again but it is impossible that so great a convulsion in so small a community should pass over without producing some consequences. For two or three weeks after the operation, the family are usually afflicted with sore eyes, sore throats, or severe colds, occasioned by exhalations from wet floors and damp walls. 5 I know a gentleman here who is fond of accounting for everything in a philo- 10 sophical way. He considers this, what I call a custom, as a real, periodical disease, peculiar to the climate. His train of reasoning is whimsical and ingenious, but I am not at leisure to give you the 15 detail. The result was, that he found the distemper to be incurable; but after much study, he thought he had discovered a method to divert the evil he could not subdue. For this purpose, he 20 caused a small building, about twelve feet square, to be erected in his garden, and furnished with some ordinary chairs and tables, and a few prints of the cheapest sort. His hope was that when 25 the white-washing frenzy seized the females of his family, they might repair to this apartment, and scrub, and scour, and smear to their hearts' content; and so spend the violence of the disease in 30 this out-post, whilst he enjoyed himself in quiet at headquarters. But the experiment did not answer his expectation. It was impossible it should, since a principal part of the gratification con- 35 sists in the lady's having an uncontrolled right to torment her husband, at least once in every year; to turn him out of doors, and take the reins of government into her own hands. like the land of Goshen amidst the plagues of Egypt. But then he must be extremely cautious, and ever upon his guard; for should he inadvertently go abroad, and leave the key in his door, the house-maid, who is always on the watch for such an opportunity, immediately enters in triumph with buckets, brooms, and brushes-takes possession of the premises, and forthwith puts all his books and papers to rights, to his utter confusion, and sometimes serious detriment. I can give you an instance. A gentleman was sued at law, by the executors of a mechanic, on a charge found against him on the deceased's books to the amount of £30. The defendant was strongly impressed with a belief that he had discharged the debt and taken a receipt; but as the transaction was of long standing, he knew not where to find the receipt. The suit went on in course, and the time approached when judgment should be obtained against him. He then sat down seriously to examine a large bundle of old papers, which he had untied and displayed on a table for the purpose. In the midst of his search he was suddenly called away on business of importance. He forgot to lock the door of his room. The house-maid, who had been long looking for such an opportunity, immediately entered with the usual implements, and with great alacrity fell to cleaning the room and putting things to rights. One of the first objects that struck her eye was the confused situation of the papers on the table. These, 40 without delay, she huddled together like so many dirty knives and forks; but in the action, a small piece of paper fell unnoticed on the floor, which unfortunately happened to be the very receipt in question. As it had no very respectable appearance, it was soon after swept out with the common dirt of the room, and carried in a dust-pan to the yard. The tradesman had neglected to enter 50 the credit in his books. The defendant could find nothing to obviate the charge, and so judgment went against him for debt and costs. A fortnight after the whole was settled, and the money paid, one of the children found the receipt amongst the dirt in the yard. There is a much better contrivance than this of the philosopher's: which is, to cover the walls of the house with paper. This is generally done. And though it does not abolish, it at least 45 shortens the period of female dominion. This paper is decorated with various fancies, and made so ornamental that the women have admitted the fashion without perceiving the design. There is also another alleviation of the husband's distress. He generally has the sole use of a small room or closet for his books and papers, the key of which he is allowed to keep. This is 55 considered as a privileged place, even in the white-washing season, and stands There is also another custom, peculiar to the city of Philadelphia, and nearly allied with the former. I mean that of washing the pavements before the doors every Saturday evening. I at first supposed this to be a regulation of the police; but, on further inquiry, I find it is a religious rite preparatory to the Sabbath; and it is, I believe, the only religious rite in which the numerous sectaries of this large city perfectly. agree. The ceremony begins about sunset and continues till ten or eleven at night. It is very difficult for a stranger to walk the streets on those evenings. He runs a continual risk of having a bucket of dirty water dashed against his legs; but