EO LO POE SIS.
AMERICAN
REJECTED ADDRESSES.
NOW FIRST PUBLISHED
FROM THE ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPTS.
NEW  YORK:
J. C. DERBY, 119 NASSAU STREET.
BOSTON: PHILLIPS, SAMPSON, & CO.
CINCINNATI: H. W. DERBY.




Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1855, by
J. C. DERBY,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the
Southern District of New York.




TO THE DIRECTORS OF THE NEW YORK
CRYSTAL PALACE.
GENTLEMEN: -
When the transparent roof of your enchanted
castle first invited the sun's rays to descend on its
miracles of art and its electrified spectators, it was
understood that the votaries of literature, in common
with cultivators of the various arts, were about to
find shelter in the shadow of your protecting wings.
An excitement, perhaps not observed by you, but in
truth scarcely paralleled in the history of popular
sensations, sprang up among those who cater superfluities for the  world's  fickle  palate.   Sculptors,
painters, and confectioners; musicians, apothecaries,
authors and mousetrap manufacturers, saw their
coming glory in your magnificent foreshadowings.
Ambubaiarum collegia, pharmacopolve,
Mendici, mime, balatrones, hoc genus omne.
(3)




4                DEDICATION.
Rumor, with her hundred tongues, announced that a
mysterious prize, in the form of a castle, wrought
from a solid nugget of Californian gold, was to be
adjudged to the author of the best poem submitted
to the ordeal of your critical eyes. Untrammelled by
the confines usually allotted on the occasion of an
opening or closing address, the happy candidates
were left free as air to select subjects in which they
felt themselves most competent to shine.
As the announcement of a vacant office brings
down an avalanche of hungry aspirants, so did the
promulgation of this news dart hope, activity, and
sunshine into multitudes of desolate garrets.  Unnumbered pens at once went down into inkhorns, and
the Muses got a holocaust of sleepless nights and
days. Eyes rolled in fine frenzies, reams of paper
were blotted, interlined, and transcribed, and the
number of stanzas which the world had to boast
underwent a marked statistical augmentation.
Judge, then, of our consternation, when we first
learned that our sunshine was moonshine, and that
you had apparently been deceiving us all for your
own selfish and unjustifiable purposes. It was some
time before we could control our exasperated feelings;




DEDICATION.                  5
and when at length an indignation meeting was
called of the aggrieved parties, without distinction
of rank, resolutions were passed of unusual spirit,
redounding considerably to your shame and disadvantage. It was at once determined by many of us
to throw our priceless productions into a joint stock
concern, and to stereotype them on our own account,
not doubting that the public would accord to us more
fame and emolument, than those which your niggardly
fingers have withheld.
We are not sorry to find that retribution has
overtaken you in the rapid decadence which is now
the only distinction left to your ill-managed and
disastrous concern. If any thing could have saved
you, it would have been the brilliant success and the
unlimited attraction attending a combined effort of
all the poetical talent of the country. And it must
add to your mortification to know, that, in our
individual and collective opinion, the poems here
published are considerably superior to any thing we
have before written.
Your obedient and injured servants,
THE AUTHORS.








CONTENTS.
LINES WRITTEN AT CHICAGO.                 PAGE
BY F. G. H...1....            11
ADDRESS TO A BOOKWORM.
BY W. cB....                21
BLOUZELINDA, A HEXAMETER ROMANCE.
BY H. W. L........          31
TO A TADPOLE.
BY O. W. H.                        51
EMPORIUM VERSUS NEW YORK.
BY Q.. D........... 63
THE UNSEEN.
BY R.. E...........  73
THE SPIRIT RAPPERS TO THEIR MEDIUMS.
BY J. R. L.......    87
THE CROCKERY MAKERS.
BY T. B. R..      127
(7)




8                 CONTENTS.
To CERITO.
BY G. L.............              137
THE SONG OF THE BLACKSMITHS.
BY J. G. W........  * * * 143
THE POET IN THE EAST.
BY B. ~..............       151
THE SONG OF THE STEAMER.
BY  J. G. S.......... 157
BARBARA ALLEN.
BY N. P. We...169
A WALL STREET ECLOGUE.
BY T. W. P.........185
THE AMERICAN CONGRESS.
BY G. W. B..                 193
AN INDIGNATION MEETING.
BY THE COMPANY.........  203
NOTES,  * * * *.... 216




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Brave men busily changing every day, -going ahead with
high pressure force, - all Americanized, all galvanized with
the same frantic energy. The population rush about on their
different occupations, - railway engines screaming, steamboats
puffing on every side; wagons rattle, men swear, bargain, and
invite you to their hotels, in the accents of half a dozen
countries.
WARBURTON.
(10)




LINES WRITTEN AT CHICAGO.
BY F. G. H.
HOME of the Indian's wild-born race,
The stalwart and the brave,
Alike their camp and hunting place,
Their battle field and grave;
Where late gigantic warriors stood
As thick as pine trees in the, wood,
Or snipes on Jersey shore;
"Tecumseh," " Beaver," and " Split Log,"
And "Keokuk," and " Horned Frog,"
And " Blackhawk," "Wolf," and "Yelping Dog,"
And "Possum Tail," and "Pollywog,"
And many hundred more;
Ill)




12     LINES WRITTEN AT CHICAGO.
Where to repel their fierce attack
Fort Dearborn reared across their track
Its log-constructed walls;
For forty years these fronts of wood
The tempest and the foe withstood,
And many a night of fire and flood
The dauntless garrison made good -
Their supper in its halls.
Expanding far to left and right
Thy prairies stretch beyond the sight
Their never-ending sea,
Amid whose wastes of soil and sand
The traveller out of sight of land
May die (if nothing comes to hand)
Of hunger or ennui.
Far rolls the interminable glade,
Without one friendly tree for shade
To break the general trance;
With nothing distant, nothing near,




LINES WRITTEN AT CHICAGO.         13
Nothing to which the eye may steer,
Save one eternal blank and drear
Monotonous expanse.
Green grass is waving in the wind,
O'ertopped by greener weeds,
And agues peep from every leaf,
That he may run that reads;
And flowerets fresh, of many a hue,
Scarlet and white, and pink and blue,
Exhale a rich perfume;
And dazzling tints and outlines true,
Mellowed and mixed, bring back to view -
The carpet of my room.
On distant hills, of soaring height,
A thousand miles away,
Gay rivulets fall, and fountains bright,
And torrents plunge and flash to light,
And foam in quivering spray;




14     LINES WRITTEN AT CHICAGO.
But here, dead level banks among,
With current neither swift nor strong,
And color greatly like souchong,
The lazy creeklet soaks along
Its mud-encumbered way.
I've travelled On this miry road,
In luckless days of yore,
When its half-conscious living load
The lumbering stage coach bore;
And when they groaned and prayed for sleep,
And struggled hard their seats to keep,
And bounced against the door,
The carriage made a sudden stand,
The driver lashed his four in hand,
One general scream was uttered, - and
Down sank the disappearing band: —
I never saw them more.
And yet your prairie has its use,
As I proceed to show,




LINES WRITTEN AT CHICAGO.         15
For where the soil is ten feet deep
The ten-foot corn will grow;
And when the speculators came
And talked of a canal,
And got their grants and proved their claim
From Dearborn to La Salle,
Then rushed the emigrating train,
And Dutch and Irish poured like rain,
And sharp Downeasters thronged amain,
And wagons jostled on the plain,
Like coaches in Pall Mall.
Then, as beneath th' enchanter's wand,
A populous city sprang,
And words and blows on every hand
In clattering concert rang;
A thousand axes fell like hail,
A thousand hammers urged the nail,
And handsaws told their screeching tale,
To swell the general roar.




16     LINES WRITTEN AT CHICAGO.
Squatters and settlers pressed ahead,
Nor stopped, nor slept, nor went to bed,
Nor once the work gave o'er,
Till streets and squares stood forth to view,
And houses rose, - and house lots, too,
A hundred fold and more.
I stood upon the cupola
Of the Tremont Hotel;
I saw the domes before me rise,
The lake behind me swell;
I thought upon the by-gone days,
When nature wore a different phase,
And man a different skin;
And stretching far through plain and swamp
I saw the Indian's fiery camp,
And heard the buffalo's marching tramp,
And felt the mammoth's earthquake stamp,
And all that once had been.




LINES WRITTEN AT CHICAGO.         17
A sudden change came o'er my dream;
I must have waked, and dropped my theme,
For ships and cars, in fire and steam,
Begirt the horizon round;
Tall houses rose, with shops in front,
And bricks, piled up as bricks are wont,
In cloud-capped turrets frowned;
And through the living, boiling throng
Thundered a thousand carts along,
And railroads howled their shrieking song
Across the groaning ground.
Chicago! thou shalt shine in verse,
As my adopted pet;
Thou newest slice of this new world,
Save what is newer yet.
Thy structures seem of yesterday,
And shine like scenery in the play
Just pushed upon the stage.
The oldest native in the place,
2




18     LINES WRITTEN AT CHICAGO.
Amidst the thronging, motley race,
Is a young girl, all bloom and grace,
Just eighteen years of age.
I've sought in vain for something old,
Some crumbling stone with moss and mould,
Some tottering arch in proud decay,
Some dungeon vault shut off from day,
Some slab with unknown ciphers traced,
Some choice bijou of antique taste,
But could not find the thing.
There's nothing old but lake and mud,
And these date back beyond the flood.
Yet even the lake is youthful now,
No wrinkles on its azure brow
The signs of dotage bring;
And the old mud, whose depths began
Before the memory of man,
Seems newer every spring.




— ~~~~~~~~~~~~Rt=:7
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All in a college study,
Where books were in great plenty,
This rat would devour
More sense in an hour
Than I could write in twenty.
Corporeal food,'tis granted,
Serves vermin less refined, sir,
But this, a rat of taste,
All other rats surpassed,
For he preyed on the food of the mind, sir.
SHENSTONE
(20)




ADDRESS TO A BOOKWORM.
BY W. C. B.
F AIR insect, that with microscopic jaws,
And planted legs, dost eat thy tardy way,
Making deep havoc in my shelves and drawers,
And turning sense to dust, by night and day,
Sapping a solemn creed with sturdy bore,
And sinking shafts in patriarchal lore,Fair insect, on thy advent to my room,
I hail thee in the fulness of delight;
I will not chase thee out with brush and broom,
But let thee choose thy literary bite.
(21)




22       ADDRESS TO A BOOKWORM.
I greet thee for the service thou hast done. --
The world needs scavengers, and thou art one.
Come with thy comrades, - see thou bring'st
enough,I'll close a contract with thy mining corps
For one deep cut through hills of trashy stuff,
Through reams of verse and novels by the score.
Couldst thou but eat them all, thou'dst take thy
place
With benefactors of the human race.
But thou'rt a gourmand of a nice degree,
And thy fastidious palate knows what's what;
Romans and Celts have catered bits for thee;
Thou din'st with Horace, and thou supp'st with
Scott;
Wit, science, song, philosophy, and law
Regale, by turns, thy cultivated maw.




ADDRESS TO A BOOKWORM.           23
Terraqueous maps are a bonne bouche to thee,
If all be true that Shenstone strove to utter;
And seas and rivers are thy dish of tea,
And kingdoms fall to make thy bread and butter,
And mighty continents are swallowed up,
And oceans fail, because thou needs must sup.
A pious sermon is thy Sunday's meal,
That feeds thy appetite with doctrine sound,
And crumbs of comfort, such as saints might steal,
Are but thy entremets in unction browned;
And tougher dogmas, which thou canst not follow,
Are left behind for aged dames to swallow.
Thy hungry stomach can digest the laws
As well as any counsellor himself;
And he that's looking after legal flaws
Had better dog thy course along the shelf,
Where constitutions, broken every day,
Attest the havoc of thy greedy way.




24       ADDRESS TO A BOOKWORM.
Why wilt thou spoil such valuable lore,
When cheaper food may easily be found?
My papers of exchange, a goodly store,
Are at thy service, open and unbound:
Thou'lt find them spicy, savory, tart, and new,
And stuffed with tales incredible, yet true.
What say'st thou, slanderer? — lies make thee
sick,
And editorial prosings turn thy brain;
And patriotic twaddle, all too thick,
Distends thy stomach with a windy pain;
And foreign correspondence, tome on tome,
Is what the printer's devil cooks at home?
On public dinners thou disdain'st to dine,
And, parched with thirst, declin'st to pledge a
toast.
Such things go down with sillier throats than thine,
But thou, - teetotal temperance is thy boast;




ADDRESS TO A BOOiKWORM.          25
And dinner speeches, trimmed with loud applause,
Destroy thy relish and fatigue thy jaws.
Thou art no cannibal, else thou might'st eat
Ten thousand Turks and Russians at a meal;
And fifteen hundred Frenchmen for a treat
Be served in gunpowder and skewered with
steel;
And if thy appetite should prove unbounded,
Might'st bolt a bulletin of killed and wounded.
We offer thee a dainty bill of fare -
Reports of speeches, controversies, news,
Opponents roasted, rivals done up rare,
And squibs, in which the devil gets his dues,
Tidbits of scandal, repartees polite,
And indignation meetings called at sight.
Wilt thou not bite at such attractive bait'?
Then try the lighter portions of our feast -




26       ADDRESS TO A BOOK EwoRMX.
Approving puffs, according to the price,
And saintly characters of knaves deceased;
Light, windy speeches, ladies' dear-bought jewels,
Defined positions and expected duels.
All things are done by clamor in these days -
By talking, bragging, advertising, puffing
Handbills, stump speeches, circulars of praise;
Our gaping age can hardly hold the stuffing:
One keg of ink one volume finds enough —
It takes two kegs, at least, to sell the stuff.
Spur up, thou laggard; printing gains on thee,
And books are made much faster than consumed;
I greatly wonder what the world will be
When modern Herculaneums are exhumed.
They say papyrus turns to Bovey coal;
Think then of Harper's mine and Astor's hole.




ADDRESS TO A BoowwoRnI.          27
I want a use for undemanded books,
Such as are published, not to read, but sell —
Editions large worked off by hooks or crooks,
When blocks and stones would answer just as
well.
They go by cart loads to the east and west,
And sinks and bakers' ovens know the rest.
I've told the builders in Fifth Avenue,
Who run up palaces for tradesmen fat,
That literature is now upholstery too,
And books are made for furniture - that's flat.
I'd sell them by the perch to introduce
Some stylish, new, and ornamental use.
If books, like bricks, in mortar could be laid,
A modern Athens might be raised at once;
And learned walls would cast their classic shade,
Even though the unconscious tenant were a
dunce;




28       ADDRESS TO A BooKwotRM.
And solid alcoves might be formed, excusing
Their owner from all duty of perusing.
But books are hardly fire proof, even in lime,
And paper's quite combustible,'tis said.
Well, get this library insured in time;
I once insured one against being read,
And no disturbance broke the calm profound,
Save once a month, when Betty's brush went round.
Faustus invented printing, and men think
The devil helped him at his wicked job,
Counting on future use of types and ink
As hooks to catch the unsuspecting mob.
But here he missed it.  These our home-bred
Turks
Eschew his Satanship - and all his works.




Heameter R. omance.




