To turn now to other matters, there are enemy Hunger, longanimous, good at two things upon which it would seem fitting patching, not so careful for what is best to dilate somewhat more largely in this as for what will do, with a clasp to his place, the Yankee character and the Yan- purse and a button to his pocket, not kee dialect. And, first, of the Yankee char-skilled to build against Time, as in old acter, which has wanted neither open ma- countries, but against sore-pressing Need, ligners, nor even more dangerous enemies accustomed to move the world with no in the persons of those unskilful painters roû σT but his own two feet, and no lever who have given to it that hardness, angu- but his own long forecast. A strange larity, and want of proper perspective, hybrid, indeed, did circumstance beget, which, in truth, belonged, not to their here in the New World, upon the old subject, but to their own niggard and un- Puritan stock, and the earth never before skilful pencil. saw such mystic-practicalism, such nigsuch cast-iron-enthusiasm, such sour-facedhumor, such close-fisted-generosity. This new Græculus esuriens will make a living out of anything. He will invent new trades as well as tools. His brain is his capital, and he will get education at all risks. Put him on Juan Fernandez, and he would make a spelling-book first, and a salt-pan afterward. In cœlum, jusseris ibit,' -or the other way either, it is all one, so anything is to be got by it. Yet, after all, thin, speculative Jonathan is more like the Englishman of two centuries ago than John Bull himself is. He has lost somewhat in solidity, has become fluent and adaptable, but more of the original groundwork of character remains. He feels more at home with Fulke Greville, Herbert of Cherbury, Quarles, George Herbert, and Browne, than with his modern English cousins. He is nearer than John, by at least a hundred years, to Naseby, Marston Moor, Worcester, and the time when, if ever, there were true Englishmen. John Bull has suffered the idea of the Invisible to be very much fattened out of him. Jonathan is conscious still that he lives in the world of the Unseen as well as of the Seen. To move John you must make your fulcrum of solid beef and pudding; an abstract idea will do for Jonathan. New England was not so much the col-gard-geniality, such calculating-fanaticism, ony of a mother country, as a Hagar driven forth into the wilderness. The little selfexiled band which came hither in 1620 came, not to seek gold, but to found a democracy. They came that they might have the privilege to work and pray, to sit upon hard benches and listen to painful preachers as long as they would, yea, even unto thirty-seventhly, if the spirit so willed it. And surely, if the Greek might boast his Thermopyla, where three hundred men fell in resisting the Persian, we may well be proud of our Plymouth Rock, where a handful of men, women, and children not merely faced, but vanquished, winter, famine, the wilderness, and the yet more invincible storge that drew them back to the green island far away. These found no lotus growing upon the surly shore, the taste of which could make them forget their little native Ithaca; nor were they so wanting to themselves in faith as to burn their ship, but could see the fair west-wind belly the homeward sail, and then turn unrepining to grapple with the terrible Unknown. As Want was the prime foe these hardy exodists had to fortress themselves against, so it is little wonder if that traditional feud is long in wearing out of the stock. The wounds of the old warfare were long a-healing, and an east-wind of hard times puts a new ache into every one of them. Thrift was the first lesson in their hornbook, pointed out, letter after letter, by the lean finger of the hard schoolmistress, Necessity. Neither were those plump, rosygilled Englishmen that came hither, but a hard-faced, atrabilious, earnest-eyed race, stiff from long wrestling with the Lord in prayer, and who had taught Satan to dread the new Puritan hug. Add two undred years' influence of soil, climate, and exposure, with its necessary result of idiosyncrasies, and we have the present Yankee, full of expedients, half-master of all trades, inventive in all but the beautiful, full of shifts, not yet capable of comfort, armed at all points against the old TO THE INDULGENT READER. My friend, the Rev. Mr. Wilbur, having been seized with a dangerous fit of illness, before this Introduction had passed through the press, and being incapacitated for all literary exertion, sent to me his notes, memoranda, &c., and requested me to fashion them into some shape more fitting for the general eye. This, owing to the fragmentary and disjointed state of his manuscripts, I have felt wholly unable to do; yet, being unwilling that the reader should be deprived of such parts of his lucubrations as seemed more finished, and not well discerning concluded to send them all to the press prehow to segregate these from the rest, I have cisely as they are. COLUMBUS NYE, Pastor of a Church in Bungtown Corner. A few further explanatory remarks will not be impertinent. I shall barely lay down a few general rules for the reader's guidance. 