NOTE TO TITLE-PAGE. IT will not have escaped the attentive not only exhibit to him the diplomas eye, that I have, on the title-page, omitted which I already possess, but also to furthose honorary appendages to the editorial nish him with a prophetic vision of those name which not only add greatly to the which I may, without undue presumption, value of every book, but whet and exacer- hope for, as not beyond the reach of hubate the appetite of the reader. For not man ambition and attainment. And I am only does he surmise that an honorary the rather induced to this from the fact membership of literary and scientific so- that my name has been unaccountably cieties implies a certain amount of neces- dropped from the last triennial catalogue sary distinction on the part of the recipient of our beloved Alma Mater. Whether of such decorations, but he is willing to this is to be attributed to the difficulty of trust himself more entirely to an author Latinizing any of those honorary adjuncts who writes under the fearful responsibility (with a complete list of which I took care of involving the reputation of such bodies to furnish the proper persons nearly a as the S. Archool, Dahom, or the Acad. year beforehand), or whether it had its Lit. et Scient. Kamtschat. I cannot but origin in any more culpable motives, I think that the early editions of Shake- forbear to consider in this place, the matspeare and Milton would have met with ter being in course of painful investigamore rapid and general acceptance, but for tion. But, however this may be, I felt the barrenness of their respective title- the omission the more keenly, as I had, in pages; and I believe that, even now, a expectation of the new catalogue, enriched publisher of the works of either of those the library of the Jaalam Athenaeum with justly distinguished men would find his the old one then in my possession, by account in procuring their admission to which means it has come about that my the membership of learned bodies on the children will be deprived of a never-wearyContinent, -a proceeding no whit more ing winter-evening's amusement in looking incongruous than the reversal of the judg-out the name of their parent in that disment against Socrates, when he was already more than twenty centuries beyond the reach of antidotes, and when his memory had acquired a deserved respectability. I conceive that it was a feeling of the importance of this precaution which induced Mr. Locke to style himself "Gent." on the title page of his Essay, as who should say to his readers that they could receive his metaphysics on the honor of a gentle man. Nevertheless, finding that, without descending to a smaller size of type than would have been compatible with the dig nity of the several societies to be named, I could not compress my intended list within the limits of a single page, and thinking, moreover, that the act would carry with it an air of decorous modesty, I have chosen to take the reader aside, as it were, into my private closet, and there tinguished roll. Those harmless innocents had at least committed no- but I forbear, having intrusted my reflections and animadversions on this painful topic to the safe-keeping of my private diary, intended for posthumous publication. I state this fact here, in order that certain nameless individuals, who are, perhaps, overmuch congratulating themselves upon my silence, may know that a rod is in pickle which the vigorous hand of a justly incensed posterity will apply to their memories. The careful reader will note that, in the list which I have prepared, I have included the names of several Cisatlantic societies to which a place is not commonly assigned in processions of this nature. I have ventured to do this, not only to encourage native ambition and genius, but also because I have never been able to perceive in what way distance (unless we suppose them at the end of a lever) could increase the weight of learned bodies. As far as I have been able to extend my researches among such stuffed specimens as occasionally reach America, I have discovered no generic difference between the antipodal Fogrum Japonicum and the F. Americanum sufficiently common in our own immediate neighborhood. Yet, with a becoming deference to the popular belief that distinctions of this sort are enhanced in value by every additional mile they travel, I have intermixed the names of some tolerably distant literary and other associations with the rest. I add here, also, an advertisement, which, that it may be the more readily understood by those persons especially interested therein, I have written in that curtailed and otherwise maltreated canine Latin, to the writing and reading of which they are accustomed. OMNIB. PER TOT. ORB. TERRAR. HOMERUS WILBUR, Mr., Episc. Jaalam, S. T. D. 1850, et Yal. 1849, et Neo-Cæs. et Brun. et Gulielm. 