a Philadelphian born is so much accustomed to the danger that he avoids it with surprising dexterity. It is from this circumstance that a Philadelphian may be known any where by a certain skip in his gait. The streets of New York are paved with rough stones. These, indeed, are not washed, but the dirt is so thoroughly swept from between them that they stand out sharp and prominent to the great annoyance of those who are not accustomed to so rough a path. But habit reconciles everything. It is diverting enough to see a Philadelphian at New York. He walks the streets with as much painful caution as if his toes were covered with corns, or his feet lamed by the gout: whilst a New Yorker, as little approving the plain masonry of Philadelphia, shuffles along the pavement like a parrot upon a mahogany table. It must be acknowledged that the ablutions I have men, oned are attended with no small inconvenience; yet the women would not be induced by any consideration to resign their privilege. Notwithstanding this singularity, I can give you the strongest assurances that the women of America make the most faithful wives, and the most attentive mothers in the world. And I don't doubt but you will join me in opinion, that if a married man is made miserable only for one week in a whole year, he will have no great cause to complain of the matrimonial bond. This letter has run to a length I did not expect; I therefore hasten to assure you that I am, as ever, JOHN TRUMBULL (1750-1831) Of the once-famous "Hartford Wits," or "Yale School of Poets" as sometimes they have been called, Dwight, Trumbull, Barlow, and the others,-Trumbull was the most popular. and during the Revolution the most effective. In college, like Barlow and Frencau, he had had dreams of literature as a profession. With Dwight he wrote a series of Addisonian essays, and in 1771-1773, while a tutor in his alma mater, had produced a long Hudibrastic satire upon the educational methods of his day, entitled The Progress of Dulness. A little later. in 1775, catching the spirit of the times, he had continued on in Hudibrastic satire, directing his wit and bitterness now against the tory element that was stubbornly standing against the rising tide of revolution. This second satire he called M'Fingal: A Modern Epic Poem, issuing in January, 1776, what are now the first two cantos of the poem in a forty page book that became one of the most popular of American publications. This tremendous mock heroic production which Moses Coit Tyler pronounced "one of the world's masterpieces in political badinage," was like Paine's pamphlets, one of the leading forces that won American independence. It sent men laughing into the armies of Washington. Paine appealed solely to reason; Trumbull appealed to the sense of humor and was almost as effective. It was this earlier half of the poem which served as propaganda and which molded so markedly patriot thought and morale. The two concluding cantos, which bring the total of lines of the poem to over three thousand, were added after the surrender of Cornwallis, and the poem in its final form was not issued until 1782. It did not die with the times that called it forth. No less than eighteen different editions have been issued, the last as late as 1881. The latter half is the more finished and the more brilliant. From it have come most of the quotations that have wrongly been attributed to Butler, as for instance the Squire's pregnant speech just before his punishment at the liberty pole. The poem as a whole undoubtedly is one of the best specimens extant of a sustained mock heroic satire. The similes are elaborate travesties of Homer's style, but most of them are made from native materials, as, when covered with newly-melted tar, the Tory squire is said to have "glitter'd to the western ray, Like sleet-bound trees in wintry skies." Canto Four is after the Miltonic pattern: M'Fingal, after his tremendous fall, like Satan, finds himself in the lower regions of darkness surrounded by his crew, or, more correctly speaking, in a vegetable cellar mid cider barrels and ale kegs. Here in the darkness the redoubtable chief, still unconquered, like Satan on the fiery marl, "Rose solemn from the turnip-bin. Then, like Satan, he too began to harangue his host in sorry plight: "Brethren and friends, the glorious band Of loyalty in rebel land!” Only in this case, gifted with true Scotch second sight, he could see no hope. He proph esies disaster at real length and it speedily comes in the form of a Whig invasion of the cellar. Trumbull's dream of poetry as a profession faded quickly as did Freneau's and Barlow's The times were rude and far from ready for professional poets. Reluctantly he bade fare well to the muse and gave himself up to the practice of the law, which led him ever farther and farther from the dream of his youth. Connected vitally as it is with the great American struggle for liberty, his one poem undoubtedly will never be wholly forgotten. 102 |