown underneath an old shut in his bureau, Breaks off in his brags to a suckle o' merry kings, How he often hed hided young native Amerrikins, An' turnin' quite faint in the midst of his fooleries, Sneaks down stairs to bolt the front door o' the Tooleries.* You say, "We'd ha' scared 'em by growin' in peace, A plaguy sight more then by bobberies like these"? Who is it dares say thet our national eagle Jortin is willing to allow of other miracles besides those recorded in Holy Writ, and why not of other prophecies? It is granting too much to Satan to suppose him, as divers of the learned have done, the inspirer of the ancient oracles. Wiser, I esteem it, to give chance the credit of the successful ones. What is said here of Louis Philippe was verified in some of its minute particulars within a few months' time. Enough to have made the fortune of Delphi or Hammon, and no thanks to Beelze bub neither! That of Seneca in Medea will Wun't much longer be classed with the birds thet air regal, Coz theirn be hooked beaks, an' she, arter this slaughter, 'll bring back a bill ten times longer 'n she ough' to"? Wut's your name? Come, I see ye, you up-country feller, You 've put me out severil times with your beller; Out with it! Wut? Biglow? I say nothin' furder, Thet feller would like nothin' better 'n a murder; He's a traiter, blasphemer, an' wut ruther worse is, He puts all his ath'ism in dreffle bad verses; Socity aint safe till sech monsters air out on it, Refer to the Post, ef you hev the least doubt on it; Wy, he goes agin war, agin indirect taxes, Agin sellin' wild lands 'cept to settlers with axes, Agin holdin' o' slaves, though he knows it's the corner Our libbaty rests on, the mis'able scorner! with In short, he would wholly upset ters an' savages, An' pitch into all kinds o' briles an' confusions The holl of our civilized, free institu tions; He writes fer thet ruther unsafe print, An' likely ez not hez a squintin' I'll be blest, to thet is, I mean I'll be Ef I hark to a word frum so noted pest; in our national legislature everything runs to talk, as lettuces, if the season or the soil be unpropitious, shoot up lankly to seed, instead of forming handsome heads) that Babel was the first Congress, the earliest mill erected for In these days, the manufacture of gabble. what with Town Meetings, School Committees, rain figures (simulacra, semblances) of speech sible that the Shakers may intend to convey a garments with hooks and eyes? This reflection concerning Babel, which I find in no Commentary, was first thrown upon my mind when an excellent deacon of my congregation (being infected with the Second Advent delusion) assured me that he had received a first instalment of the gift of tongues as a small earnest of larger possessions in the like kind to follow. For, of a truth, I could not reconcile it with my ideas of the Divine justice and mercy that the single wall which protected people of other languages from the incursions of this otherwise well-meaning propagandist should be broken down. In reading Congressional debates, I have fancied, that, after the subsidence of those painful buzzings in the brain which result from such exercises, I detected a slender residuum of valuable information. I made the discovery that nothing takes longer in the saying than anything else, for as ex nihilo nihil fit, so from one polypus nothing any number of similar ones may be produced. I would recommend to the attention of viva voce debaters and controversialists the admirable example of the monk Copres, who, in the fourth century, stood for half an hour in the midst of a great fire, and thereby silenced a Manichæan antagonist who had less of the salamander in him. As for those who quarrel a in print, I have no concern with them here, since the eyelids are a divinely granted shield in many modern books that the printed portion against all such. Moreover, I have observed is becoming gradually smaller, and the number of blank or fly-leaves (as they are called) great I sha' n't talk with him, my religion 's most humble servant. |