Fuggi tutta la notte, e tutto il giorno
Erro senza consiglio e senza guida,
Non udendo o vedendo altro d' intorno
Che le lagrime sue, che le sue strida.
Cibo non prende gia; ch6 de' suoi mali
Solo si pasce, e sol di pianto ha sete.
N6 pero cessa Amor con varie forme
La sua pace turbar mentr' ella dorme.
TASSo.
(30)




BLOUZELINDA.
A HEXAMETER ROMANCE.
BY H. W. L.
CANTO I.
IN the far down east, on the drizzly shores of Penobscot,
Among pine trees, lay the little village of Mudfog;
An upstart place, grown out of a Yankee location,
Inhabited mostly by squatters mingled with Indians,
Who chopped down trees and built log houses and
wigwams,
And subsisted chiefly on fish, potatoes, &c.
(31)




32             BLOUZELINDA.
Among them were some who took their guns in
the morning,
And went to the forest to shoot coons, rabbits, and
woodchucks,
Which they brought home at night to cheer their
supperless spouses.
And some played possum, and took themselves to
the grog shop,
Where they called for whiskey, and drank gin
sling till they got drunk,
Then staggered home late to abuse their wives and
their children.
A jolly old cobbler lived just in the edge of the
clearing,
Who mended old shoes till he made them equal to
new ones,
And by common consent shod most of the people
in Mudfog.
The boys gathered round him to see him hammer
his lapstone,




BLOUZELINDA.                33
And blessed their stars that he didn't serve them
in the same way,
And thought best to keep good terms with Crispy
the cobbler.
One daughter he had, a buxom young lass, about
nineteen,
With corn-fed cheeks, light hair, and eyes like a
weasel,
Who knew how to churn, milk cows, make butter
and hoe cakes,
And waxed long threads, also stitched up soles for
the old man.
And many young swains who lived in the neighboring houses,
And many young Indians who had no houses to
live in,
Came day after day to woo the fair Blouzelinda,
3




34             BLOUZELINDA.
And hung round the door, and poured their sighs
to the east wind;
But she was as cold as the snows on the top of
Katahdin,
And laughed at their sighs, and tossed her delicate
nose up,
And vowed she would wed no man but Solomon
Wheelwright.
Now Sol Wheelwright, I regret to say, was a
rowdy,
Who played all fours and kept late hours at the
grog shop,
And forgetting his debts and the girl he had just
got engaged to,
He left )Mudfog, made a slope, and went off to
Texas.
Poor Blouzy looked forth from her usual seat in
the window,




BLOUZELINDA.               35
And saw his coat tail as it turned the farthermost
corner;
And when she made signs by tearing her hair out
by handfuls,
Sol coolly looked backward, and placed his thumb
on his nose point.
Then various opinions at once broke forth in the
village;
Some boldly affirmed that they thought Sol ought
to be talked to;
On the contrary, others declared it was good
enough for her.
Lone, sad, loved, and left was then the fair Blouzelinda;
Her cows went unmilked and her hoe cakes burned
in the bake pan,
And she wandered about like a person nearly distracted,




36             BLOUZELINDA.
And seemed to be pondering on something sudden
and dreadful;
And at length, one day, when Crispy got up in the
morning,
And came down stairs just at six, expecting his
breakfast,
The cage door was open, and lo, the bird had departed.
A sad man at heart was then poor Crispy the
cobbler;
And he caught up his hammer and beat his bench
with excitement,
And entertained thoughts which seemed for a time
suicidal,
And instinctively twisted a small round cord made
of waxed thread.
But at length he got cool, and determined to take
a short walk first,
And go down to the wharf and inquire for news
of his daughter,



BLOUZELINDA.                37
When up jumped an Irishman dressed in the garb
of a Jack Tar -
" An't plase your honor, if it's jist the young lady
you're seekin',
Ye'll find her aboard the big ship that has sailed
for New Orleans."
CANTO II.
WHEN New Orleans was less of a place than it
now is,
There arrived one morning a lumber brig from the
eastward,
And a girl hopped ashore without any bonnet or
shawl on,
And asked the Creoles if they knew one Solomon
Wheelwright.
Then the good Creoles, when they saw her state
of confusion,




38             BLOTUZELINDA.
Took pity upon her, and asked her a numbe'r of
questions;
And having done this they gave her a number of
answers.
One said he had seen a young man just like the
description
Who was coaxed one night to enlist, while drunk,
for a soldier,
And then was marched off next day to fight the
Camanches.
Another knew Sol as well as he knew his own
father,
And had seen him set off the night before in a flat
boat,
To peddle out trash among the settlers and Indians.
Then Blouzy leaped up, and said, "Now, Sol, I
have caught you;"
And she made tracks fast for the far-off country
of Indians,




BLOUZELINDA.               39
And travelled alone through swamps, woods, jungles and prairies.
All day she marched in the burning rays of the
hot sun;
All night she slept on the damp, cold couch of the
bare ground.
Sometimes she didn't get any thing to eat for a
fortnight,
Then had to dig roots and bolt cold frogs for her
breakfast.
And whenever her hunger was just appeased for
the moment,
She would straightway  pause to admire the
scenery round her;
She saw big trees shoot up their trunks into
steeples,
Each bearing at top a luxuriant cluster of
branches;
And all down the sides grew knots of awkward
dimensions,




40             BLOUZELINDA.
Apparently remnants of what had been formerly
live limbs,
Which had died prematurely, it seemed, for want
of the sunshine.
And the old "long moss" hung down from the
bark and the high boughs,
Like beards once left by the fierce buccaneers in
the war times,
Giving now to the whole of the scene a remarkable aspect.
And when she sat down to rest on the end of an
old log,
Surrounded by flowers shooting up in every direction,
And saw the small squirrels eat nuts that fell from
the beech trees,
She thought with a sigh on the corn cakes eaten
at Mudfog.
But life in the woods now began to injure her
wardrobe,




BLO UZELINDA.              41
And her very best gown was reduced to rags and
to tatters;
When she met an old Indian, half horse and half
alligator,
Whom soon she persuaded by signs to lend her his
blanket,
From which she contrived to make her a new suit
of clothing,
That lasted her afterwards about two years and a
quarter.
From this time forth she dressed in the skins of
the wild beasts,
Which she bought of the Indians, or shot with her
own bow and arrow;
And thus she went on like the children of Israel
before her,
And spent forty years in the wilderness, wandering always,
Employing her time in hunting for Sol and the
wild beasts.




42             BLOUZELINDA.
And many exploits were performed by this wandering damsel;
She killed a great rattlesnake, full six feet and a
half long,
And out of his skin she made her a nice pair of
stockings;
And she met a huge bear, who was going to proceed to devour her,
When he altered his mind, and ran, in a fright, up
a gum tree.
Now, beauty has been pronounced the most fading
of flowers,
And envious time had  dealt its work upon
Blouzy;
Her corn-fed cheeks shrunk up like an over-baked
apple,
Her weasel eyes sank back one inch in their
sockets,




BLOUZELINDA.               43
Her uncombed locks stood out like spokes of a
cart wheel,
And she grew such a fright that the very squaws
were afraid of her.
CANTO III.
Now Sol Wheelwright had been leading the life
of a scapegrace,
And trapped raccoons in the country next to the
mountains,
And had drunk more rum than runs in the big
Mississippi,
And got into debt when any body would trust
him,
And had had three wives, and was looking out for
a fourth one;
When he got used up, and, of course, broke down,
at the same time,




44             B LO U Z ELINDA.
And, as most men thought, was lying now on his
death bed.
By one of those strange freaks of fortune which
don't often happen,
Just then Blouzelinda came striding out of the
brushwood,
And heard men speak of the case of Solomon
Wheelwright;
Then her faded cheeks flushed up with a beautiful
crimson,
And her deep-sunk eyes shot forth unusual brightness,
And she rushed to the couch where poor old Sol
lay extended,
And gave him a hug that might have done honor
to a she bear,
And said, " Dear Sol, here's your Blouzy come to
be married."




BLOUZELINDA.                 45
Dying Sol looked up with a look of bewildered
amazement,
And said, "Now,'tain't;" then said, " Why, so it
is, sartain; "
Then turned on his side, and said, "I feel leetle
better; "
Then dropped fast asleep, and awoke in a fine perspiration;
Then said, " Dear love, for your sake I'll consent
to recover."
And in one month Blouzy became the fourth Mrs.
Wheelwright.
In the far north-west, on the utmost bounds of Nebraska,
Where nature is prodigal of gifts to all that may
ask her,




46             B LOUZELINDA.
With every convenience to make its inhabitants
feel right,
On the bank of a lake stands the thriving city
of Wheelwright.
It is well laid out, with streets at regular angles,
And a tall flagstaff displays the stripes and the
spangles.
It has mines and springs, and of water powers any
number,
And sawmills that toil day and night to cut up
the lumber;
With a future hotel, of which you perceive the
foundation,
Capacious enough to take in the next generation;
With a spirited press that sends forth a weekly
newspaper,
And six railroads, chartered all by the last leg-'l
lature;




BLOUZELINDA.                 47
With red-cheeked children running round, rough,
ragged, and frisky,
And red-faced Indians that barter coon skins for
whiskey.
Outside of the town, in the rural new cemetery, —
Which was laid out some months before there
were people to bury, -
Are seen two graves of exactly equal dimensions,
(Showing here, at least, that the grave permits no
dissensions;)
And a broad slate-stone, procured, it would seem,
by subscription,
Spans both turfs at once, with the subjoined touching inscription: —
"The grateful citizens, wishing always to deal
right,
Have raised this stone to their pioneers, S. and B.
Wheelwright."
See NOTE, page 218.








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al6av   E7Ly;UatyEo2a
7UOAl (POA Vya(fI( tatCLV
APIETO4PANOY. BATPAXOI.
Beneath the water's depths profound
We dance in mazy tracks,
And send with bubbling, croaking sound,
Our brekekex, coax.
THIE FROGS OF ARISTOPHANES.
(50)




TO A TADPOLE.
BY 0. W. H.
THOU nimble, polymorphous thing,
With limbs within thee bound,
Depending on thy caudal fin
To scull thy body round!
I fain thy character would read,
From signs that thus prevail,
And swear thou hast a waggish head
On such a waggish tail.
Thou navigator of the ditch,
If life in mud be sorrow,
Cheer up- for he that dives to-day
May live to jump to-morrow.
(51)




TO A TADPOLE.
"No one on every side is blest;'"
So, prithee, do not wail,
Because thou canst not have at once
Thy four legs and a tail.
Though now thy sphere be circumscribed,
Thy motive organ small,
Thou soon shalt leave thy peers behind,
And leap beyond them all.
Though urchins, in contemptuous tone,
May brand thee Pollywog, -
Think of the destiny that waits
The future of the frog!
To doff thy gills and find thy feet,
To seek the solid ground,
And shake the griefs of life away
In one delicious bound;



TO A TADPOLE.              53
To sit and muse o'er flood and fell,
And watch the billows flow,
While bobolinks wheel in air above,
And horn pouts swim below;To cast a retrospective glance
On tadpole times of old,
And contemplate thy vanished tail,
Even as a tale that's told;To sit beneath umbrageous reeds,
Thy fervid limbs to soak,
And pour, in deep, astounding peals,
The thunder of thy croak!
I fain would see thee in the pool,
Thy transmigration done,
Essay to take thy awkward steps,
And stretch thy legs for fun.




64             TO A TADPOLE.
The insect on the neighboring leaf
Is thine illusive prey,
For when thou jump'st to hold him fast,
He jumps the other way.'Tis thus, if I remember right,
The poets moralize,
That " happiness allures from far,"
Even " as we follow flies."
Thy fathers marched from pool to pool,
As Windham's legends tell,
And solemn, deep, unearthly sounds
On midnight slumber fell.
The startled deacons left their beds,
And thought of judgment coming,
" For in the air they did declare
Was a dreadful, awful drumming."




TO A TADPOLE.              55
No wonder thy sepulchral peal
Should fill them all with fear;
A hollow, basso-barytone,
So guttural, deep, and clear.
When Aristophanes in Greek
The tone essayed to hit,
"Pompholygopaphlasmasin"
Was near as he could get.
But this implies the bubbling sound
That voice in water makes:
Thy unimpeded, natural song
Was brekekex, koax.
Yet various croakings must be found,
Since many frogs there be,
Both bull frog, tree frog, speckled frog,
And toad of low degree.




TO A TADPOLE.
And though pretenders still appear,
Whose croak might pass for good,
They want the Acherusian pitch
Of thy primeval brood.
Thy ancestor of iEsop's time
Swelled till his boiler burst:
Of all the foibles of the frog
Ambition is the worst.
But thou, more wise, dost warning take,
Nor enviest life that's brief:
The ox with fat distends his skin
To furnish earlier beef.
Thy swarming race, from Nilus' banks,
Were Pharaoh's plagues of yore,
When kneading troughs and plastic dough
The web-foot impress bore.




To A TADPOLE.               57
What though the Egyptian made his tomb
The rock-built pyramid?
No one now knows if king or cow
Within its cave be hid.
But thou dost make thy resting-place
Deep in primeval stone,
And takest thy long, unbroken sleep,
"Dread, fathomless, alone."
And when old rocks are cleft in twain,
And miners' tools are picking,'Tis said they sometimes turn thee out
Alive, awake, and kicking.
They say that erst'mong giant birds
Batrachian reptiles crept,
And Greenfield's rocks along her streams
Their footprints yet have kept.




68             To A TADPOLE.
Such tales may do on lecture nights
For gaping gulls to swallow:
The Jew Apella may believe;
You don't catch me to follow.
Thou present tadpole, future frog,
Thou hydropath in grain,
Boasting that thou art never dry,
Though I may thirst in vain,A ducking for a scolding wife
Would pastime prove to thee,
And ditches round Sebastopol
Commodious lodgings be.
Beware! for dangers lurk around
To pounce in one fell swoop:
The angler seeks his pickerel bait -
The Frenchman wants his soup.




To A TADPOLE.              69
The truant-boy beside the brook
May yet abridge thy term,
And try thee with his tempting hook
And tidbit of a worm.
Beware! for when thou opest thy mouth
To clutch the gilded snare,
He'll drag thee upwards, bolt upright,
And sprawling in the air!
Farewell! Methinks I've flattered thee,
And warned thee of thy doom,
Traced thy illustrious pedigree,
And shadowed forth thy tomb.
A silent pang creeps o'er my breast,
And fills my boding heart.
I cannot say farewell again
Not yet, at least, we parvt




060           To A TADPOLE.
Though adverse waves around us roll,
And winds bring notes of sorrow,
We'll strive to hold our courage up,
And brace us for to-morrow.
And though my hairs are getting thin,
And thy short tail is shorter,
We'll struggle yet a while to keep
Our heads above the water.
And we will sing a brave duet
On life's eventful dream,
And I will make the poetry,
And thou shalt make the theme.
And when this planet shall explode,
And send us through the air,
They'll find our bones in future rocks,
And wonder what they were.




Ot=
a_;
m             S~~~~~~~~~t::
i_            e~~T
I- ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ -
cz  st
1-1t::Z7~




" WVhat has been the fate of many fair cities of antiquity,
whose nameless ruins encumber the plains of Europe and Asia,
and awaken the fruitless inquiry of the traveller?P They have
sunk into dust and silence - they have perished from remembrance - for want of " a respectable name.
KINICKERBOCKER'S HISTORY OF NEW  YoRK, -amended.
(62)




EMPORIUM VERSUS NEW YORK.
BY Q. E. D.
WITH head erect and stately stride,
In Broadway, on the western side,
I marched, and viewed, in conscious pride,
The splendors of New York.
I saw, reflecting back the day,
Palatial walls, in proud array,
And vistas stretching far away,
Of opulent New York.
What gorgeous domes confront the sky,
What proud hotels are soaring high,
What windows lure the passers by,
The strangers in New York!
(63)




64     EMPORIUM  VERSUS NEW YORK.
All gems are there in sparkling showers,
All trophies of barbaric powers,
And fabrics wrought for princely dowers,
Are gathered in New York.
And pilgrims press with eager feet,
And curious eyes with wonders meet
In Broadway's world-surpassing street,
The glory of New York.
Tall ships are in from many a shore,
And streets and shops are running o'er,
And lumbering drays can hold no more
The transport of New York.
I tried in vain to cross the street,
Where whirling wheels cut off retreat,
And clattering tramp of horses' feet
Announced the great New York.