1. The genuine Yankee never gives the rough sound to the r when he can help it, and often displays considerable ingenuity | in avoiding it even before a vowel. 3. The h in such words as while, when, where, he omits altogether. It remains to speak of the Yankee dialect. And, first, it may be premised, in a general way, that any one much read in the writings of the early colonists need not be told that the far greater share of the words and phrases now esteemed peculiar to New England, and local there, were brought from the mother country. A person familiar with the dialect of cer- 2. He seldom sounds the final g, a piece tain portions of Massachusetts will not of self-denial, if we consider his partiality fail to recognize, in ordinary discourse, for nasals. The same of the final d, as many words now noted in English vocabu-han' and stan' for hand and stand. laries as archaic, the greater part of which were in common use about the time of the King James translation of the Bible. Shakespeare stands less in need of a glossary to most New-Englanders than to many a native of the Old Country. The peculiarities of our speech, however, are rapidly wearing out. As there is no country where reading is so universal and newspapers are so multitudinous, so no phrase remains long local, but is transplanted in the mail-bags to every remotest corner of the land. Consequently our dialect approaches nearer to uniformity than that of any other nation. It The English have complained of us for coining new words. Many of those so stigmatized were old ones by them forgotten, and all make now an unquestioned part of the currency, wherever English is spoken. Undoubtedly, we have a right to make new words, as they are needed by the fresh aspects under which life presents itself here in the New World; and, indeed, wherever a language is alive, it grows. might be questioned whether we could not establish a stronger title to the ownership of the English tongue than the motherislanders themselves. Here, past all question, is to be its great home and centre. And not only is it already spoken here by greater numbers, but with a far higher popular average of correctness than in Britain. The great writers of it, too, we might claim as ours, were ownership to be settled by the number of readers and lovers. As regards the provincialisms to be met with in this volume, I may say that the reader will not find one which is not (as I believe) either native or imported with the early settlers, nor one which I have not, with my own ears, heard in familiar use. In the metrical portion of the book, I have endeavored to adapt the spelling as nearly as possible to the ordinary mode of pronunciation. Let the reader who deems me over-particular remember this caution of Martial: 4. In regard to a, he shows some inconsistency, sometimes giving a close and obscure sound, as hev for have, hendy for handy, ez for as, thet for that, and again giving it the broad sound it has in father, as hansome for handsome. 5. To the sound ou he prefixes an e (hard to exemplify otherwise than orally). The following passage in Shakespeare he would recite thus : "Neow is the winta uv eour discontent Med glorious summa by this sun o' Yock, In the deep buzzum o' the oshin buried; [Mr. Wilbur's notes here become entirely fragmentary.