1852, et Gul. et Mar. et Bowd. et Georgiop. et Viridimont. et Columb. Nov. Ebor. 1853, et Amherst. et Watervill. et S. Jarlath. Hib. et S. Mar. et S. Joseph. et S. And. Scot. 1854, et Nashvill. et Dart. et Dickins. et Concord. et Wash. et Columbian. et Charlest. et Jeff. et Dubl. et Oxon. et Cantab. et Cæt. 1855, P. U. N. C. H. et J. U. D. Gott. et Osnab. et Heidelb. 1860, et Acad. BORE US. Berolin. Soc., et SS. RR. Lugd. Bat. et Patav. et Lond. et Edinb. et Ins. Feejee. et Null. Terr. et Pekin. Soc. Hon. et S. H. S. et S. P. A. et A. A. S. et S. Humb. Univ. et S. Omn. Rer. Quarund. q. Aliar. Promov. Passamaquod. et H. P. C. et I. O. H. et A. A. 9. et II. K. P. et . B. K. et Peucin, et Erosoph. et Philadelph. et Frat. in Unit. et . T. et S. Archæolog. Athen. et Acad. Scient. et Lit. Panorm. et SS. R. H. Matrit. et Beeloochist. et Caffrar. et Caribb. et M. S. Reg. Paris. et S. Am. Antiserv. Soc. Hon. et P. D. Gott. et LL. D. 1852, et D. C. L. et Mus. Doc. Oxon. 1860, et M. M. S. S. et M. D. 1854, et Med. Fac. Univ. Harv. Soc. et S. pro Convers. Pollywog. Soc. Hon. et Higgl. Piggl, et LL. B. 1853, et S. pro Christianiz. Moschet. Soc. et Civit. Cleric. Jaalam et S. pro Diffus. et SS. Ante-Diluv. ubiq. Gent. Soc. Hon. General. Tenebr. Secret. Corr. INTRODUCTION. WHEN, more than three years ago, my talented young parishioner, Mr. Biglow, came to me and submitted to my animadversions the first of his poems which he intended to commit to the more hazardous trial of a city newspaper, it never so much as entered my imagination to conceive that his productions would ever be gathered into a fair volume, and ushered into the august presence of the reading public by myself. So little are we short-sighted mortals able to predict the event! I confess that there is to me a quite new satisfaction in being associated (though only as sleeping partner) in a book which can stand by itself in an independent unity on the shelves of libraries. For there is always this drawback from the pleasure of printing a sermon, that, whereas the queasy stomach of this generation will not bear a discourse long enough to make a separate volume, those religious and godlyminded children (those Samuels, if I may call them so) of the brain must at first lie buried in an undistinguished heap, and then get such resurrection as is vouchsafed to them, mummy-wrapped with a score of others in a cheap binding, with no other mark of distinction than the word "Miscellaneous" printed upon the back. Far be it from me to claim any credit for the quite unexpected popularity which I am pleased to find these bucolic strains have attained unto. If I know myself, I am measurably free from the itch of vanity; yet I may be allowed to say that I was not backward to recognize in them a certain wild, puckery, acidulous (sometimes even verging toward that point which, in our rustic phrase, is termed shut-eye) flavor, not wholly unpleasing, nor wholesome, to palates cloyed with the sugariness of tamed and cultivated fruit. It may be, also, that some touches of my own, here and there, may have led to their wider acceptance, albeit solely from my larger experience of literature and authorship. un The reader curious in such matters may re'er (if he can find them) to "A sermon preached on the Anniversary of the Dark Day," "An Artillery Election Sermon," "A I was, at first, inclined to discourage Mr. Biglow's attempts, as knowing that the desire to poetize is one of the diseases naturally incident to adolescence, which, if the fitting remedies be not at once and with a bold hand applied, may become chronic, and render one, who might else have become in due time an ornament of the social circle, a painful object even to nearest friends and relatives. But thinking, on a further experience, that there was a germ of promise in him which required only culture and the pulling up of weeds from around it, I thought it best to set before him the acknowledged examples of English composition in verse, and leave the rest to natural emulation. With this view, I accordingly lent him some volumes of Pope and Goldsmith, to the assiduous study of which he promised to devote his evenings. Not long afterward, he brought me some verses written upon that model, a specimen