EMIPORIUM VERSUS NEW YORK.    65
I gazed upon the motley throng;
The ceaseless current surged along,
And sinewy legs and elbows strong
Went struggling through New York.
Saxons and Celts, and Greeks and Jews,
Creoles, Italians, and Hindoos,
Germans and Franks, and Kickapoos,
All crowded in New York.
I looked ahead, and read the fates,
I scanned the rise and fall of states,
And saw the destiny that waits
The future of New York.
Not fifty years shall pass when she,
Whose commerce floats on every sea,
The world's first banking-place shall be,
Though then no more " New York."
5




66    EMPORIUM VERSUS NEW YORK.
Indignant voices shall proclaim,
That she, the first in wealth and fame,
No more shall wear the paltry name
Of pitiful " New York."
When old Aineas and his boy
From the mast-head cried, " Rome, ahoy,"
They did not call the place New Troy,
Like fools who named New York.
When Moses led his wandering Jews
To bathe their feet in Canaan's dews,
They proved too wise to name and use
New Egypt, like New York.
New Amsterdam might fit the Dutch;
But when the English got their clutch,
Why need they coin another such,
And dub the town " New York "?




EMPORIUM  VERSUS NEW YORK.    67
Well may those ancient dolts be blamed,
Well may their offspring feel ashamed,
That earth's first city should be named
Contemptible " New York."
Old York is just a middling place,
With clowns and dukes, a motley race,
And scarcely worthy to disgrace
A mere fag end "New York."
Who would wear a livery, pray,
Who a second fiddle play,
Who be second best alway,
But self-despised " Jtew York"?
I summon poets, one and all,
Who help to spin this mundane ball,
To rescue from degrading thrall
The trodden-down New York.




68    EMPORI UM VERSUS NEW YORK.
I call on patriots, fierce or tame,
To wipe away this burning shame,
And kick down hill, with one acclaim,
Detestable " New York."
Let all who feel the chain they drag,
Let all who have a tongue to wag,
Combine to raise a nobler flag,
AMore glorious than " New York."
Vast continents have changed their name;
Cities and ladies do the same,
A part for pride and part for shame,
Both which should move New York.
New Holland is Australia now;
Toronto made one " York" to bow;
The late Miss Smith is Mrs. Howe:
Why don't you change New York?




EMPORIuM VERSUS NEW  YORK.    69
I've travelled much, and somewhat sailed,
In danger's face have seldom quailed,
But when they asked from whence I hailed,
I did not say New York.
I find great names where'er I roamParis, Vienna, London, Rome;
I loathe the paltry one at home,
I execrate " New York."
A generous name sounds well in verse,
A bad one is a clinging curse;
I never heard nor dreamt a worse
Than pestilent " New York."
I ask a bold, descriptive name,
Of classic birth and faultless claim,
To grow amid the growing fame
Of what was once New York.




70     EMPORIUM  VERSUS NEW  YORK.
EMPORIUM shall that title be,
The empire mart of earth and sea,
The central city of the free;
EMPORIUM, -not OtP NSew York!
See NOTE, page 228.




(71)




Let us look around among the admirers of poetry; we
shall find those who have a taste for the sublime to be very
few; but the profound strikes universally, and is adapted to
every capacity.
MARTnINJS SCRIBLERUS.
(72)




THE UNSEEN.
BY R. W. E.
ON the world's broad effulgence
Man opens his eyes,
The scene spreads before him
Its fields and its skies.
To earth and to heaven
He pushes his glance,
He bores the molecule,
He probes the expanse.
The universe looms up,
An ocean of light,
And worlds that are blazing
Seem made for his sight.
(73)




74              THE UNSEEN.
Let space and let darkness
Rebuke his pretence -
The seen is but little,
The unseen immense.
The vast orbs of heaven
Seem rolling through air,
But what they are made of,
They fail to declare.
Mall gazes down earthward
With scrutiny nice,
But to see through a millstone
Is past his device.
Unseen, under ground,
Living essences clash.
The roots of the oak
Meet the roots of the ash -
The prize of their combat
An atom of soil




THE UNSEEN.                 75
They wrestle and struggle
Till one takes the spoil.
A bit of a snail shell
Is dug from the sand;'Tis the last of ten trillions
That make up the land;
How lived, loved, and died they,
What mortal shall say?
What joy or what anguish
Gave zest to their day?
The lord of creation
Walks over the soil;
He deems what he treads on
Legitimate spoil:
Let him hold the broad acres
In strength of a name;
The mole and the earthworm
Precede him in claim.




76             THE UNSEEN.
Bright gold in excess
Underlies the deep sand;
It belongs to the man
Who has purchased the land.
He will die, and not know it,
Still poor as a miser,
WVith his hundredth descendant
Nor richer nor wiser.
There's an oyster in ocean,
A pearl in his shell,
A prince could not buy it,
A Jew would not sell:
The pearl and the oyster
Unnoticed remain;
What the sea will not give up
Man seeks for in vain.
Eternal is motion,
Eternal is rest;




THE UNSEEN.                77
Which started the foremost
Will never be guessed.
Was the universe one lump,
What could it move by?
Or, resting at anchor,
Say, where did it lie?
Unspeakable nature
Our wonder may fill,
But Chaos before was
More wonderful still.
I like this same Chaos,
Which nobody knows;
I'd give more to see it
Than most of your shows.
Thrice wonderful Chaos!
Neglected too long,
I call thee to order,
I give thee my song.




78             THE UNSEEN.
Did silence chaotic
Brood over thy rest,
Or storms, more despotic,
Convulse thy deep breast?
Wast thou formed out of matter,
Or measured from space?
Did a top and a bottom
Thy outline deface?
Wast thou made up of atoms,?When atoms were not?
Were those atoms attractive,
Repulsive, or what?
Inscrutable Chaos,
I gloat on thy name;
I dive thy abysses,
And come up the same;
The depths of thy darkness
Have uttered no sound;




THE UNSEEN.               79
Thy tongue, if thou hadst one,
Creation has drowned.
The appropriate study
Of mankind is man,
Yet his soul and his body
Who ventures to scan?
To turn his eyes inward
One must be a wizard,
For no man can live
And behold his own gizzard.
Man revels in darkness,
But withers in light;
He lives, he don't know how,
And thinks it all right:
He declines when invited
That others should view him;
His greatest aversion
Is daylight let through him.




80             THE UNSEEN.
His brain is a gulf
Full of fancy and flame,
Of world-stirring projects
And thoughts without aim.
Where lie the deep chambers
In which his mind dances?
What cells microscopic
Are filled with his fancies?
What gates let his thoughts out
With lightning-like pace,
When they burst in a sortie
To regions of space?
On the icebergs of Neptune
Unheeding they walk,
On the hearthstones of Sirius
They sit down and talk.
They go off wool gathering
No mortal knows where;




THE UNSEEN.                81
They are deep in earth's centre,
Anon high in air;
Where his thoughts drag him onward
The captive must go;
They lead him blindfolded
To weal or to woe.
Man's heart is a hell
Lord Byron has said it;
Yet farther inquiry
Proves more to its credit:
Like a pump in a shipwreck
It labors to save;
Its strokes keep us floating
From cradle to grave.
Yet this heart is a problem,
A paradox deep;
Unseen are its movements,
Unmeasured its leap;
6




82             THE UNSEEN.
It bounds back to kindness,
Recoils back in hate,
Exults with its passion,
Or breaks with its fate.
Mysterious heart,
Of its fortune the play,
Exchanged for another,
And oft thrown away,
Pierced through with sharp arrows,
Cut into with knives,
Unseen it still pulsates,
Unwished it survives.
The rain falleth downwards
The ocean to meet;
The blood courseth roundwards
Its fountain to greet;
Space, matter, and moonshine
In eddies are whirled;




THE UNSEEN.               83
Their circumgyrations
Give laws to the world.
Peremptory nature
Keeps all things in order;
Birds mount in the air, and
Fish swim in the water;
The bright rhododendron
Flames up to the sky,
Appropriate pigweed
Creeps under the sty.
Roll on, orbs of heaven;
We keep you in view:
Your truth is unchanging,
Your changes are true.
Let man, struggling onward,
His destiny gain;
When pain shall be pleasure,
And pleasure be pain.








(98).51amA3      ala I  DI  5"IMAV    It "ItA5~ a 2




GLENDOWER.
I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
HOTSPUR.
Why so can I, or so can any man;
But will they come when you do call for them?
GLENDOWER.
Why, I can teach you to command the devil.
HOTSPUR.
And I can teach thee, coz, to shame the devil
By telling truth.
SHAKSPEARE, King Henry IV.
(86)




THE  SPIRIT  RAPPERS TO  THEIR
MEDIUMS.
BY J. R. L.
MAY it please your respectable body elect,
Who the rights of poor spirits vouchsafe to
protect,
The subscribers (subknockers) would knock up a
prayer,
Touching some of the evils they now have to bear,
Your petitioners firstly announce, in their case,
That they form both an old and a numerous race;
Having served, since the period when Adam had
birth,
To stock, and improve, and replenish the earth;
Representing, of course, in their forms evanescent,
The past human species quite down to the present,
(87)




88         TIE  SPIRIT RAPPERS
Of all generations, and kindreds and tongues,
That have walked upon legs or have talked out of
lungs;
That have strutted their hour on this sublunar
stage,
And adorned each in turn his particular age,
From the early companions of Cain and of Abel
To their humbler descendants who laid bricks at
Babel,
With subsequent swarms of all nations and hues,
Troglodytes, Greeks, Romans, Finns, Frenchmen,
and Jews.
Moreover, since death keeps at work without
ceasing,
Our number,'tis plain, must be yearly increasing,
(We take poet's license in which we were nursed,
And exchange the third person, just here, for the
first.)




TO THEIR MEDIUMS.              89
War, famine, and pestilence serve to recruit us,
And battles and wrecks are our great coadjutors.
The deluge, which drowned all the world except
Noah,
Reinforced us at once with a few millions more.
We grew, when the Persians invaded old Greece,
Or the Romans made deserts, and nicknamed it
" peace,"
And through the dark ages when men starved and
fought,
Spirits came to us faster than Malthus e'er thought.
When the strifes of new Europe experience revivals
We look out for shoals of more recent arrivals,
From the thirty years' war and the campaign at
Moscow,
To the Crimean squabble, where quick man and
horse go.
If our numbers fall off in some peaceable times,
They soon get renewed by disasters and crimes.




90         THE SPIRIT RAPPERS
And we look to invasions and fights that sweep all
away
To help yellow fever, rum, earthquakes, and cholera.
And here we digress, for the purpose of showing
(What you seldom do) certain secrets worth knowing;
And will knock out, as one of our characteristics,
A bit of a problem in spirit statistics.
In the old world no one has the slightest misgiving
That the aggregate dead far outnumber the living;
Whereas in the new it is just the reverse,
And the sexton is always in rear of the nurse;
And so much o'er the dead do the living preponderate,
There are always more heads left aboveground
than under it,




TO THEIR MEDIUMS.              91
Including the whole that have died in the land
Since the Pilgrims at Plymouth set foot on the
strand. -
Mathematics are hard to reduce into verse,
But by aid of your patience the steps we'll rehearse.
From reports of the census we think it appears
That Americans double in twenty-five years,
Whereas,'tis allowed, on the best calculation,
It takes thirty and more to make one generation.
So, for each hundred debtors that pay nature's
dues
One hundred and twenty lay claim to their shoes.
All hail, then, Columbia; thy numbers are heaping,
And thy fast-moving sons go ahead while they're
sleeping.
But though here we poor spirits are kept a minority,
Yet in most other lands we've a handsome majority;




92         THE SPIRIT RAPPERS
And if brought to the test of an actual voting
We could poll the dead nations we just have been
quoting,
And bring black spirits and white, and blue spirits
and gray,
Against your know nothings and quids of the day.
And now to return from our learned digression,
We come to the point of our main intercession.
We hold it a grievance no longer endurable,
And one to remove which they tell us that you're
able,
That the best men among us, the great and the
good,
Who in armies, and senates, and pulpits have stood,
Commanders of hosts, benefactors of species,
AMust be whistled up hither, like hounds in their
leashes,
From their various abodes, both above and below,
Where they take retribution in weal or in woe,




TO THEIR MEDIUMS.             93
And, like veriest dogs, be packed under the table,
To show off small tricks and perform what they're
able;
To inspire with poor jokes some hysterical miss,
While she blabs revelations of that world or this;
To lug at huge tables and upset the floor,
And knock on the same till their knuckles are sore:
And because they can't speak, for the want of a
throat,
They must father all nonsense you see fit to quote.
To show that our proofs in the case are most ample
WVe need but to make a convincing example,
Which we'll do, by your leave, without more preparation,
And proceed to bring forward a " manifestation."Having darkened the lights and cast out unbelievers,
Let the guests be arranged in due form to receive us.




91         THE SPIRIT RAPPERS
Let their hands (not themselves be imposed on)
the table,
With looks of bereavement and garments of sable,
Amid silence and gloom we proceed to begin,
(Provided the fees for admission are in.)
" Are the spirits arrived in their usual plenty?"
We rap, and reply that we muster just twenty.
"Is the patriarch JOB among those who observe
us? "
Rap, rap, rap. -" Ay, ay, sir- here's Job, at your
service."
" Mr. Job, can you tell, what no history does,
In what part of the world was the kingdom of Uz?"
Rap, rap. -"'Tis that part, as I've reason to
know,
Where the devil unchained walks the earth to and
fro."
("A pretty unlimited country, methinks,"
Quoth a blade who had just been expelled for his
winks.)




To THEIR M EDIUMS.              95
"Worthy Job, we have heard of your patience of
yore,
When your boils and your wife made your feelings quite sore;
As a man of much sorrow, of trials and grief,
Tell us which of your ills you accounted the chief."
Rap, rap. -" I have borne with bereavements and
sores,
But of all sharp inflictions there's nothing like bores.
MAy enemies plagued me to serve their base ends,
But no one came forward to save me from friends.
I endured it seven days, while they all held their
peace,
But'twas too much to stand when their tongues
got release.
If you're seeking for comforters over the town,
Choose those that are made of good wadding or
down.
A scrape with a potsherd will ease a rough hide,
But a scrape of three friends beggars all scrapes
beside."




96         THE SPIRIT RAPPERS
"Will the great JULIUS CESAR descend from his
sphere,
And take a low seat with the table legs here?"
" With pleasure, - delighted, - to sit or to stand;
It is mine to obey as'tis yours to command."
"Mr. Caesar, we think you were married quite
young,
And had several wives, of whom each had a tongue.
Will you tell us distinctly, we ask it with deference,
To which of these ladies you now give the preference? "
"Cornelia was fair and Calphurnia kind,
But neither exactly turned out to my mind;
Pompeia pleased me the most,- but my patience
Was oftentimes tried by her tricks and flirtations 
And at last, when she cut me one night in the hall,
I thought it the cut most unkindest of all.
(Shakspeare made a mistake in applying it to
Brutus.)
I was cut to the quick by her airs with her suitors,




To THEIR MIEDIUMS.             97
And so I divorced her, when proof was effected;
For the wife of great Caesar must not be suspected."
" Great Casar, we often have heard of your fame,
As a conqueror of realms, and an author of name;
By a talent not common with most of your tribe,
You were able at once both to fight and describe;
You once swam a creek that was boiling beneath,
And carried your works safe across in your teeth;
Now tell us, since we, who, as authors come after,
Have hard work to keep our poor heads above water,
How the deuse you contrived, when our chance is
so slim,
To keep up a good face, and to make your works
swim."
Rap, rap. —" Keeping all common hazards in view,
I acted as most men of prudence would do.
I knew by experience I'd had in a boat,
That your heavy things sink, when your light ones
will float.
7




98          TiHE SPIRIT RAPPERS
And, moreover, to guard against lawsuits and
brawls,
I had levied my pay in advance on the Gauls."
"Mr. Coesar, we know  that your talents were
great,
You wrote Commentaries, you upset the state.
Be pleased to explain (though you think one a
dunce)
How you managed to dictate to six scribes at
once."
" In the matter of writing we Romans were slow,
And with stiff Roman letters the lines would not
flow.
Our stationers kept neither pens, ink, nor wafers;
We possessed neither steno- nor yet phono-graphers.
My clerks never moved with the pace of ethereals,
But grumbled and growled at their writing materials.