-C. N.] a. Unable to procure a likeness of Mr. Biglow, I thought the curious reader might be gratified with a sight of the editorial effigies. And here a choice between two was offered, the one a profile (entirely black) cut by Doyle, the other a portrait painted by a native artist of much promise. The first of these seemed wanting in expression, and in the second a slight obliquity of the visual organs has been heightened (perhaps from an over-desire of force on the part of the artist) into too close an approach to actual strabismus. This slight divergence in my optical apparatus from the ordinary model- however I may have been taught to regard it in the light of a mercy rather than a cross, since it enabled me to give as much of directness and perBonal application to my discourses as met the wants of my congregation, without risk of offending any by being supposed to have him or her in my eye (as the saying is)-seemed yet to Mrs. Wilbur a sufficient objection to the engraving of the aforesaid painting. We read of many who either absolutely refused to allow the copying of their features, as especially did Plotinus and Agesilaus among the ancients, not to mention the more modern instances of Scioppius, Palæottus, Pinellus, Velserus, Gataker, and others, or were indifferent thereto, as Cromwell. B. Yet was Cæsar desirous of concealing his baldness. Per contra, my Lord Protector's carefulness in the matter of his wart might be cited. Men generally more desirous of being improved in their portraits than characters. Shall probably find very unflattered likenesses of ourselves in Recording Angel's gallery. Y. Whether any of our national peculiarities may be traced to our use of stoves, as a certain closeness of the lips in pronunciation, and a smothered smoulderingness of disposition seldom roused to open flame? An unrestrained intercourse with fire probably conducive to generosity and hospitality of soul. Ancient Mexicans used stoves, as the friar Augustin Ruiz reports, Hakluyt, III. 468, but Popish priests not always reliable authority. To-day picked my Isabella grapes. Crop injured by attacks of rose-bug in the spring. Whether Noah was justifiable in preserving this class of insects? 8. Concerning Mr. Biglow's pedigree. Tolerably certain that there was never a poet among his ancestors. An ordination hymn attributed to a maternal uncle, but perhaps a sort of production not demanding the creative faculty. His grandfather a painter of the grandiose or Michael Angelo school. Seldom painted objects smaller than houses or barns, and these with uncommon expression. e. Of the Wilburs no complete pedigree. The crest said to be a wild boar, whence, perhaps, the name. (?) A connection with the Earls of Wilbraham (quasi wild boar ham) might be made out. This suggestion worth following up. In 1677, John W. m. Expect had issue, 1. John, 2. Haggai, 3. Expect, 4. Ruhamah, 5. Desire. "Hear lyes ye bodye of Mrs Expect Wilber, Ye stream of Jordan sh' as crost ore From Gravestone in Pekussett, North Parish. This is unquestionably the same John who afterward (1711) married Tabitha Hagg or Ragg. But if this were the case, she seems to have died early; for only three years after, namely, 1714, we have evidence that he married Winifred, daughter of Lieutenant Tipping. He seems to have been a man of substance, for we find him in 1696 conveying one undivided eightieth part of a saltmeadow" in Yabbok, and he commanded a sloop in 1702. Those who doubt the importance of genealogical studies fuste potius quum argumento erudiendi. I trace him as far as 1723, and there lose him. In that year he was chosen selectman. No gravestone. Perhaps overthrown when new hearse-house was built, 1802. He was probably the son of John, who came from Bilham Comit. Salop. circa 1642. This first John was a man of considerable importance, being twice mentioned with the honorable prefix of Mr. in the town records. Name spelt with two l-s. "Hear lyeth ye bod [stone unhappily broken.] Mr. Ihon Willber [Esq.] [I inclose this in brackets as doubtful. To me it seems clear.] Ob't die [illegible; looks like xviii.] . . iii [prob. 1693.] paynt deseased seinte : A friend and [fath]er untoe all ye opreast, Hee gave ye wicked familists noe reast, When Sat [an bl]ewe his Antinomian blaste, Wee clong to [Willber as a steadfjast maste. [A] gaynst ye horrid Qua[kers] . . It is greatly to be lamented that this curious epitaph is mutilated. It is said that the sacrilegious British soldiers made a target of this stone during the war of Independence. How odious an animosity which pauses not at the grave! How brutal that which spares not the monuments of authentic history! This is not improbe bly from the pen of Rev. Moody Pyram, who is mentioned by Hubbard as having been noted for a silver vein of poetry. If his papers be still extant, copy might possibly be recovered. THE BIGLOW PAPERS. No. I. A LETTER FROM MR. EZEKIEL BIGLOW OF JAALAM TO THE HON. JOSEPH T. BUCKINGHAM, EDITOR OF THE BOSTON COURIER, INCLOSING A POEM OF HIS SON, MR. HOSEA BIGLOW. JAYLEM, june 1846. MISTER EDDYTER :- Our Hosea wuz down to Boston last week, and he see a cruetin Sarjunt a struttin round as popler as a hen with 1 chicking, with 2 fellers a drummin and fifin arter him like all nater. the