of which I subjoin, having changed some phrases of less elegancy, and a few rhymes objectionable to the cultivated ear. The poem consisted of childish reminiscences, and the sketches which follow will not seem destitute of truth to those whose fortunate education began in a country village. And, first, let us hang up his charcoal portrait of the schooldame. "Propped on the marsh, a dwelling now, I see The humble school-house of my A, B, C, Where well-drilled urchins, each behind his tire, Waited in ranks the wished command to fire, dunce. "There young Devotion learned to climb with ease The gnarly limbs of Scripture family-trees, And he was most commended and admired Discourse on the Late Eclipse." "Dorcas, a Funeral Sermon on the Death of Madam Submit Tidd, Relict of the late Experieace Tidd, Esq.," &c., &c. corse; The pockets, plethoric with marbles round, And, like the propliet's carpet could take in, And dripping tongue and eager ears belied How did it graduate with a courtly case more; The squire was flattered, and the pauper knew Old times acknowledged 'neath the threadbare blue! Dropped at the corner of the embowered lane, I add only one further extract, which will possess a melancholy interest to all such as have endeavored to glean the materials of revolutionary history from the lips of aged persons, who took a part in the actual making of it, and, finding the manufacture profitable, continued the supply in an adequate proportion to the demand. "Old Joe is gone, who saw hot Percy goad Beat on stove drum with one uncaptured stick, And, ere death came the lengthening tale to lop,. Himself had fired, and seen a red-coat drop; Had Joe lived long enough, that scrambling fight Had squared more nearly with his sense of right, And vanquished Percy, to complete the tale, Had hammered stone for life in Concord jail." I do not know that the foregoing exrather than Mr. Biglow's, as, indeed, he tracts ought not to be called my own maintained stoutly that my file had left nothing of his in them. I should not, perhaps, have felt entitled to take so great liberties with them, had I not more than suspected an hereditary vein of poetry in myself, a very near ancestor having written a Latin poem in the Harvard Gratulatio on the accession of George the Third. Suffice it to say, that, whether not satisfied with such limited approbation as I could conscientiously bestow, or from a sense of natural inaptitude, certain it is that my young friend could never be induced to any further essays in this kind. He affirmed that it was to him like writing in a foreign tongue, that Mr. Pope's versification was like the regular ticking of one of Willard's clocks, in which one could fancy, after long listening, a certain kind of rhythm or tune, but which yet I Past noontime they went trampin' round "I won't agree to no such bender," " Yet could I not surrender him wholly to the tutelage of the pagan (which, literally interpreted, signifies village) muse without yet a further effort for his conver- So they disputed to an' fro sion, and to this end I resolved that what-Till cunnin' Isrel sez to Joe, ever of poetic fire yet burned in myself, Le's wait till both on us git cool, "Don't le's stay here an' play the fool, aided by the assiduous bellows of correct Jest for a day or two le's hide it models, should be put in requisition. Ac-An' then toss up an' so decide it. cordingly, when my ingenious young par- Agreed!" sez Joe, an' so they did, ishioner brought to my study a copy of An' the ole goose wuz safely hid. verses which he had written touching the acquisition of territory resulting from the Mexican war, and the folly of leaving the question of slavery or freedom to the adjudication of chance, I did myself indite a short fable or apologue after the manner of Gay and Prior, to the end that he might see how easily even such subjects as he treated of were capable of a more refined style and more elegant expression. Mr. Biglow's production was as follows: THE TWO GUNNERS. A FABLE. Two fellers, Isrel named and Joe, Joe did n't want to go a mite; He felt ez though 't warnt skeercely right, But, when his doubts he went to speak on, An' then arubbin' on it in, Till Joe, less skeered o' doin' wrong Now 't wuz the hottest kind o' weather, An' made his dinner very well on 't. and form following, and I print it here, I My own humble attempt was in manner sincerely trust, out of no vainglory, but solely with the hope of doing good. LEAVING THE MATTER OPEN. BY HOMER WILBUR, A. M. Not scorning with hard sun-browned hands |