An', walkin' home'ards, jest to pass the time, JONATHAN TO JOHN. Ir don't seem hardly right, John, Ole Uncle S. sez he, “I guess Thet 's fit for you an' me!" Blood ain't so cool as ink, John: Instid o' you an' me!" Ef I turned mad dogs loose, John, To wait an' sue their heirs? Ole Uncle S. sez he, "I guess, "Thet, ef Vattel on his toes fell, Who made the law thet hurts, John, "J. B." was on his shirts, John, Onless my memory fails. Ole Uncle S. sez he, "I guess, (I'm good at thet,)" sez he, "Thet sauce for goose ain't jest the juice For ganders with J. B., No more than you or me!" When your rights was our wrongs, John, You did n't stop for fuss,Britanny's trident-prongs, John, Was good 'nough law for us. We Ole Uncle S. sez he, "I guess, Put up by you an' me!" Own the ocean, tu, John: Ef we can't think with you, John, Why talk so dreffle big, John, Ole Uncle S. sez he, "I guess, We give the critters back, John, Ole Uncle S. sez he, "I guess "To hoe jest now; but thet, somehow, Ez wal ez you an' me!" We ain't so weak an' poor, John, The surest plan to make a Man Ez much ez you or me!" Our folks believe in Law, John; The anvil an' the plough. Ole Uncle S. sez he, "I guess, "There'd be one shindy from here to Indy; (When 't ain't 'twixt you an' me !) ” We know we've gut a cause, John, Thet 's honest, just, an' true; Ef nowheres else, from you. Ole Uncle S. sez he, "I guess His love of right," sez he, .: Hangs by a rotten fibre o' cotton : Ez wal ez you an' me!" he South says, "Poor folks down!" John, An' "All men up!" say we, White, yaller, black, an' brown, John: Now which is your idee? Ole Uncle S. sez he, "I guess, John preaches wal," sez he; But, sermon thru, an' come to du, A crowdin' you an' me!" Shall it be love, or hate, John? It's you thet 's to decide; Ain't your bonds held by Fate, John, Ole Uncle S. sez he, "I guess, "But not forget; an' some time yet God means to make this land, John, Ole Uncle S. sez he, "I guess, "But nothin' else than wut He sells Wears long, an' thet J. B. May learn like you an' me!" BIRDOFREDUM SAWIN, ESQ., TO MR. HOSEA BIGLOW. With the following Letter from the REVEREND HOMER TO THE EDITORS OF THE "ATLANTIC MONTHLY." JAALAM, 7th Feb., 1862. RESPECTED FRIENDS,-If I know myself, and surely a man can hardly be supposed to have overpassed the limit of fourscore years without attaining to some proficiency in that most useful branch of learning (e cœlo descendit, says the pagan poet), I have no great smack of that weakness which would press upon the publick attention any matter pertaining to my private affairs. But since the following letter of Mr. Sawin contains not only a direct allusion to myself, but that in connection with a topick of interest to all those engaged in the publick ministrations of the sanctuary, I may be pardoned for touching briefly thereupon. Mr. Sawin was never a stated attendant upon my preaching-never, as I believe, even an occasional one, since the erection of the new house (where we now worship) in 1845. He did, indeed, for a time, supply a not unacceptable bass in the choir; but, whether on some umbrage (omnibus hoc vitium est cantoribus) taken against the bass-viol, then, and till his decease in 1850 (at. 77), under the charge of Mr. Asaph Perley, or, as was reported by others, on account of an imminent subscription for a new bell, he thenceforth absented himself from all outward and visible communion. Yet he seems to have preserved (alla mente repostum), as it were, in the pickle of a mind soured by prejudice, a lasting scunner, as he would call it, against our staid and decent form of worship; for I would rather in that wise interpret his fling, than suppose that any chance tares sown by my pulp it discourses should survive so long, while good seed too often fails to root itself. I humbly trust that I have no personal feeling in the matter; though I know, that, if we sound any man deep enough, our lead shall bring up the mud of human nature at last. The Bretons believe in an evil spirit which they call ar c'houskezik, whose office it is to make the congregation drowsy; and though I have never had reason to think that he was specially busy among my flock, yet have I seen enough to make me sometimes regret the hinged seats of the ancient meeting-house, whose lively clatter, not unwillingly intensified by boys beyond eyeshot of the tithing-man, served at intervals as a wholesome réveil. It is true, I have numbered among my parishioners some whose gift of somnolence rivalled that of the Creton Rip van Winkle, Epimenides, and who, nevertheless, complained not so much of the substance as of the length of my (by them unheard) discourses. Happy Saint Anthony of Padua, whose finny acolytes, however they might profit, could never murmur! Quare fremuerunt gentes? Who is he that can twice a week be inspired, or has eloquence (ut ita dicam) always on tap? A good man, and, next to David, a sacred poet (himself, haply, not inexpert of evil in this particular), has said "The worst speak something good: if all want sense, There are one or two other points in Mr. Sawin's letter which I would also briefly animadvert upon. And first concerning the claim he sets up to a certain superiority of blood and lineage in the people of our Southern States, now unhappily in rebellion against lawful authority and their own better interests. There is a sort of opinions, anachronisms and anachorisms, foreign both to the age and the country, that maintain a feeble and buzzing existence, scarce to be called life, like winter flies, which in mild weather crawl out from obscure nooks and crannies to expatiate in the sun, and sometimes acquire vigour enough to disturb with their enforced familiarity the studious hours of the scholar. One of the most stupid and pertinacious of these is the theory that the Southern States were settled by a class of emigrants from the Old World socially superior to those who founded the institutions of New England. The Virginians especially lay claim to this generosity of lineage, which were of no possible account, were it not for the fact that such superstitions are sometimes not without their effect on the course of human affairs. The early adventurers to Massachusetts at least paid their passages; no felons were ever shipped thither; and though it be true that many deboshed younger brothers of what are called good families may have sought refuge in Virginia' it is equally certain that a great part of the early deportations thither were the sweepings of the London streets and the leavings of the London stews. On what the heralds call the spindle side, some, at least, of the oldest Virginian families are descended from matrons who were exported and sold |