TO THEIR iMEDIUMIS.           99
One fellow maintained the papyrus was vile,
Though I had it imported express from the Nile;
Another, who failed to get on with his facts,
Had forgotten to cover his tablets with wax,
And then, when I threatened to flog him the while,
He laid all the blame to the villanous style."
"Is crooked-backed RICHARD contained in the
throng? "
Rap, rap. -" Have the kindness to pass him along.
King Richard the Third, take your place on the
stand;
Look the court in the face, and hold up your right
hand.
Did you kill those two children one night in the
Tower? "
"I had those two babes a long time in my power.
They, some how or other, contrived to get free,
And I could not kill them, for Earl Richmond
killed me.




100        THE SPIRIT RAPPERS
Hlow they got from confinement or wandered about
You must ask your King Henry, who hunted them
out.
Perkin Warbeck, whose friends he so readily
routed,
Was the true Duke of York, and no two ways
about it;
And I, whom they paint as deformed as the devil,
Was a fine, polished gentleman, handsome and civil.
One shoulder was slightly the highest, it's true;
Yet I shouldered more blame than was fairly my
due.
And, in proof I was not quite so ugly as Hades,
I appeal to my well-known success with the ladies."
"Messrs. Ghosts, is there with you — allow us to
ask --
A mysterious man, with a thick IRON MASK,
Of solemn demeanor, and stately and mute,
And arrayed like a prince, from his head to his
kfoi?




To THEIR MEDIUMS.             101
Well, Sir Mlask, the whole world has been burning
to know
Both your name and the cause why they muzzled
you so."
Rap, again. — " My live face they would not let
appear;
And, therefore, excuse me, I shan't show it here.
I always went masked on the slightest occasion;
And now to show off — sure my face must be
brazen.
I was locked up as snug as a miser's own pelf.
If you ask who I was, faith, I don't know myself.
I wrote all I knew on a small silver dish,
Which I threw from my window to enlighten the
fish.
A fisherman carried it home, it is said;
The dolt could not read it, and that saved his head.
My jailer kept dark, ay, and so kept his place:
He ne'er showed his hand, nor let me show my
face.




102         THIE SPIRIT RAPPERS
They call me ~ermandois, and Beaufort, and
others;
Some say the Great Louis and I were twin
brothers.
But be that as it may, it has ceased to be strange,
That men should go masked in the streets and
exchange.
To be sure, they don't wear real masks of sheet
iron,
But they carry two faces, - to speak truth, -- and
lie on."
"Let the ghosts shudder back and make room in
the rear:
The accurst TORQUEMrADA is called to appear;
The Catholic lord of the dungeon and cell,
Who converted fair Spain to a region of hell;
The Inquisitor stern, whose deep vengeance to
slake
Ten thousand live heretics died at the stake;




To THEIR MEDIUMS.             103
The confessor devout and approved license seller
Of Ferdinand wise, and benign Isabella;
VWVho, to keep the queen's conscience in laudacble
way,
Entertained her each month with an auto da fe.
Come on Torquemada, you fiend of a man;
iKnock, speak, and defend yourself now if you can."
" I think Inquisitions, so called, have gone by;
Yet you torture folks now as adroitly as I.
There are two ways their bones and their sinews
to crack;
You do it with railroads, as I with the rack.
I burned them on piles to amuse my fair queen;
You flay them with boilers, and roast with camphene."
"Call in ROBERT STEPHENSON: witness, appear.
You were king of the railroads, and first engineer;
You invented the engine that did all the mischief;
Sir Robert, your hand in this vile business is chief."




104         THtE SPIRIT RAPPERS
" My dear sir,'tis true that I made locomotives,
But I did it, observe, from the kindest of motives.
There were times when rash men at a gay horse's
tail rode;
Now, there's no place so safe as a seat on a railroad.
Had the man who was drowned by upsetting a
boat,
And the traveller who died from a cut in his throat,
And the luckless bricklayer who fell from a wall,
And the soldier who stood in the way of a ball,
Anld the woman run over in crossing the street,
And the child that was burnt, and the wife that
was beat, -
Had these been all seated in snug Jersey train,
They had all been alive, and I'd not lived in vain."
" Is the ghost of JOHN GILPIN arrived here tonight?"
" John Gilpin is coming-is come-and all right."




TO THEIR MEDIUMS.             105
" Mr. Gilpin, we learn it turned out to your loss,
That you ever' bestrided' the calender's horse.
You commanded a train band and wore a long
sword,
And had had merry times on the wine that you
stored.
You have had some experience in riding at large;
Pray, what did you think of Lord Cardigan's
charge?"
" Hem! His lordship's a cavalry officer fine;
lie commands well his horse, although I couldn't
mine.
It was lucky for both that our chargers went
through,
And retreated forthwith, pretty much m.algre nozus.
A little such sport goes a great way with me;
When he charges again may I be there to see;
After which, competition between us must drop;
He may charge in the field, but I'd charge in the
shop."




106         THE SPIRIT RAPPERS
"Stand forth, WVARREN HASTINGS, impeached of
the law
At the grandest tribunal the world ever saw;
In whose trial eight years were expended in vain;
In less than eight minutes we'll try you again.
The spoiler of cities and murderer of men,
What defence have you now?  What excuse hlad
you then?"
"Old Engcland, my country, I strove to obey;
My employers I served in the time-sanctioned way;
I saw them encumbered with wars and with debt,
And though India was poor, there was money to
get;
I pursued the Rohillas with sword and with fire;
When I got forty lacs, my demands went no
higher;
When my troublesome council were bent on a jar,
To produce an effect I hung up Nuncomar;
To the chiefs of Benares and ladies of Oude,
For a few millions more, my behavior was rude.




To THEIR MEDIUMS.            107
Let not England complain, nor my enemies foamn
The soil kept the blood, but the gold was sent
home;
Yet for tribes I had exiled from desolate plains
An impeachment was all I received for my pains.
Old England, beware! for the time is approaching,
When, shorn of thy locks, thou shalt cease thy
encroaching;
When thy men shall melt off into climates more free,
And thy colonies spurn at dictation from thee;
When the sun of thy peerage in clouds shall have
set,
When the end is foreseen of thy church and thy
debt,
When thy prestige is down and thy glories estranged,
The wrongs of poor India will then be avenged."
Here's a beau of a bishop - his hat in his hand.
" Walk under the table, Monsieur TALLEYRAND.




108        THE SPIRIT RAPPERS
You've been dead now some years; we should like
your opinion
On the recent events of your ancient dominion.
In all the bouleversements you've happened to
meet,
You contrived, like a cat, to come down on your
feet.
Pray, leave your dissemblings, and just tell us
how
You think in old Europe they'll manage things
low.".'
" Being anxious to leave my acquaintance in peace,
I sealed up my papers before my decease;
They must rest thirty years, by the terms of my
will,
When the seals will be cracked, and the world
learn their fill.
In the mean while, (observe that I make no allusions,)
There is space for at least five or six revolutions.




To THEIR MEDIUMS.             109
At the end of which time, should a Bonaparte
govern,
My unfortunate papers may blaze in the oven.
There are now two big emperors, who must have
their sport;
Each fancying, doubtless, that war is his forte;
There is powder unburnt, both in guns and in kegs;
There is food for this powder still walking on legs.
The czar brings half Asia from mountain and flat;
He will give three for one, and fatigue you at
that;
His rival sends forward gay France to the fight,
With dejected John Bull as a bob to his kite;
When the men, and the money, and powder are
done,
Perhaps they'll conclude it is troublesome fun;
When they've tried it enough, whether losing or
winning,
All parties will quit —much the worse for beginning."




110         TIAdE SPIRIT RAPPERS
"Ride forward, DON  QUIXOTE, thy lance in the
rest;
Of all Rozinantes thy own was the best.
Shall not history grant thee a dignified place?
Like Rollo and Rudolph, thou foundest a race."
" I have founded a race whose illustrious line
Shall survive after "broods more antique" shall
decline;
My exploits shall be copied in far distant times;
My descendants shall grace the remotest of climes.
3Iacedonia's madman, and Charles the wild Swede,
Like myself, were inspired, and were Quixotes
indeed.
The emperor Charles, who invaded Algiers,
And Charles the Pretender, had just my ideas;
So had Douglas the great, of the Chevy Chase
story,
And Douglas the less, who rode tilt at Mlissouri.
Napoleon charged like a Quixote on Russia;
Murat tried his crown into Naples to usher 




To THlEIR MIEDIUMS.           111
So Shays at old Springfield, and Burr on Ohio,
With Lopez at Cuba, may make up a trio;
And if you demand a less tangible phantom,
There's Ericeson's engine, and Paine's Jack o' Ianthorn;
To such chivalrous knights, in my last dying
stanza,
I commend the grave counsels of sage Sancho
Panza."
" Ah! BENEDICT ARNOLD, - must you, too, appear?
You dog of a traitor, how dare you come here?
Look round you and weep. See this prosperous soil,
Which you once did your utmost to blast and to
spoil."
"I'm a dog of a traitor, - in that we agree,
And some similar dogs have been heard of since
mne.
You began your rebellion, not looking ahead,
With harebrains like me for your hydra-like head.




112        THE SPIRIT RAPPERS
You owe your salvation, as all the world knows,
To the favor of luck and supineness of foes.
Had Howe put through quick the concern he was
sent on;
HIad Washington failed on the morning of Trenton;
Had Louis adhered to his favorite trade,
And rat traps, not treaties, been all that he made;
Had Andre got off, with your fate in his boots,Your grand revolution had gone by the roots.
Be not hastily puffed with your honors and goods;'Tis the true time to crow when you're out of the
woods.
I see your far-famed constitution to shake,
And the bonds of your Union are strained till
they break.
There are pupils of mine wide awake in the land,
With the time-approved watchword,'Divide and
command.' "




To THEIR MEDIUMS.            113
"All hail, noble FRANKLIN! the right hand that
wrings
The lightning from heaven, and the sceptre from
kings,
May well be invoked as a competent guide,
To give us a view of the world's brighter side.
We read your Poor Richard, we fancy your dress,
We talk with your lightning, and print with your
press;'Tis a problem to solve not unworthy of you,
What this wide western world may be destined
to do."
" You flatter Poor Richard to ask his advice,
But the question is fair, and shall not be asked
twice.
I once had a project -'twas all in my eye
To be bottled up tight, like a winter-killed fly,
And then be thawed out at the end of a century,
With leave to look round, and to take an in-ventory.




114         THE SPIRIT RAPPERS
Two thirds of that period have now passed away;
As you give me a chance, I'll have something to say.
Having rested a moment to cool my surprise,
Recovered my breathing, and rubbed up my eyes,
It strikes me, (my terms are, perhaps, out of use,)
That the world has run riot, and hell has broke
loose.
There is racing and chasing on east and on west,
There is rushing and pushing, and all things but
rest;
Men seem to be travelling on engines like flyers,
Having sent off their notions ahead upon wires:
No wonder they need some new methods to go it,
Now you cut off their legs without letting them
know it.
Here's a new yard of cloth, wove itself in a minute;
It used to take three days to weave or to spin it.
Here are sewing machines, and machines for brickmaking,
For spinning and knitting, for brewing and baking.




To THEIR MEDIUMS.             115
This new-fanglecl printing I hope to look into,
But this painting by light is rank witchcraft
akin to.
Now you can't go to sleep in the old quiet way,
Because gas lights are turning the night into day.
We thought our spring ice melted off none too soon;
Now you swallow strange ices in August and June.
I went for improvement, when firm on my legs;
But there's reason, you know, in the roasting of
eggs;
And I cannot quite follow the creed you esteem,
That the chief end of man is to keep up the steam.
So I draw from the whole the conclusion it brings,
There's a great deal too much of a great many
things.
"There are too many mills, both of cotton and
woollen.
There are too many stocks to entrap a green
fool in.




116        THE SPIRIT RAPPERS
You have too many railroads -if this you should
doubt,
Ask those that are in how they'd like to get out.
You have too many ships, and you've too many
banks,
And too many landsharks at work with their
pranks.
You have cities, on paper, beyond what are proper,
And too many mines of gold, iron, and copper.
You have too many silks -more than prudence
requires;
Which, Poor Richard has told you, put out kitchen
fires.
You have far too much money, and that makes the
trouble;
Though your shirt may cost less, yet your dinner
costs double.
You obtain too much credit; for he who goes borrowing,
Poor Richard says also, will find he goes sorrowing.




TO THEIR MEDIUMS.             117
You have too many presses and type loads of trash,
Which inundate the country with poor balderdash,
And render it hard to decide in a verse
Whether printing be most of a blessing or curse.
You have too many stumps that uphold agitators,
Reformers and rogues, politicians and traitors.
"Notwithstanding all this, I might say, if I saw fit,
That your country is safe, or Poor Richard's no
prophet.
The machine is wound up in a firm constitution,
And can go by itself, and not fear revolution.
If property sinks in a chorus of groaners,
There are few things so bad that they cannot find
owners.
If a debtor deceases perplexed in affairs,
The estate gets untwisted by lawyers or heirs.
If in prosperous times the good people run riot,
They are brought to their senses by time and low
diet.




118        THE SPIRIT RAPPERS
If gold is abundant, then fools will make schemes,
And no mines can keep pace with their castles and
dreams;
And when they discover the gold is not theirs,
Down tumble their castles and vanish their airs;
And lastly, with nothing their credit to prop,
As the worst that befalls them, they pull up and
stop.The pestilent press has its death in its birth;
The world understand it at what it is worth,
And rival defamers extinguish each other,
As one poison's antidote lies in another;
And as for the men who assemble in clumps,
And, Witherington-like, shout and fight upon
stumps,
In the depths of a valley or top of a high hill,
I consider them - vox et praoterea nihil.
They who write and who stump are the froth and
the foam;
The strength of the country is quiet at home.




TO THEIR MEDIUMS.             119
Commend me the man who just minds his own
business,
And keeps out of places of danger and dizziness.
While the nmob raises mushrooms and tumbles them
down,
His thrift and his products are always his own.
You have fine institutions for blind and for lame;
Asylums for paupers, retreats for insane;
The thing you most want, in your present conditions,
Is an ample retreat for distressed politicians.
I think a good treadmill the best kind of charity,
Where the ups and the downs are not wholly a
rarity.
The conservative class mind their own private
cares,
And scarce know who dances at head of affairs.
An election comes round, and two platforms are
made,
Differing each from the other the split of a shade;




120        THE SPIRIT RAPPERS
The trifling distinction held out for your viewing
Is, that one is salvation, the other rank ruin.The race course is opened; the betters take sides,
As they happen to fancy the jockey that rides;
When the stakes are decided, the losers and winners
Walk quietly home and look out for their dinners.
The peace is not broken for this time, (I guess so,)
For each man is a magistrate, (Lamartine says so,)
With a stake to be lost by a reign of disorder;
So he gives a sure voice to support law and
order.
A mutual dependence keeps all things at rest
With the North and the South, and the East and
the West:
There is only one reason why discord should swell;
Politicians must feed, and newspapers must sell:
But though speeches are hot and though columns
are spicy,
The intractable public keeps quiet and icy.




