The youth was drifting in a slim canoe Both saints began to unfold their tales at once, Most like a huge white water-lily's Both wished their tales, like simial petal, But neither of our theologians knew ones, prehensile, That they might seize his ear; fool! knave! and dunce! Whereof 't was made; whether of Flew zigzag back and forth, like heavenly metal Seldseen, or of a vast pearl split in two strokes of pencil In a child's fingers; voluble as duns, And hollowed, was a point they They jabbered like the stones on And yet he seemed so capable of Contrive to spend the longest time Had thought the circumstance no- Hashing it, stewing it, mincing it, Hailed him as umpire in their Then let it slip to be again pursu vocal prize-ring, In the wide universe from sphere They could convey damnation in a to sphere; Perhaps he was (his face had such grave beauty) An officer of Saturn's guards off duty. hem, And blow the pinch of premisepriming off Long syllogistic batteries, with a cough. Each had a theory that the hu man ear 'Produce! says Nature, have you produced? what A providential tunnel was, which A new strait-waistcoat for the hu They showed some knowledge of As other men? yet, faithless to At length, when their breath's end was come about, And both could now and then just The earth could spare most easily gasp'impostor!' Holding their heads thrust menacingly out, As staggering cocks keep up their fighting posture, The stranger smiled and said, 'Beyond a doubt you bakers 170 Of little clay gods, formed in shape and fashion Precisely in the image of their makers; Why it would almost move a saint to passion, 'Tis fortunate, my friends, that To see these blind and deaf, the hourly breakers Of God's own image in their brother men, Set themselves up to tell the how, where, when, 'Of God's existence; one's di gestion's worse — Work? Am I not at work from morn till night So makes a god of vengeance and Sounding the deeps of oracles um Whoever worships not; each keeps For conscience' sake? Is that no Where States make not that pri- Had but the other dared to call it Idle and useless as the growth of And) spread religion pure and un defiled; 220 They sowed the propagandist's wildest oats, Cutting off all, down to the smallest child, And came back, giving thanks for such fat mercies, To find their harvest gone past prayers or curses. All gone except their saint's religious hops, Some stronger ones contrived (by eating leather, common flourish ; thing or another) Which he kept up with more than Their weaker friends, and one But these, however satisfying crops The winter months of scarcity to weather; For the inner man, were not Among these was the late saint's younger brother, Who, in the spring, collecting them together, Reserve in such sad junctures, and Persuaded them that Ahmed's Till soon the whole machine of And so the tribe, with proper saintship grated, Ran slow, creaked, stopped, and, wishing him in Tophet, They gathered strength enough to stone the prophet. 240 forms, decreed That he, and, failing him, his next of kin, Forever for the people's good should spin. THE BIGLOW PAPERS FIRST SERIES NOTICES OF AN INDEPEN- | of the Press. These, I have been DENT PRESS [I HAVE observed, reader (beneor male- volent, as it may happen), that it is customary to append to the second editions of books, and to the second works of authors, short sentences commendatory of the first, under the title of Notices given to understand, are procurable at certain established rates, payment being made either in money or advertising patronage by the publisher, or by an adequate outlay of servility on the part of the author. Considering these things with myself, and also that such notices are neither in tended, nor generally believed, to convey any real opinions, being a purely ceremonial accompaniment of literature, and resembling certificates to the virtues of various morbiferal panaceas, I conceived that it would be not only more economical to prepare a sufficient number of such myself, but also more immediately subservient to the end in view to prefix them to this our primary edition rather than to await the contingency of a second, when they would seem to be of small utility. To delay attaching the bobs until the second attempt at flying the kite would indicate but a slender experience in that useful art. Neither has it escaped my notice nor failed to afford me matter of reflection, that, when a circus or a caravan is about to visit Jaalam, the initial step is to send forward large and highly ornamented bills of performance, to be hung in the bar-room and the post-office. These having been sufficiently gazed at, and beginning to lose their attractiveness except for the flies, and, truly, the boys also (in whom I find it impossible to repress, even during school-hours, certain oral and telegraphic communications concerning the expected show), upon some fine morning the band enters in a gayly painted wagon, or triumphal chariot, and with noisy advertisement, by means of brass, wood, and sheepskin, makes the circuit of our startled village streets. Then, as the exciting sounds draw nearer and nearer, do I desiderate those eyes of Aristarchus, 'whose looks were as a breeching to a boy.' Then do I perceive, with vain regret of wasted opportunities, the advantage of a pancratic or pantechnic education, since he is most reverenced by my little subjects who can throw the clean est summerset or walk most securely upon the revolving cask. The story of the Pied Piper becomes for the first time credible to me (albeit confirmed by the Hameliners dating their legal instruments from the period of his exit), as I behold how those strains, without pretence of magical potency, bewitch the pupillary legs, nor leave to the pedagogic an entire self-control. For these reasons, lest my kingly prerogative should suffer diminution, I prorogue my restless commons, whom I follow into the street, chiefly lest some mischief may chance befall them. After the manner of such a band, I send forward the following notices of domestic manufacture, to make brazen proclamation, not unconscious of the advantage which will accrue, if our little craft, cymbula sutilis, shall seem to leave port with a clipping breeze, and to carry, in nautical phrase, a bone in her mouth. Nevertheless, I have chosen, as being more equitable, to prepare some also sufficiently objurgatory, that readers of every taste may find a dish to their palate. I have modelled them upon actually existing specimens, preserved in my own cabinet of natural curiosities. One, in particular, I had copied with tolerable exactness from a notice of one of my own discourses, which, from its superior tone and appearance of vast experience, I concluded to have been written by a man at least three hundred years of age, though I recollected no existing instance of such antediluvian longevity. Nevertheless, I afterwards discovered the author to be a young gentleman preparing for the ministry under the direction of one of my brethren in a neighboring town, and whom I had once instinctively corrected in a |