"There is Hawthorne, with genius so shrinking and rare That you hardly at first see the strength that is there; So earnest, so graceful, so solid, so fleet, "T is as if a rough oak that for ages had stood, The success of her scheme gave her so much delight, "Here 's Cooper, who 's written six volumes to show He's as good as a lord: well, let's grant that he 's so; If a person prefer that description of praise, Why, a coronet 's certainly cheaper than bays; But he need take no pains to convince us he's not (As his enemies say) the American Scott. Choose any twelve men, and let C. read aloud That one of his novels of which he 's most proud, mince, He has done naught but copy it ill ever since; (As a captain besieged, when his garrison 's small, When a character 's wanted, he goes to the task "Don't suppose I would underrate Cooper's abilities, If I thought you 'd do that, I should feel very ill at ease; The men who have given to one character life And objective existence, are not very rife, You may number them all, both prose-writers and singers, Without overrunning the bounds of your fingers, Than Adams the parson or Primrose the vicar. "There is one thing in Cooper I like, too, and that is That on manners he lectures his countrymen gratis ; you 'll grant there's a good deal of truth in his And I honor the man who is willing to sink Half his present repute for the freedom to think, And, when he has thought, be his cause strong or weak, Will risk t' other half for the freedom to speak, Caring naught for what vengeance the mob has in store, Let that mob be the upper ten thousand or lower. "There are truths you Americans need to be told, And it never 'll refute them to swagger and scold; John Bull, looking o'er the Atlantic, in choler At your aptness for trade, says you worship the dollar; But to scorn such i-dollar-try 's what very few do, And John goes to that church as often as you do. No matter what John says, don't try to outcrow him, "T is enough to go quietly on and outgrow him; Like most fathers, Bull hates to see Number One Displacing himself in the mind of his son, And detests the same faults in himself he'd neglected When he sees them again in his child's glass reflected; To love one another you 're too likely by half, And tear your own pasture for naught but to show What a nice pair of horns you 're beginning to grow. "There are one or two things I should just like to hint, For you don't often get the truth told you in print; The most of you (this is what strikes all beholders) Have a mental and physical stoop in the shoulders; Though you ought to be free as the winds and the waves, You 've the gait and the manners of runaway slaves; Tho' you brag of your New World, you don't half believe in it, And as much of the Old as is possible weave in it; Who can sing at a husking or romp at a shearing, grass, Keeps glancing aside into Europe's cracked glass, waist, And makes herself wretched with transmarine taste; She loses her fresh country charm when she takes Any mirror except her own rivers and lakes. 66 You steal Englishmen's books and think Englishmen's thought, With their salt on her tail your wild eagle is caught; Your literature suits its each whisper and motion O, my friends, thank your God, if you have one, that he Plough, dig, sail, forge, build, carve, paint, make all things new, To your own New-World instincts contrive to be true, Here a gentleman present, who had in his attic. More pepper than brains, shrieked-"The man 's a fanatic, I'm a capital tailor with warm tar and feathers, |