To THEIR AMEDIUMS.           121
You have nothing to fear as to bloodshed and strife
In a land where each man owns a hut and a wife."
The spirits are gone, and the room is now clear;
There is nothing remaining to see or to hear;
The company now may take hats and go home —
Stop - hark - there's a snoring going on in the
room.
It is old RIP VAN WINKLE, as usual, caught napping;
They left him behind, for they thought him past
rapping.
Hush -- softly - keep dark - and on tiptoe advance;
They say that he manifests best in a trance.
" I am looking, in dreams, on the people about us;
There are some who believe, there are others who
flout us;
But I have it revealed, on substantial authority,
The believers are likely to get the majority; 




122        THE SPIRIT RAPPERS
And if drilled as a party, in most of the states.
They will sweep next election, in spite of the fates.
I've the strongest reluctance my snoozing to break
up;
Yet if public good calls, why, Yan Winkle must
wake up.
If you think my appearance would prove influential,
You may enter my name for the race presidential.
I never belonged to a parliament rump;
I'm too hoarse for a speech, and too old for the
stump;
But, methinks, there is ground for a public appeal,
For what you can't prove, why, the ghosts can
reveal.
You've had president bullies and presidents free,
But you'll never get one half so quiet as me.
Your strength as a party shall wax manifold,
When the spirits shall vote, and the dead heads be
polled;




To THEIR MEDIUMS.            123
When judges in courts shall acknowledge our
fitness,
And a rapper be held as a competent witness,
And long-eared believers shall sit upon juries,
And rogues shall be hanged on the strength of
ghosts' stories.
And when things are composed by the force of
good orders,
We will all go to sleep, and have peace in our
borders.
Good night, - I have done, - and you tease me in
vain;'You have waked me too soon- I must slumber
again.' "








0=11,
Cl qSt*~
-
4'l
4-t
01 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~ -




First China's sons, with early art elate,
Formed the gay teapot and the pictured plate,
Saw, with illumined brow and dazzled eyes,
In the red stove vitrescent colors rise,
Speck her tall beakers with enamelled stars,
Her monster josses and gigantic jars,
Smeared her huge dragons with metallic hues,
With golden purples and cobaltic blues,
Bade on wide hills her porcelain castles glare,
And glazed pagodas tremble in the air.
DARWLN.
(126)




THE CROCKERY MAKERS.
BY T. B. R.
LET the fly wheel steam it round
Till the clay to pulp be ground;
Let no hand knock off from labor
Till every man has beat his neighbor.
"What the temple we would build"
To be with crockery vessels filled?
Give it no bad names for malice
Is it prison - is it palace?
Is it tower for lord and vassal?
Is it an enchanted castle?
It seems fit place our wares to shove in
Faith, its nothing but an oven.
(127)




128       THE CROCKERY MAIKERS.
Now the fire above has got,
Now the saggers grow red hot,
Shining  with infernal glory,
M{iniatures of purgatory.
Fairest forms are there in prison,
Dioomed to bake before they're risen,
Cups and saucers, plates and dishes,
Heads of dogs and tails of fishes,
Beauteous nymphs in bas reliefs,
Hieroes bold and Indian chiefs,
Burning to chastise their clay,
Burning, burning, night and dan.
Stop, they've now burned up the fuel
Longer burning would be cruel 
Only makes themn hard and stout:
Cool them down and take them out;
Place them on the retail shelf;
Pick and choose, and suit yourself.




THE CROCKERY MAKERS.             129
Lo, a splendid table rising,
Made upon the extension plan,
Legs carved out with art surprising,
Polished leaves of broadest span;Damask cloths, of milky whiteness,
Covering bars that bars receive,
Frames of ash, whose bolt-uprightness
Stands unnoved though spirits heav-e.
Now r, like orient sun arising,
Flames the dinner service brighlt,
Mleet excuse for gormandizing,
Reason strong for appetite;Deep tureen of gold and crimson
Flashing back the gas light rays,
Dish that pigs might stretch their limbs on,
Barbecued in western ways.




130      THE CROCKERY MAKERS.
There shall sit the guests and diners,
Ladies -fair assigned to beaux;
There shall soak the ancient winers;
There the worn-out wits shall prose.
Repartees shall there be bandied,
Formal laughs at would-be jokes,
Laws and times to be amended,
Covert gibes at absent folks.
Latest news discussed and sifted,
Public measures weighed and scanned,
Long harangues from parties gifted,
Audience from the meek and bland.
Soups of white, and soups of brown,
Turtle, ham, and game, and rmutton,
Enough to save a starving town,
Enough to glut a moderate glutton;



THE CROCKERY MAKERS.             131
Turkeys ready stuffed for stuffing,
Fofie gras pates from the shelves,
Vol au vents that need no puffing,
Omelettes nice, that puff themselves.
Such fine dishes shall not linger;
Vain the attempt to eat them all.
Lo, behold! - a fiery finger
Flames along the parlor wall.
"' Gout and palsy are your waiters,
Colic and dyspepsia too;
Lo, the devil stands and caters
Wines and meats for dupes like you."
II,
Let the fly wheel steam it round
Till the clay to pulp be ground;
Let no hand knock off from labor
Till every man has beat his neighbor.




132      THE CROCIKERY  I.AKERS.
Hark! what means this clink and clattering?
Whence proceeds this noise of chattering?'Worse than magpies in the fableLo, the tea is on the table!
Summoned here by special favor,
Aged dames and damsels young
Take their sip from cups of Sevres,
Quickening draught for dormant tongue.
Maiden blue and sage duenna
Ope their hearts in council free.
Pope has said that great Queen Anna
Counsel took, and then took tea.
Cups and saucers shift and rattle;
High the fragrant steam ascends;
Louder grows the mingling tattle;
Less the chance for absent friends.




TIIE CROCKERY'MNAKERS.         133
Reputations shake and tremble
As the steaming mass gets strong;
Sips of scandal quite resemble
Sips of Hyson or Oolong.
AMould the teacup brief and brittle,
Strongest engine of the town;
Reputation's worth but little -
Tea and tongues can bring it down.








(135)




Haste thee, nymph, and bring with thee
Jest and youthful jollity,
Quips and cranks, and wanton wiles,
Nods and becks, and wreathed smiles
Such as hang on Hebe's cheek,
And love to live in dimple sleek,
Come, and trip it as you go
On the light fantastic toe.
MILTON, L'/LLEGRO.
(136)




TO CERITO.
BY G. L.
W HEN CE conmest thou, beautiful Cerito,
Poised in air like a mosquito,
Bounding up with sudden spring,
Settling clown with folded wing,
Hanging o'er thy pivot toe,
WVhirling to and spinning fro.
HIow thy arms, with wreathing grace,
Circle thy bewitching face,
Tossing hands like water jets,
With waving flowers or castanets!
Round in rapid circles go,
Whirling heel and mincing toe,
(1 37)




138               To CERITO.
Swifter, faster, without stop,
Whizzing like a humming top,
Till baffled dress deserts thy form,
And soars like gossamer in the storm,
While plaudits burst in full tornado,
And bravos ring at thy bravado.
Now thy light and fairy science,
Setting gravity at defiance,
Hangs thee up in middle air,
As if suspended by a hair,
Swinging, quivering, flying, flitting,
Solid earth but seldom hitting,
Till at length, from seraph flight,
On the boards thou deign'st to light.
Bowing to the audience low,
Stretching back thy hinder toe,
Floating at rest like alligator,
Or some bird of sailing nature,
Lifting thy large and lustrous eyes,
Just while the ravished audience dies,




To CERITO.               139
Then sinking in the green room breathless,
To feel thyself half dead - though deathless.
In what sort of common metre
Shall we sing thee, glorious creature?
Thou art like a rivulet gay,
Sending wide its joyous spray;
Like a tuft of thistle down
Swept in air from pastures brown;
Like the dust in summer curling,
When the zephyr sets it whirling;
Like the lark that mounts on high
Pirouetting through the sky;
Like the swallow's rapid motion,
Skimming over land and ocean;
Like a squirrel, caged in wire,
Spinning to his heart's desire;
Like the buzzing of the fly
Trapped and caught by spider sly;
Like the sighs which fall on flowers
From lovers' hearts in moonlit bowers;




140              To CERITO.
Like a joy that leaves us glad;
Like a pain that makes us mad.
So thy swift and fairy motion
Fills us with sublime emotion.
Then dance on, nmost fair Cerito;
All thy charms we bow the knee to.
Hearts are shaking on thy foot
Of all these worshippers so mute.
Pursue thine airy football play,
But kick - 0, kick not hearts away.