sarjunt he thout Hosea hed n't gut his i teeth cut cos he looked a kindo's though he'd jest com down, so he cal'lated to hook him in, but Hosy wood n't take none o' his sarse for all he hed much as 20 Rooster's tales stuck onto his hat and eenamost enuf brass a bobbin up and down on his shoulders and figureed onto his coat and trousis, let alone wut nater hed sot in his featers, to make a 6 pounder out on. wal, Hosea he com home considerabal riled, and arter I'd gone to bed I heern Him a thrashin round like a short-tailed Bull in fli-time. The old Woman ses she to me ses she, Zekle, ses she, our Hosee 's gut the chollery or suthin anuther ses she, don't you Bee skeered, ses I, he's oney amakin pottery ses i, he's ollers on hand at that ere busynes like Da & martin, and shure enuf, cum mornin, Hosy he cum down stares full chizzle, hare on eend and cote tales flyin, and sot rite of to go reed his varses to Parson Wilbur bein he haint aney grate shows o' book larnin himself, bimeby he cum hack and sed the parson wuz dreffle tickled with 'em as i hoop you will Be, and said they wuz True grit. Hosea ses taint hardly fair to call 'em bisn now, cos the parson kind o' slicked off sum o' the last varses, but he told • Aut insanit, aut versos facit. H. W. Hosee he did n't want to put his ore in to tetch to the Rest on 'em, bein they wuz verry well As thay wuz, and then Hosy ses he sed suthin a nuther about Simplex Mundishes or sum sech feller, but I guess Hosea kind o' did n't hear him, for I never hearn o' nobody o' that name in this villadge, and I've lived here man and boy 76 year cum next tater diggin, and thair aint no wheres a kitting spryer 'n I be. If you print 'em I wish you'd jest let folks know who hosy's father is, cos my ant Keziah used to say it 's nater to be curus ses she, she aint livin though and he's a likely kind o' lad. EZEKIEL BIGLOW. THRASH away, you 'll hev to rattle Let folks see how spry you be,Guess you 'll toot till you are yeller 'Fore you git ahold o' me! Thet air flag 's a leetle rotten, Hope it aint your Sunday's best; Fact! it takes a sight o' cotton To stuff out a soger's chest: Sence we farmers hev to pay fer 't, Sposin' you should try salt hay fer 't, Ef you must wear humps like these, It would du ez slick ez grease. 'T would n't suit them Southun fellers. They 're a dreffle graspin' set, We must ollers blow the bellers Wen they want their irons het; May be it 's all right ez preachin', But my narves it kind o' grates, Wen I see the overreachin' O' them nigger-drivin' States. Them thet rule us, them slave-traders, Haint they cut a thunderin' swarth (Helped by Yankee renegaders), Thru the vartu o' the North! We begin to think it's nater To take sarse an' not be riled; Who 'd expect to see a tater All on eend at bein' biled? Ez fer war, I call it murder, - Than my Testyment fer that; "Taint your eppyletts an' feathers Feller-men like oats an' rye? Trainin' round in bobtail coats, But it's curus Christian dooty This 'ere cuttin' folks's throats. They may talk o' Freedom's airy Fer the barthrights of our race; Take sech everlastin' pains, Clear ez one an' one make two, Arter cipherin' plaguy smart, An' it makes a handy sum, tu, Any gump could larn by heart; Laborin' man an' laborin' woman Hev one glory an' one shame. Ev'y thin' thet 's done inhuman Injers all on 'em the same. "Taint by turnin' out to hack folks You 're agoin' to git your right, Nor by lookin' down on black folks Coz you 're put upon by wite; Slavery aint o nary color, "Taint the hide thet makes it wus, All it keers fer in a feller 'S jest to make him fill its pus. Want to tackle me in, du ye? I expect you 'll hev to wait; Wen cold lead puts daylight thru ye You'll begin to kal'late; S'pose the erows wun't fall to pickin' All the carkiss from your bones, Coz you helped to give a lickin' To them poor half-Spanish drones? Jest go home an' ask our Nancy Wether I'd be sech a goose Ez to jine ye,-guess you'd fancy The etarnal bung wuz loose! She wants me fer home consumption, Let alone the hay 's to mow, Ef you 're arter folks o' gumption, You 've a darned long row to hoe. - Take them editors thet 's crowin' Like a cockerel three months old, Don't ketch any on 'em goin', Though they be so blasted bold; Aint they a prime lot o' fellers? 'Fore they think on 't guess they '1 sprout (Like a peach thet 's got the yellers), With the meanness bustin' out. Wal, go 'long to help 'em stealin' Bigger pens to cram with slaves, She 's akneelin' with the rest, Wile the wracks are round her hurled, Holdin' up a beacon peerless To the oppressed of all the world! |