2rz ~  ~
TI 2
~~~~~~fd~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~3~~~~~~~~~:l
Z-17,




Ac veluti lentis Cyclopes fulmina massis
Cum properant, alii taurinis follibus auras
Accipiunt redduntque, alii stridentia tingunt
IEra lacu; gemit impositis incudibus AEtna.
illi inter sese magna vi brachia tollunt,
In numerum, versantque tenaci forcipe ferrum.
VIRGIL, GEORGICON, lib. iv.
(142)




SONG OF THE BLACKSMITHS.
BY J. G. W.
THE flame is kindling on the forge,
The coal is blazing higher,
The heaving bellows sink and surge,
And snaps the crackling fire.
Rise up, ye merry blacksmiths all,
Exulting in your lot,
And, waiting for no second call,
Strike while the iron's hot.
The sweat, that down your dusky face
Descends like drops of rain,
Shall only leave its lines of grace
In somewhat paler stain.
(143)




144      SONG OF THE BLACK}SMITHS.
The stoker in his gloomiest plight,
With cheek of Afric hue,
Shall think himself an angel white,
Whene'er he looks at you.
Gird on your leathern aprons fast,
Your sleeves to elbows roll,
And blow your deep, infernal blast,
And conflagrate.your coal.
The iron bars, whose ends retreat,
Like foes in hostile lands,
Shall soften at the welding heat,
And join fraternal hands.
Your sinewy arms their hammers raise
To stamp you good and great;
Each man, as Sallust somewhere says,
Is blacksmith to his fate;
Brave hands have shaped the axe's edge
And tempered sabres keen;




SONG OF THE BLACKSMITHS.         145
Renowned old Vulcan swung the sledge,
And so did General Greene.
For you in deep Acadian mines
The sunless collier toils,
And earns the bread for which he pines,
While you receive the spoils.
A hundred schooners coastwise bound,
And sloops as many more,
For you discharge and cast around
Their black Cocytian store.
For you, in dark and pathless woods,
The charcoal burner wakes,
And piles his unconsuming goods
Above the fire he makes;
A mound of suffocating earth
Keeps down the smouldering flame,
Till coals, extinguished in their birth,
Wait your unquestioned claim.
10




146     SONG OF THE BLACKSMITHS.
Mark, how with pyrotechnic glare
The iron flashes out,
And radiant sparks, too bright to bear,
Are lightening round about;
And in these philanthropic lands,
Where none may slavery urge,
Unchecked and unrelenting hands
" The groaning anvil scourge."
The iron rod, that cools or warms,
Is servant to your will,
And horseshoes take crescentic forms
From your artistic skill.
To give you their commending proof
They seek their various place;
Bucephalus wore them on his hoof,
Redgauntlet on his face.
The sailor, in his desperate hour,
Shall hold his horseshoe fast,




SONG OF THE BLACKSMITHS.    147
And strong in witch-defying power,
Shall nail it to the mast.
The haggard witch, who lurks around
With evil-omened glare,
Will have to turn her broomstick round,
And vanish through the air.
When despots kept mankind in thrall,
You served their iron will,
And bolts and grates of prison walls
Bore witness to your skill:
But now your far more grateful trade
Shall loose the captive's chain;
The hands that first the fetters made
Can saw them best in twain.
In feudal times by blacksmiths' hands
The warrior's lance was steeled,
And helmed heads of hostile bands
Went thundering through the field.




148     SONG OF THE BLACKSMITHS.
But now the sword's too trenchant blade
The ploughshare's form shall take,
And pruning hooks shall trees invade,
And gridirons, once for martyrs made,
Shall only broil beefsteak.
Then let the flame surmount the forge,
And let the coal blaze higher,
And let the bellows sink and surge,
And snap the crackling fire;
And let the merry blacksmiths rise,
Contented with their lot,
And seizing on the proffered prize,
Strike while the iron's hot.




aCtS;
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When, at last, we began to move up, he could scarcely
avoid turning round, to cast one affectionate look towards Christendom; but quickly again he marched on, with the steps of a
man; not frightened, exactly, but sternly prepared for death,
or the Koran, or even for plural wives.
EOTHEN.
(150)




THE  POET IN  THE EAST.
BY B. T.
T   E Poet came to the land of the East
With a disappointed air;
He thought Earth needed a wedding feast,
She looked so thin and bare.
And the poet knew the land of the East,
Though he never had been there.
All things to him were visible forms
Of things not dreamed before;
Familiar visions of sights unknown
On the far-off western shore.
As they glanced in the gold of clouds unrollec
They served to surprise him more.
(151)




152       THE POET IN THE EAST.
He looked above in the cloudless calm
At the sun he had seen of old,
While the breath of gardens, like sage and balm,
About his nostrils rolled;
And he met his brother, the princely Palm,
And gave him the shoulder cold.
His feet went forth on the myrtled hills,
But the flowers were strange and mute;
The meads of milk-white asphodels
Disliked his trampling foot;
And the scarlet poppies so fiery seemed
He thought they would scorch his boot.
And half in shade and half in sun
The Peach sat on her tree;
With a passionate thrill in her stony heart
She was waiting her lord to see;
When a kiss and a bite at her crimson cheek
Showed the Poet was making free.




THE POET IN THE EAST.            153
The Nightingale, who sat above,
In the boughs that were hanging o'er,
Sang, " We are no rivals, brother mine;
So don't be jealous more:
The fruit that you bit with so fresh a gout
Had been bitten by me before."
And further spake the Nightingale:
" Before you hangs a prize;
I heard the sound of a Persian lute,
And a love-sick ditty rise,
And like two stars, through the lattice bars,
I saw a sultana's eyes."
And the Poet said, " I'll here abide,
If I sit outside the door,
To catch a glimpse of those brilliant eyes,
And hear that music pour,
Though a sack should threaten our dawning loves,
And a bowstring be in store."




154         THE POET IN THE EAST.
All hail to this Oriental clime,
Where true love needs no masking;
Where flowers in the sun, and lutes in the moon,
Respectively lie basking;
And Nightingales tell you, in Arabic,
Where sultanas are found by asking.
NOTE.-The publishing committee are of opinion that their
friend, the Poet in the East, has not done himself justice on the
present occasion. Had he favored the public with an apostrophe to
the Nile, to Mount Tmolus, or to Patience, there is little doubt that
they would assign him a place in the front rank of American poets.




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Voyager est, quoi qu'on puisse dire, un des plus tristes
plaisirs de la vie.
MAD. DE STAEL, CORINNE.
(156)




SONG  OF THE STEAMER.
BY J. G. S.
RUSHING through the ocean,
Rolling in the breeze,
Riding over billows,
Pitching into seas,
Shaking with the engine,
Screaming with the blast,
Mighty pleasant mode of
Going rather fast.
Staggering on deck beCause you cannot stand,
Holding on the railing
With a shaky hand,
(157)




158       SONG OF THE STEAMER.
Now the floor is settling
Underneath your feet,
Now it heaves you up like
Tossing in a sheet.
Sailors looking red and
Ladies looking pale,
Captain comes along, and
Says it's quite a gale;
Passengers inquire how
Long it's like to last;
Captain shakes his head- " It's
Rising very fast."
Gentleman in motion,
Looking quite distressed,
Says he'd give his house for
Half an hour's rest.
Fidgety old lady
Wonders he could sup,




SONG OF THE STEAMER.           159
Has a poor opinion
Of his bringing up.
Invalid complaining,
Not the slightest doubt
Another fit of straining
Will turn him inside out;
Lady on the sofa,
Lying dead almost,
Nothing more to give up,
Unless it be the ghost.
Gentleman in upper berth
Little sleep enjoys,
Gentleman beneath is
Making such a noise;
Gentleman in lower berth
Timid sort of chap,'Fraid to put his head out,
Fear of some mishap.




160       SONG OF THE STEAMER.
Dinner bell is ringing,
Dishes under cover,
Glasses pitching round, and
Gravy pitching over;
Half the chairs are empty,
Folks are out of joint,
Could not bring their minds up
To tile sticking point.
Villanous beef eaters,
Been to sea before,
Eat five meals a day,'cause
Not content with four
Soup, and fish, and turkeys,
Ham and cheese for lunch,
Mutton, pork, and oysters,
Ale and whiskey punch.
Miserable sick ones,
Looking on in wonder,




SONG OF THE STEAMER.          161
Question how they do it,
In the name of thunder:
Gormandizing rascals
Say it's all a sham;
Recommend, to cure them,
Pork, and tripe, and ham.
Weather getting smoother,
Stomachs getting quiet,
Passengers, more tranquil,
Try a little diet;
Many come to life whose
Company was missed;'Stead of playing'possum,
Now they're playing whist.
Tea in requisition,
Gossip gets about;
Some are growing curious,
Finding others out;
11




162       SON'G OF THIE STEAMIER.
Wonder where they came from;
Wonder what they're doing;
Wonder what their names are;
Wonder where they're going.
Legislative member
Puts an end to doubt;
Colonel in disguise beGins to let it out:
Both are going to London;
Nothing shall prevent them;
Mean to see the minister;
Think he must present them.
Cunning-visaged Yankee
Looking sharp and slim,
Says he guesses folks won't
Come it over him;
Means to shave his dinners;
Prudent like a monk,




SONG OF THE STEAMER.           163
Got a pound of candles
Locked up in his trunk.
Swaggering western rowdy
Will do as he sees fit;
Means to go to Fenton's;
Means to smoke and spit;
Keeps a pair of pistols,
Wears a bowie knife;
Never took an insult,
Never in his life.
Sturdy looking lender
Claps him on the back,' Pay your borrowed money;
Give us less of clack."
Aggravated rowdy
Bullies more and more.
Captain says, "We'll fix him
When we get ashore."




164       SONG OF THE STEAMER.
Man has got a gimcrack
Patented anew;
Going abroad to sell it;
Offers it to you;
Speaks of wooden nutmegs,
Very fine device,
Much more economical
Than any other spice.
Greenhorn going to London
To see the Coliseum;
Heard of gladiators,
Wishes much to see'em;
Uncle went to Florence;
Now, on his return,
Thinks the Pitti Palace
A pitiful concern.
Gentleman of business,
Dealing in hardware,




SONG OF THE STEAMER.           165
Going straight to Sheffield
To see how prices are.
Lady and her daughter,
Travelling express,
Mean to take a courier,
Cost it more or less.
Dandy must assort with
Gentlemen of rank;
Learns the best hotel is
Summit of Mont Blanc;
Nobody resides there
But the highest class.
Acquiescent company
Write him down an ass.
Lady, getting nervous,
Sees a ship in sight,
Hopes they will not run us down
Sudden in the night;




166       SONG OF THE STEAMER.
Gentleman resolving,
If he gets to shore,
He'll spend his life on t'other side,
And never steam it more.
Rushing through the ocean,
Rolling in the breeze,
Heaving over billows,
Pitching into seas,
Shaking with the engine,
Screaming with the blast,
Comfortable thing to
Be arrived at last.




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In Scarlet towne, where I was borne,
There was a fair maid dwellin',
Made every youth crye, " Wel-awaye!"
Her name was Barbara Allen.
All in the merrye month of Maye,
When greene buds they were swellin',
Young Jemmye Grove on his death bed lay,
For love of Barbara Allen.
OLD BALLAD.
(168)




BARBARA ALLEN.
BY N. P. W.
I.
THERE was a lady fair of seventeen;
There was a youth, perhaps a few years older;
The story of their loves is strange, I ween,
And shows that love should not be left to
smoulder;
For smothered love, eternal though unseen,
Is apt to blaze instead of getting colder;
Even though its early hope may have been
blighted,
Being all on one side, therefore unrequited.
(169)




170           BARBARA ALLEN.
II.
In "Scarlet towne " our lady heroine dwelt. -
Where Scarlet was beseems me not to say;
Its mystic name few Gazetteers have spelt,
And antiquarians find themselves at bay.
Some think its place was in the Torrid belt,
Some in the Moon, and some in Hudson's Bay;
And others, entering on the same arena,
Prove'twas the ancient Roman Scarlatina.
III.
The lady is already known to song,
And Barbara Allen was her name, they say 
Whether she dropped it soon, or kept it long,
Depended simply on her ay or nay;
For history states, her suitors, quite a throng,
Employed their time in crying, " Well away!"
And many a proffered heart and hand was there,
For which the obdurate Barbara did not -care.




BARBARA ALLEN.             171
IV.
Among the rest young Jemmy Grove was sighing,
(A name derived from sylvan scenery round.)
From childhood up the young man had been trying
To make impression on the flinty ground
Of her hard heart.'Twas vain to think of buying
With love or money one so iron bound;
For Barbara was a cold and careless creature,
And made worse work with hearts than I with metre.
V.
In early youth they both had run together
"About the braes," and found it pleasant sport,
And lookers on were heard to wonder whether
In future years they might not well consort;
For all seemed smooth in childhood's sunny weather,
And marked attentions came and went as nought.
They liked each other with a childish preference,
Which to true -love has very little reference.




112           BARBARA ALLEN.
VI.
But Jemmy, being of the two the older, —
A fact our history has already stated,Perhaps sometimes might feel a little bolder,
And think his birth should have been antedated;
For what he felt when seated at her shoulder,
If called true love, would not be overrated.
As to her views he did not stop to reason,
But lived and loved, and had his little season.
VII.
At length Miss Barbara was sent off to school,
To learn accomplishments and practise graces, —
To sing, to dance, to walk, to look, by rule;
To speak new languages and wear new faces;
To spend long hours upon a music stool;
To grow a judge of jewels, books, and laces;
In short, to stifle youth's emotions early,
To drop the natural, and assume the worldly.




BARBARA ALLEN.              173
VIII.
Young Jemmy Grove, devoted to the plough,
Pursued, meanwhile, his rustic occupation,
Not once imagining nor dreaming how
A change was taking place in their relation.
He did not know that many a broken vow
Has grown from smaller difference of station.
He only wished he had a house to dwell in,
And half that house should be for Barbara Allen.
IX.
One morning, as he paused to rest his team,
And stood reflecting over his plough handle,
lie fell into a sort of musing dream,
That life spent all in ploughing was a scandal.
He tried to hit upon some better scheme.
He thought of Plutus' mine and Hymen's candle.
Bright plans for future bliss were stealing o'er him,
When, all at once, a vision rose before him.




174           BARBARA ALLEN.
X.
For, as he looked across the neighboring fence,
That stood between his cornfield and the road,
A lady's image struck his visual sense,
Dropped from the sky, a Venus a la mode.
Her face was dazzling, though her curls were dense,
Her mien erect and stately as she strode,
And when she turned her eyes to look beside her,
Poor Jemmy only opened his the wider.
XI.
And when she moved, with step as firm as airy,
She looked a goddess, while she walked a queen;
And when she smiled, bewitching as a fairy,
Her sparkling eye illumined all the scene.
The coiffing of her neck, a little chary,
Served to give piquancy to what was seen.
So, between sparkling eyes and snowy skin,
Poor Jemmy was dumbfoundered, and caved in.




BARBARA ALLEN.              175
XII.
"Good morning, Mr. Grove," the stranger said;
" Good morning, madam," was the brief reply;
During which dialogue he hung his head,
And hardly seemed to know the reason why.
Her manner was more prompt, and better bred,
While his was awkward, hesitant, and shy.
Some slight misgiving seemed to cross his breast,
Of who the stranger was whom he addressed.
XIII.
But then, so altered were her form and mien,
So lady-like in all she did and said,
Her stature tall, quite different from thirteen,
With such a true patrician toss of head, -
She could not be the same, his childhood's queen.
He felt an awkward and impulsive dread.
The double contrast almost made him bellow;
IHe thought himself a mean and shabby fellow.




176          BARBARA ALLEN.
XIV.
" This exercise," she said, " improves the cheek "He drew his sleeve across it, and was mute.
" In ploughing time one's costume's not so sleek "He wished she'd seen him in his Sunday suit.
" The plough's a useful instrument, so to speak "'He wished his own was ten leagues under foot.
HIe thought'twas plain she could be only quizzing;
The mere suspicion set his ears to whizzing.
Xv.
" Have you forgotten Barbara," said the lady,Her voice affecting somewhat of the tender,"When in these very pastures, cool and shady,
You gathered dandelion flowers to lend her?"
The chord was touched; but little more delayed he,
For she had roused him like a witch of Endor.
He bounded forward for an instant smack -
Recoiled- stretched out his hand - then drew it
back.




BARBARA ALLEN.              177
XVI.
For she had checked him with a look severe,
Which seemed to say, "Hands off, you vulgar
clown!"
And while his eye was moistened with a tear,
Her own was darkened with an angry frown.
lIe wished himself well stretched upon his bier,
So heavily this unkind cut came down;
And when his revery was fairly banished,
lie found the source of love and grief had vanished.
XVII.
A great deal may be done in little time;
A man may throw the dice and lose his fortune;
Or put a pistol bullet through his head,
To prove this life (what no one doubts) a short one;
Or fall in love, when little has been said;
Or break his mistress' heart, if he has caught one;
So Jernmy Grove, in less than half an hour,
Was a gone case, beyond redemption's power.
12




178           BARBARA ALLEN.
XVIII.
He hied him home, and straightway went to bed,
And put all things in order for a session,
Refused his dinner, and tied up his head,
Complained of shivering, heartache, and oppression.'Twould not be long before he should be dead;
Such was his first, and now his last impression;
HIe once had entertained some hopes to move her,
But now the case was clear, and all was over.
XIX.
WVhen Barbara Allen heard how things were going,
She called and left her card upon his mother;
She would not venture in; the wind was blowing,
And of all things she most disliked a pother.'Twould not be proper in a lady going
To call upon a man, unless her brother;
If he must die,'twas so much more the pity,
But deaths were common now in every city.




3BARBARA ALLEN.              179
XX.
So then " he turned his face unto the wall,"
Refused all nourishment, and fell to weeping;
He hoped he soon might be released from thrall;
He felt his latter end was o'er him creeping';'Twas some small comfort that she'd know it all,
When his poor bones beneath the sod were
sleeping;
And so he died in true old lover fashion,
The victim of an unrequited passion.
X x I.
When Barbara heard the final, fatal news,
She turned a little pale, and then she sighed,
And bending down her head, began to muse,
Then took her cambric handkerchief, and cried.'Twas hard a constant youth so ill to use;
She almost wished that she herself had died.
Then came the vision back of old alliance,
AA hen youthful Jeremy brought the dandelions.




180           BARBARA ALLEN.
XXII.
Disastrous love is quite a bad complaint,
And sometimes fatal, as the poets say;
At any rate, it brings a feeling faint,
And may grow worse at almost any day.
To stand against it one must be a saint,
Or hardened sinner in that sort of play;
For troubled love creates a great confusion,
Extremely trying to the constitution.
XXIII.
But Barbara now was singularly placed,
A case of love and conscience complicated,
Of which the memory could not be effaced,
Nor the enormity be well abated:
To die just so might not be in good taste;
But then it seemed as if the thing were fated;
And when her senses seemed about to leave her,
She woke one morning in a raging fever.




BARBARA ALLEN.              181
XXIV.
The Scarlet doctors were convened together,
To sit in consultation on the case,
And chiefly to decide the question whether
The mind or body was the morbid place.
One called it cold; one thought it was the weather;
One deemed it typhus, from its present face.
They feared it might extend when it should leave
her,
And fill the village with a Scarlet fever.
XXV.
But Barbara felt the whole disease was love,
And found her strength fast giving way before it;
And when she raved, she called on Jemmy Grove,
Sent for a dandelion flower, and wore it.
A last repentance no one could reprove;
Death was at hand;'twas useless to ignore it;
She warned all maids against the sin she fell in,
And died at last repentant Barbara Allen.




182          BARBARA ALLEN.
MORAL.
Let all wise farmers and all men of sense
Give this sad tale a due consideration;
And then allow themselves on no pretence
To give their girls an over education;
It quite upsets their giddy heads, and hence
May give them notions much above their station;
And ends, at last, in all the ends attending
Mistaken tastes, and broken hearts past mending.




f    Za ll;tzetct  frdogut.
(183)




I had forgot, - three months - you told me so -
Well then - your bond; and let me see - But hear you; -
Methought you said you neither lend nor borrow
Upon advantage.
SHAKSPEANRE, i\'IERCHANT OF VENICE.
(184)




A WALL STREET ECLOGUE.
BY T. W. P.
MELIB 3t US.
FRIEND Tityrus, you reclining here at ease,
With much or little business, as you please,
Rent a large office, fit for those that win,
WVith anterooms, to take your pigeons in;
A man of capital and good renown,
Giving big dinners in your house up town,
With a snug country box, made fast for life,
And a gay turnout for your faster wife;Say how you got and keep these golden eggs,
When we, poor dogs, can hardly keep our legs;
When stocks are down, and notes are falling due,
And money can't be borrowed - even of you.
(185)




186      A WALL STREET ECLOGUE.
TITYRUS.
0 Melibeeus, you surprise me sore; —
I thought you knew a thing or two, before.
In this great city, famed for doubtful play,
Where ups and downs are common every day,
A knowing broker, like the quick-nosed shark,
Should swim attendant on the sinking bark.
Cargoes are lightened ere the ship goes down,
And debtors yield their trunks before they drown.
A certain decency forbids neglect,
And notes and bills, though doubtful, claim respect..A great deal may be done with little said;
Corpses look best when shaved before they're dead.
MEL IB(E US.
Of notes and bills most heartily I'm sick;
I've cried them  down, and shaved them to the
quick;
And when I thought a fortune safe in store,
The things turned out more worthless than before.




A WALL STREET ECLOGUE.           187
TITYR US.
Get an indorser, some confederate duck,
Whose name, just now, is up for skill and luck;
Crack up the note, and cite its various props,
But take good care to sell it ere he stops.
In most transactions of impending doubt
You can't be too quick in, nor too quick out.
MELI B US'.
I deal in articles of staple worth;
Good solvent stocks, indorsements, and so forth.
I never like to make a thing my own
Till some intrinsic value can be shown.
TITY RUS.
I deal in fancies, though not worth a sous,
Yet such as keep some glorious prize in view;
In mines of copper, gold, and diamonds rough,
A fortune sure to those who dig - enough;
In rotten railroads, that keep running yet
With heavy loads of merchandise and debt;




188     A WALL STREET ECLOGUE.
Forced to put up with loss, and wear and tear,
But never venturing to put up their fare;
In damaged steamers, when the worn-out ship
May keep afloat, perhaps, for one more trip;
In banks filled up with loads of paper trash,
Whose own directors borrow all the cash;
In manufactures managed by your friends,
Agents, not owners, bagging dividends;
In lands which give, when retailed by the foot,
Your money back, and fifty fold to boot;
Enough to put an end to all the troubles
Of wanton boys, who like to swim on bubbles.
MELIBE(EUS.
I laud the Bears, who sift all worthless stuff,
And talk it down, to buy it low enough.
Few things are saddled with so deep a curse
That dexterous croaking cannot make them wors
Refuse at first, yet buy before you sup:
Things flattest down are soonest looking up.




A WALL STREET ECLOGUE.            189
TITYRUS.
I love the Bulls, who give their generous care
To keep the falling stocks at prices fair;
Whose liberal eyes can see redeeming traits
In things past hope, and ruined, spite of fates;
Who flit about, benign as fairy elves,
And crack up things that soon must crack themselves;
Who uphold bubbles of all names and sorts,
With kind regard in reference to the shorts.
MELIC3&US.
Once to my desk a brother broker came,
Told his sad tale, and so I lent my name.
Fool that I was; ere three weeks had gone by
The villain was hard up, - and so was I.
TITYRUS.
And at my doors a greenhorn late appeared -
A tempting case - an heir without a beard.




190     A WALL STREET ECLOGUE.
His money seemed to jingle as he went,
Like bubbling boilers, wanting only vent.
He heard the ready was in great demand,
And ten per cent a month was paid off hand;
He wished to act distinctly for the best,
So merely begged I'd help him to invest.
His doubtful case I pondered long and well,
Reflecting much on all I had to sell;
I took his gold, and gave him notes instead -
I think he since has wished himself in bed.
When next he came to tax me with my crimes,
I preached a sermon on the horrid times.
MELIBCE  US.
Thanks, worthy Tityrus, for your counsels grave
I'll try to be more sharp, when next I shave.
TITYRUS.
My customers appear'- they look perplexed
Be seated, gentlemen. Sir,'tis your turn next.




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Lorsque se mirent en bon ordre et bien serrez. Et Pantagruel tira sa langue seulement a demy, et les en couvrit comme une geline faict ses poulletz.
RABELAIS.
(192)




THE AMERICAN CONGRESS.
BY G. W. B.
LET the Capitol be opened — the spangled banner flung;
Let every patriot rally now, prepared to use his
tongue.
A stream is moving up the steps, and entering in
the door;
Columbia calls her deep-mouthed sons forthwith
to take the floor.
MAINE, from her farthest borders, sends her first
exulting shout;
Her deep pine timber lands have let some knotty
members out.
1      (3         (193)




194      THE AMERICAN CONGRESS.
NEW HAMPSHIRE, on her granite hills, has acted
as was fit;
She sends no representatives but what are found
true grit.
VERIMONT, with her Green Mountain Boys, gives a
triumphant cheer;
You'll find them not so very green, when once you
get them here.
Old MASSACHUSETTS moves along, a frigate under
sail,
Prepared to harpoon any thing that's very like a
whale.
RHODE ISLAND promptly toes the mark, equipped
for peace or war,
With Roger Williams on her flag, — and also
Thomas Dorr.
CONNECTICUT accepts the gage, intent to bandy
knocks
For the birthplace of old Barnum and the land of
wooden clocks.




TrHE A MERICAN CONGRESS.         195
NEW YORK pours in her hards and softs, and fifty
factions more;
She'll have a dozen newer names before the year is
o'er.
NEW  JERSEY sends her oystermen on patriotic
cruise;
You'd think again that Monmouth field or Trenton was let loose.
Great PENNSYLVANIA in the midst her sturdy sons
turns out,
To fight for coal and iron mines, for whiskey and
sour krout.
And DELAWARE from her just claim will not abate
a tittle,
But glories in (what none gainsay) the sobriquet
of " little."
Embracing in her ambient arms the mighty Chesapeake,
Old MARYLAND comes forward next, and claims
her chance to speak.




196     THE AMIERICAN CONGRESS.
VIRGINIA, old Virginia, - Virginny never tire;
Her Tuckahoes, if need should be, can raise their
voices higher.
NORTH CAROLINA, too, the land of tar and rosin,
Will send you light-wood orators, to flash up by
the dozen.
SOUTH CAROLINA, with her chivalry and thunder,
Will show her teeth and nullify, but don't mean to
knock under.
Old Oglethorpe's dominion, the empire of the
south,
Means to defend her GEORGIAN rights, even at the
stumper's mouth;
While ALABAMA'S younger state, that rapidly has
got on,
Will raise her voice at any time to raise the price
of cotton.
Then FLORIDA, that flowery land, may well be
called celestial,




THIE AM{IERICAN CONGRESS.         197
Her pools and everglades have left so little of terrestrial.
Rough MISSISSIPPI still repudiates and blusters,
Blest land of cotton and of corn, nor less of fillibusters.
LOuIsIANA in proud state her bayous keeps in
view;
When logs and rafts are all removed, perhaps
she'll go it through.
Huge TEXAS, largest in extent, though young by
annexation,
Thinks old Sam Houston quite enough to vivify a
nation;
And ARKANSAS, that rowdy state, where cards are
still the passion,
In toothpicks and in Bowie knives claims to have
set the fashion.
Upon her broad and rushing stream MISSOURI next
reposes,
The rallying place of compromise -now threatening bloody noses.




198     THE AMERICAN CONGRESS.
Old TENNESSEE, a glorious land for horses, men,
and cattle,
Once followed General Jackson down to New Orleans to battle.
KENTUCKY rises on our sight, the honored and
abhorred;
The land of generous Henry Clay, the land of
Matthew Ward.
From mighty lake to river broad, where railroads
take their birth,
OHIO stretches north and south its corn producing
earth.
Broad INDIANA'S Hoosier sons her fame must
needs keep good,
By healthful sport of rolling logs and stumping
in the wood.
The prairies of old ILLINOIS, where buffaloes
roamed of yore,
Have driven them, and Mormons off, and mean to
keep the floor.




THE AMERICAN CONRRESS.           199
The lake-encircled MICHIGAN already proves too
great;
Her ONTONAGON copper fields must form another
state.
Far off, in northern latitudes, and skirting to the
west,
Of rough and tumble lumber men WISCONSIN
sends the best.
Young Iowa, exuberant in her soil, as well as
men,
Shall spread her future millions west, beyond the
farthest ken,
Till on the broad Pacific generations yet untold
Shall spend their strength, and lose their lives, for
CALIFORNIAN gold.
Come on, ye stump men eloquent, in never-ending
stream,
Let office be your glorious goal, and Bunkum be
your theme;




200     THE AMERICAN CONGRESS.
The vast and vaulted Capitol shall echo to your
jAWS,
And universal Yankeedom shall shout in your
applause!




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IA




What yesternight our council did decree
In forwarding this dear expedience.
SHAKSPEARE, KING IENRY IV.
(202)




AN INDIGNATION  MEETING.
BY THE COMPANY.
OPENING THE MEETING.
BROTHER bards, fellow reptiles, and grovellers
in dust,
The down-trodden victims of ill-reposed trust;
Defrauded, deceived, and betrayed in your right;
Wronged, wretched, and rabid; thrice welcome
to-night!
Let the sky, earth, and ocean attest what you
feel;
Let the far Rocky Mountains reecho your peal.
It is moved, as a prelude to open the fight,
That Phcebus McGrumble be chairman to-night,
(203)




204      ANA INDIGNATION MfIEETING.'Tis a vote. Now lead off with your bursts and
your sallies.
Three cheers for McGrumble! Three groans for
the Palace!
(Cheers and groans.)
CHA I R MA- N.
Good friends, sweet friends, let me not stir you up
To any sudden act before you sup.
Accept my thanks. You'll find me stanch and
true.
I've seen your grievances, and felt them too.
Let circumspection be your wary guide,
And heaven-eyed prudence linger at your side;
Then a new era shall dawn forth to-night,
And vengeance, slow, but sure, o'ertake the right.
On rhyming gibbets reared athwart the sky,
Shall tyrants and defrauders dangle high,
Till men shall learn who handle us so shabbily,'Tis rash to beard the " genus irritabile."
(Applause.)




AN INDIGNATION M:iEETING.          205
FIRST SPEXKER.
Howl, howl, howl, howl! 0, ye are men of granite,
And slavery's curse has choked your throats tonight!
You and your foes still ride the self-same planet,
Nor dare you bolt for liberty and right.
Kidnapping fiends have caught you in their man
net; -
Why sleep the hounds of havoc, blood and fight?
(Great applause.)
SECOND SPEAKER.
Let them alone! Unerring vengeance waits!
Their doom is fixed; even now their fate is
near.
A funeral cavalcade assails their gates!
See, how they shake with fear!
A spectre horse awaits each mother's son,
And, will or nill, their death ride is begun.
(Sensation.)




206      AN INDIGNATION MEETING.
THIRD SPEAKER.
For spectral steeds let others wait;
For one, I heed them not;
I go for instantaneous right;
For Lynch law on the spot.
A ride, indeed! when we, poor bards,
Roughshod are ridden down.
A rail! a rail! with valiant guards,
To shake them round the town!
(Violent applause.)
FOURTH SPEAKER.
Rushing over pavements,
Trotting through the street,
Jolting up and down on
Rather cruel seat;
Angry mob persist in
Going it ahead;
But for name of riding,
Better be abed.
(Applause and laughter.)




AN INDIGNATION MEETING.          207
FIFTH: SPEAKER.
Alas! good friends, what fury fills your brain!
Shall deeds of madness this occasion stain?
O, be it mine to check the threatened slaughter,
And quench the kindling flames with milk and
water.
Sweet non-resistance, that, on Jordan's side,
Through cool Cephissus pour'st thy balmy tide,
Thee we invoke to help us to endure
The weight of ills we know not how to cure.
(Silence, with some hisses.)
SIXTH SPEAKER.
They sleep, they sleep! Our tyrants take their
snooze,
Floored by the croak of Jeremiah's muse!
Let Heliconian drugs their doze prolong,
And steep their ear drums in Lethean song.
I move a serenade in middle night,
When owl-like bards their verses shall recite;




208      AN INDIGNATION  MEETING.
Beneath the strains of such lethargic cant
They'll sleep till doomsday with the dismal chant.
(Silence and yawning.)
SEVENTI SPEAKER.
I go for stumping. Take them in the bud,
Ere lenient judges overlook their crime;
Pelt them with slang, bespatt-er them with mud,
Cry havoc, and let loose the dogs of rhyme!
Adjourn this meeting for a wider floor,
A world's convention in the Park at four!
Give me a tub, and Ajax asks no more!
(Applaunse.)
EIGHTH SPEAKEIS.
The press, tile press, to every freeman dear!
The press shall utter, and the world shall hear
What mighty wrongs an injured race can bear;
What outraged faith outrageous man can dare.
Let printing imps with loaded forms appear,
&End serried columns charge them in the rear,




AN INDIGNATION MEETING.             209
Till long lampoons shall hunt the recreants down,
And general vengeance hoot them  through the
town.
(Three times three.)
SPEAKER IN SAPPHIC.
Why should the men monopolize the floor here,
When there are mouths more eloquent than theirs
are?
I, sir, for one, should like to hear the ladies
Speak their opinions.
(Veh-ement applause.)
SIX SPEAKERS AT ONCE.
1. For woman's rights let woman's writings speak!
2. For woman's wrongs let injured woman shriek!
3. Do not our volumes load the vender's shelves?
4. Let Tom and Ida answer for themselves!
5. For mercy now the Palace sues in vain!
6. Deceived for once, we trust not man again!
14         (Nine cheers for the ladies.)




210      AN INDIGNATION MEETING.
NINTr  SPEAKER.
Friends, victims, and countrymen, rise, one and all.
United we stand, or divided we fall!
Let our faithless oppressors be told to their loss
That we spurn their base gold, and reject it as
dross;
Let a basket be brought, (I should like to begin
it;)
Let all your piece-offerings be tumbled within it;
The precious result shall astound them at least
When it streams from the press, like a light from
the east;
When the public shall hasten to lavish their gold,
And award us the prize which these niggards withhold.
(A basket is brought, and immediatelyfilled.)
The avails we'll divide, whether cash, lands, or
houses,
And the shares of the ladies shall go to their
spouses.
( Tumult.)




AN INDIGNATION MEETING.             211
TEN SPEAKERS AT ONCE.
1. Miust woman's rights be trampled under feet?
2. Shall wives earn bread, that worthless drones
may eat?
3. I'll rouse'gainst man my intellectual strength!
4. I'll cut my costume to a bloomer's length!
5. No verse of mine shall on such terms abide!
6. Nor mine!  7. Nor mine!  8. Nor any one's
beside!
(The ladies indignantly withdraw their contributions.)
CHAIRMAN.
MIy dear, good ladies, but a moment stay.
Alas! you bear our chiefest prize away!
Too oft, in sooth, our hapless race has known
It is not good for man to be alone.
A single life, God knows, we all abhor;
How, single-handed, can we breast this war?
(Ladies still frown.)




212      AN INDIGNATION MREETING.
(To the Gentlemen.)
Dejected listeners, earth's forlornest hope,
I give your choice, the laurel or the rope.
If quite despairing at rebuffs like these,
There swings the cord, and yonder wave the trees.
But, if as men you dare assert the right,
Close your thinned ranks, and recommence the
fight;
Raise one great paean in the cause of song,
Grasp the green bays, and publish, right or wrong;
Hang out your banner on the outward wall,
Blow your horn-blasts, till Jericho shall fall.
Then fields shall smile beneath the Muses' reign,
And years Saturnian glad the world again;
Relenting ladies shall your deeds approve,
And earth grow green with poetry and love.
(Exeunt ladies and gentlemen, arm in arm.)




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NOTES.
BY THE PUBLISHING COMMITTEE.
TITLE PAGE.
"EOLOPOESIS," from  c6tOlog, various, and 7rostacc,
poetry. The cognomen Rejected Poems, or Rejected
Pearls, might have been suitable, had not "Rejected
Addresses" become classical on the other side of the
water.
PAGE 1.
Crystal Palace. - Since the celebrated Moon hoax,
which gave sudden employment to the compositors
of many hundred newspapers, we are not aware that
astronomers have noticed any perturbation in the literary zodiac at all comparable to that which has given
(215)




216                   NOTES.
birth to the various contributions making the contents of the present volume.
PAGE  12.
"Fort Dearborn reared across their track."
This old wooden fortress is standing, in good preservation, at Chicago, and may be said to constitute
the principal antiquity of the place. It is built in the
style of the frontier block houses, of logs well fitted
together, and with the upper story projecting over the
lower, so as to assist the defence, and render an escalade difficult.
PAGE 26.
" They say papyrus tulrns to Bovey coal."
The Herculaneum manuscripts, it is well known,
are of a black color, which appearance had been at
first ascribed to the action of the hot lava of Vesuvius. But geologists now find the condition of these
papyri to be the same with that of some of the more
recent fossil coals in which the organic texture is




NOTES.                    217
still visible, and which owe their carbonaceous character to their long subterranean repose.
PAGE 28.
"Faustus invented printing," &c.
A respect for historic truth obliges us to acknowledge that Faust was not the original inventor of the
art of printing, having been preceded in this operation by Coster, Guttenberg, and others. Nevertheless,
Faust printed the first edition of the Bible, and the
sudden multiplication of so many copies, exactly resembling each other, drew down upon him the suspicion of holding intercourse with the only personage
who was admitted, in those days, to be competent to
such a performance. The circumstances of his interesting copartnership with the devil have brought to
his defence the genius of Goethe and of Retzsch,
who have  certainly immortalized his claim.  For
ourselves, the delicate relation in which we are at
present placed obliges us to support him as the
true poetical inventor of the typographical art.




218                   NOTES.
PAGE 31.
A Hexameter Romance.
Although many attempts have been made to coerce
English poetry into the shackles of classic hexameter, such efforts have generally resulted in the production of stiff, hobbling, and prosaic lines, which
would hardly be recognized as verse, were it not
for their initial capitals. The reader is obliged " to
understand, not feel, the lyric flow," if lyric it can
be called. This is not because any absolute vice in
our language forbids its adaptation to the stately
measure of the ancient poets, but it is because those
who have aspired to the use of this versification in
English have endeavored to counterfeit the euphonious tones of the Greeks and Romans, by introducing strong and harsh accents in places which
admit only liquid and easy quantities, like those
which abound in the classic languages. A stronglyaccented dactyl at the beginning of a line, although
musical in the best Latin and Greek examples, is




NOTES.                      219
often fatal to the melody of an English hexameter.
There may be art, but no possible poetry, in such
lines as these: -
"This was the letter which came when Adam was leaving the
cottage:
If you can manage to see me before going off to Dartmoor,
Come by Tuesday's coach through Glencoe, (you have not
seen it,)
Stop at the ferry below, and ask your way (you will wonder,
There, however, I am) to the Bothie of Toper-na-fuosich."
CLOUGH'S Topernafuosich.
Mr. Coleridge thus hexametrizes the old " ccelum
undique et undique pontus:""Nothing before and nothing behind but the sky and the
ocean."
VWhich might be improved thus:Nothing before and nothing behind but the prose and the bad
verse.




220                    NOTES.
We gravely ask whether the following clerical
exhortation be prose or poetry: -
"What is that ye do, my children   What madness has
seized you  Forty years of my life have I labored among
you, and taught you, not in word alone, but in deed, to love
one another! Is this the fruit of my toils, of my vigils, and
prayers, and privations?  Have you so soon forgotten all
lessons of love and forgiveness? This is the house of the
Prince of Peace; and would you profane it thus with violent
deeds, and hearts overflowing with hatred P "
And we make the same inquiry in regard to the
following medical opinion: —
('Only beware of the fever, my friends, beware of the
fever! for it is not like that of our cold Acadian climate,
cured by wearing a spider hung round one's neck in a nutshell."
Also the following account of a blacksmith:"There at the door they stood, with wondering eyes, to
behold him take in his leathern lap the hoof of a horse, as a




NOTES.                      221
plaything, nailing a shoe in its place; while near him  the
tire of a cart wheel lay -like a fiery snake, coiled round in a
circle of cinders.  *  *  *  Varm by the forge they watched
the laboring bellows, and, as its panting ceased, and the sparks
expired in the ashes, merrily laughed, and said they were nuns
going into the chapel."
The above extracts are from Longfellow's Evangeline, which the public discover to be poetry, when
they find them laid out in lines of regular dimensions, beginning with capital letters.
For the success of an English hexameter verse,
the genius of the language requires not only the
frequent combination of mutes and liquids, as in the
round and graceful accents of the ancient poetical
authors, but it also requires the general and predominating use of the spondee, and the avoidance
of the dactyl, in the first foot of the line.
"Formosum pastor Corydon ardebat Alexin."
VIRGIL.
"Qui fit Miecenas, ut nemo quam sibi sortem."
HORACE.




222                    N o TES.
Are suitable examples from which to construct English hexameters.  The poetical character of the following lines cannot be extinguished by any change
of collocation: -
" All day she marched in the burning rays of the hot sun;
all night she slept on the damp, cold couch of the bare
ground; sometimes she didn't get any thing to eat for a fortnight, then had to dig roots, and bolt cold frogs for her
breakfast."
PAGE  34.
"He left Mudfog, made a slope, and went off to Texas."
Not many years ago, it will be recollected that
emigration to Texas was the common resource of
adventurers, rowdies, insolvent gamblers, and disappointed lovers. We congratulate that growing state,
that the tide of this peculiar emigration is now
diverted to California.




NOTES.                     223
PAGE  39.
e" Sometimes she didn't get any thing to eat for a fortnight."
The power of certain persons to endure abstinence
from food for a long period has been recorded by
many authors.  Pliny, the naturalist, says a man
may live seven or eleven days without food or drink.
Democritus subsisted forty days by only smelling of
food.  Ann Moore, the celebrated fasting woman in
Staffordshire, lived twenty months, if we may believe
her, without food or drink; but there is supposed to
have been some spiritual assistance, or table tipping,
in her case. People are said to have subsisted a
long time on their own tears and sighs, and this may
have been the case with Erminia and Blouzelinda.
PA GE 5 2.
"No one on every side is blest."
nihil est ab omni
Parte beatum.
HonAcE, Od. II. 16.




224                  NOTES.
PAGE 54.
"For in the air they did declare
Was a dreadful, awful drumming."
The old ballad of The Windham Frogs commemorates an event in the history of that town, which,
but for the conservative virtues of song, might ere this
time have gone into oblivion. The historic narrative
sets forth that in a certain season of unusual drought,
a large pond inhabited by the ranine species became
nearly dry.  The frogs, taking alarm  at the signs
of the times, and fearing the sinister influence of
the dogstar, having, it is presumed, consulted the
oracles, and taken up their penates, commenced a
general exodus, or rather stampede, across a ridge
of land which separated them from a neighboring
and deeper pool. Secrecy, and the natural dislike
entertained by frogs for a dry throat, induced them
to undertake  their journey about midnight.  On
their march it became very difficult to keep within
the ranks the younger members, who are not only




NOTES.                   225
found to be impatient of thirst, but of an impetuous and discursive  temper when out of water.
Hence, the general croak, consisting, we presume,
of words of command, signs and countersigns, and
the calling in of stragglers, produced such a tremendous noise that the frightened inhabitants believed, says the legend, that the day of judgment
had arrived.
PAGE 55
"Thy ztnimpeded, natural song
Was brekekex, hoax."
According to Aristophanes, when the god Bacchus was ferried by Charon across Lake Acherusia,
he was greeted on his way by an obstreperous chorus
of frogs, the burden of whose song was, Brekekekex,
koax, koax. The anger as well as the rivalship of
the god appear to have been provoked, and a musical concert ensued, in which  the navigator was
drowned, at least as to his voice, by the overwhelm15




226                   NOTES.
ing concord of his adversaries.  He appears to have
been glad to escape from the boat with the payment
of double fare to the ferryman.  Our Hellenists have
found some difficulty in arriving at a satisfactory
translation of the classical brekekekex koax. Nevertheless the phrase is reported to have been faithfully
done into English, and set to music for a march, by
the migrating frogs of WVindham.
PAGE 57.
"' Tis said they sometimes turn thee out,
Alive, awake, and kicking."
The popular belief that frogs, and especially toads,
are occasionally found embedded in the wood of old
trees, in strata of clay, and even in solid rock, is
attested by numerous scientific records of former
times, and by many paragraphs of respectable newspapers in modern days.  We are of opinion that
the curious observers of nature might even now furnish many interesting items of this sort, to swell




NOTES.                    227
and enliven the jejlne column of a daily telegraphic
despatch. The monotonous character of a life of a
few  thousand years, spent in  limited quarters, is
well depicted in "The Toad's Journal," by Jane
Taylor, published in the "Contributions of Q. Q."
Notwithstanding various efforts at amusement and
occupation put in practice by this reptile, and notwithstanding  his delightful reminiscences, reveries,
and century-lasting dreams, he seems at last to have
fallen a victim to ennui —the besetting curse of unoccupied mortals. It appears, he
"Grew pensive, discovered that life is a load,
Began to be weary of being a toad."
What would not geologists give if they could
confirm or disprove their conjectural histories by the
ocular observations and direct testimony of a contemporaneous toad?




228                     N o TE S.
PAGE 58.
" The Jew Apella may believe."
" Credat Judaeus Apella,
Non ego."
HiORACE,
PAGE 65.
6' Who would wear a livery, pray?
Who a second fiddle play?
Who be second best alway,
But self-despised New York?"
It is expected that the foregoing  lines will be
set to the tune of "Scots wha ha," and sung on
public occasions as a civic anthem by the free and
enlightened citizens of the great commercial metropolis.
PAGE  70.
" Enmporium shall that title be."
Among the Greeks Emporos signified a merchant, Emporia  merchandise, and Emporion (called




N o T E S.                 229
in Latin and English Emporium) was a mart, a place
of trade, a great commercial centre, a resort and
residence of mercantile men.  There were several
ancient cities of this name in Italy, Sicily, Macedonia, and elsewhere. Strange to tell, in the United
States, the most name-demanding country in the
world, there is not a respectable post-office bearing
this appellation.  We venture to predict, as the result
of the suggestions in the present volume, that a dozen
towns bearing the name will spring up in the next
dozen years, provided the mistaken Gothamites should
prove so blind to their own interests as to turn a
deaf ear to our solemn and oracular warnings.
PAGE 79.
" Thy tongue, if thou hadst one,
Creation has drowned."
The fact that Chaos had a voice rests chiefly on
the authority of the poets: —




230                    N  TES.
"Nine days they fell — confounded Chaos roared."
MILTON.
"All heaven resounded, and the astonished deep
Of Chaos bellowed with the monstrous roar."
MAURICE.
PAGE 89.
"Or the Romans made deserts, and nicknamed it'peace.'"
" Solitudinem  faciunt, pacem  appellant," was the
complaint of some of the conquered nations who
were made to partake the peaceful results of contact
with the Roman legions.
PAGE 99.
" King Richard the Third, take your place on the stand."
In Horace Walpole's "Historic Doubts on the
Life and Reign of King Richard III.," an elaborate
vindication of the character of that monarch is
summed up in the following manner: —
"I have  thus  gone through  the several accu



NOTES.                    231
sations against Richard, and have shown that they
rest on the slightest and most suspicious ground, if
they rest on any at all. I have proved that they
ought to be reduced to the sole authorities of Sir
Thomas More and Henry the Seventh; the latter
interested to blacken and misrepresent every action
of Richard, and, perhaps, driven to father on him
even his own crimes. I have proved that More's
account cannot be true.  I have shown that the
writers contemporary with Richard either do not accuse him, or give their accusations as mere vague
and uncertain reports; and what is as strong, the
writers next in date, and who wrote earliest after
the events are said to have happened, assert little
or nothing from their own information, but adopt
the very words of Sir Thomas More, who was absolutely mistaken or misinformed."
Since the investigations of WValpole, some further
vindications of the character of Richard have been
brought forward by Turner, Halstead, and others.




232                  NOTES.
PAGE 100.
"A mysterious man, with a thick iron mask?"
The name of the Iron Mask (Masque de Fer) has
served rto designate a man who died a century and
a half ago, and in regard to whom much curiosity
has prevailed, in consequence of deep mystery attending his name, birth, and condition. According to
Voltaire and others, who have interested themselves
in researches relating to him, an unknown prisoner
was brought, in 1662, to the Chateau de Pignerol,
of which Saint Mars was at that time governor. He
is represented as of tall stature, noble mien, and
graceful deportment.  He wore constantly a thick
mask of velvet, reported to be of iron, and his
attendants had orders to kill him instantly, if he
should make the slightest attempt to discover himself. Four years afterwards he was removed, with
great caution, to the Island of Sainte Marguerite.
Here he was visited by the Marquis de Louvois, who
addressed him standing, and always with the greatest




N o TES.                  233
respect. He is said to have been served at table by
the governor himself, who, after placing the dishes,
retired and locked the door. There are stories of
his having written some account of himself on a
silver plate, and also on a linen shirt, which he threw
into the water beneath his window. The last was
picked up by a priest, who, as a check to curiosity,
was soon after found dead in his bed. The plate
was found by a fisherman, and carried to the governor, who, after imprisoning him for some days, let
him off, on being satisfied that he was unable to
read.
In 1698 the prisoner was removed to the Bastile,
where he died in 1703.  He was never permitted
to walk in the courts of that fortress, nor to lay
aside his mask for a moment, even when visited by
a physician. He was, however, lodged in handsome
apartments, with rich furniture, and was always
treated with the respect due to a personage of exalted rank. After his death the walls of his apartment were scraped and whitewashed, and the cushions




234                 NOTES.
ripped open, to guard against any possible communication or inscription capable of throwing light on
the history of the unknown occupant.
It is needless to say that many conjectures have
been made as to the name and character of the mysterious prisoner, no one of which is satisfactory.
Some have supposed him to be the Count de Vermandois, a son of Louis XIV. Others believe him
the Duke of Beaufort, previously reported to have
been killed at the siege of Candia.  He is also
represented as no other than the unfortunate James,
Duke of Monmouth, the same who was, in reality,
executed on Tower Hill; also as a son of Anne of
Austria, queen of Louis XIII. Finally, some have
thought him a twin brother of Louis XIV., concealed, as has been stated, to prevent the dangerous
rivalry which might attend a discovery of his person.
Madame Campan appears to think that the importance of this personage and of the whole affair
has been much exaggerated.




NOTES.                    235
PAGE  102.
"The accurst Torquemada is called to appear."
Thomas de Torquemada, the grand inquisitor,
was confessor to Queen Isabella of Castile, who seems
to have been indebted to his counsels for the introduction of the  Inquisition, the  expulsion of the
Jews from Spain, and other pious acts, which have
given her in all history the well-merited title of
"the Catholic."  The illustrious reign of Ferdinand
and Isabella was certainly a harvest time for the
Holy Office. In the sixteen years of Torquemada's
administration the number of heretics, Jews, &c.,
actually burned at the stake, has been variously estimated at from eight thousand eight hundred to
more than ten thousand, besides a vast number
consigned to prison for life, or punished by confiscation  of their property.  His rage  for burning
extended to the execution of many thousand effigies, many exhumed corpses, and included also an




236                     NOTES.
auto da fe of six thousand valuable books at Saragossa.
PAGE  112.
" Had Louis but kept to his favorite trade."
The unfortunate Louis XVI. is represented, by
some contemporaneous writers, as possessing considerable mechanical ingenuity. He often occupied
himself, in his royal atelier, with artificer's tools,
as a means of recreation. Some works discovering
ingenuity, such as locks and keys, and a pair of
globes, are recorded among the results of his manufacturing skill.
PAGE  1 18.
" And Witherington like, shout and f3ight upon stamps."
" For Witherington I needs must wail
As one in doleful dumps,
For when both legs were smitten off
He fought upon his stumps."
Chevy Chase.




N OTES.                       237
PAGE 132.
9" Pope has said that great Queen Anna
Counsel took, and then took tea."
"Here thou, great Anna, whom three realms obey,
Dost sometimes counsel take, and sometimes tea."
POPE, Rape of the Lock.
PAGE 144.
"Each man, as Sallust somewhere says,
Is blacksmith to his fate."
"Fabrum esse quenquam fortunae sum."
SALLUST, AD CIES.
PAGE 145.
" Renowned old Vulcan swung the sledge,
And so did General Greene."
It is well known that Vulcan carried on the
business of a smith, and employed a large force of
Cyclop journeymen at his establishment under Mount
2Etna.   By an advantageous contract writh  Jupiter




238                  NOTES.
he enjoyed for -many years the monopoly of manufacturing thunderbolts for the use of the sire of the
gods.  He labored in person at the anvil, and his
general sooty appearance and shabby apparel are
said to have rendered him somewhat de'gou'tant to
his wife Venus, whose more refined and inconstant
taste gave her a partiality for the military costume
of Mars.
Major General Nathaniel Greene, the second hero
of the American revolution, was the son of an anchor
smith, and  labored, while  young, at his father's
forge.  "It is a fact that he has been known to
grind off the callosity of his hands, to render them
more pliant when small work was to be done; and
such were his efforts at the heavy work of the forge,
as to produce a lameness, which attended him
through life."
JOHNSON'S Life of Maj. Gen. Greene, vol. i. p. 13.
PAGE 146.,, Bucephalus wore them on his hoof,
Redgauntlet on his face."




N O TE S.                  239
Whether horseshoes were first worn by Bucephalus in the Macedonian campaigns, or by some of
his successors of the same name, history does not
state. Beekmann says the Romans shod their horses
with iron, and we learn from some of their writers
that Nero caused his mules to be shod with silver,
and those of his empress with gold. In the fifth
century horseshoes fastened to the hoofs with nails
were used, under the name of "selinaia," from  their
" crescentic form."
As to Redgauntlet, Scott says of him, "Ye maun
ken, he had a way of bending his brows, that men
saw the visible mark of a horseshoe in his forehead,
deep-tinted, as if it had been stamped there."
PAGE 146.
"' The sailor, in his desperate hour,
Shall hold his horseshoe fast."
It is a common belief among sailors that a horseshoe, nailed to the mast, is effectual in keeping off




240                    NOTE S.
witches.  The fact is now  so well established that
no annoyance from the weird sisterhood has ever
been known to take place where the precaution has
been properly attended to.
PAGE  198.
" Ohio stretches north and south its corn-producing earth."
The eminently fertile State of Ohio, with those
west of it, in the same latitudes, may well deserve
the epithet of which Homer made a more extensive
application -  ~SSeha o; o  govca -  corn-giving earth.
PAGE  204.
"'Tis rash to beard the genus irritabile."' "Multa fero ut placem genus irritabile vatum."
HORACE, Epist. II. 2.