The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell
by
James Lowell
Part 20 out of 21
itself. In so composite a language as ours they often supply a different
form to express a different shade of meaning, as in _viol_ and _fiddle_,
_thrid_ and _thread_, _smother_ and _smoulder_, where the _l_ has crept
in by a false analogy with _would_. We have given back to England the
excellent adjective _lengthy_, formed honestly like _earthy, drouthy_,
and others, thus enabling their journalists to characterize our
President's messages by a word civilly compromising between _long_ and
_tedious_, so as not to endanger the peace of the two countries by
wounding our national sensitiveness to British criticism. Let me give
two curious examples of the antiseptic property of dialects at which I
have already glanced. Dante has _dindi_ as a childish or low word for
_danari_ (money), and in Shropshire small Roman coins are still dug up
which the peasants call _dinders_. This can hardly be a chance
coincidence, but seems rather to carry the word back to the Roman
soldiery. So our farmers say _chuk, chuk_, to their pigs, and _ciacco_
is one of the Italian words for _hog_. When a countryman tells us that
he 'fell _all of a heap_,' I cannot help thinking that he unconsciously
points to an affinity between our word _tumble_, and the Latin
_tumulus_, that is older than most others. I believe that words, or even
the mere intonation of them, have an astonishing vitality and power of
propagation by the root, like the gardener's pest, quitch-grass,[31]
while the application or combination of them may be new. It is in these
last that my countrymen seem to me full of humor, invention, quickness
of wit, and that sense of subtle analogy which needs only refining to
become fancy and imagination. Prosaic as American life seems in many of
its aspects to a European, bleak and bare as it is on the side of
tradition, and utterly orphaned of the solemn inspiration of antiquity,
I cannot help thinking that the ordinary talk of unlettered men among us
is fuller of metaphor and of phrases that suggest lively images than
that of any other people I have seen. Very many such will be found in
Mr. Bartlett's book, though his short list of proverbs at the end seem
to me, with one or two exceptions, as un-American as possible. Most of
them have no character at all but coarseness, and are quite too
long-skirted for working proverbs, in which language always 'takes off
its coat to it,' as a Yankee would say. There are plenty that have a
more native and puckery flavor, seedlings from the old stock often, and
yet new varieties. One hears such not seldom among us Easterners, and
the West would yield many more. 'Mean enough to steal acorns from a
blind hog;' 'Cold as the north side of a Jenooary gravestone by
starlight;' 'Hungry as a graven image;' 'Pop'lar as a hen with one
chicken;' 'A hen's time ain't much;' 'Quicker 'n greased lightnin';'
'Ther's sech a thing ez bein' _tu_' (our Yankee paraphrase of [Greek:
maeden agan]); hence the phrase _tooin' round_, meaning a supererogatory
activity like that of flies; 'Stingy enough to skim his milk at both
eends;' 'Hot as the Devil's kitchen;' 'Handy as a pocket in a shirt;'
'He's a whole team and the dog under the wagon;' 'All deacons are good,
but there's odds in deacons' (to _deacon_ berries is to put the largest
atop); 'So thievish they hev to take in their stone walls nights;'[32]
may serve as specimens. 'I take my tea _barfoot_,' said a backwoodsman
when asked if he would have cream and sugar. (I find _barfoot_, by the
way, in the Coventry Plays.) A man speaking to me once of a very rocky
clearing said, 'Stone's got a pretty heavy mortgage on that land,' and I
overheard a guide in the woods say to his companions who were urging him
to sing, 'Wal, I _did_ sing once, but toons gut invented, an' thet spilt
my trade.' Whoever has driven over a stream by a bridge made of _slabs_
will feel the picturesque force of the epithet _slab-bridged_ applied to
a fellow of shaky character. Almost every county has some good
die-sinker in phrase, whose mintage passes into the currency of the
whole neighborhood. Such a one described the county jail (the one stone
building where all the dwellings are of wood) as 'the house whose
underpinnin' come up to the eaves,' and called hell 'the place where
they didn't rake up their fires nights.' I once asked a stage-driver if
the other side of a hill were as steep as the one we were climbing:
'Steep? chain lightnin' couldn' go down it 'thout puttin' the shoe on!'
And this brings me back to the exaggeration of which I spoke before. To
me there is something very taking in the negro 'so black that charcoal
made a chalk-mark on him,' and the wooden shingle 'painted so like
marble that it sank in water,' as if its very consciousness or its
vanity had been overpersuaded by the cunning of the painter. I heard a
man, in order to give a notion of some very cold weather, say to another
that a certain Joe, who had been taking mercury, found a lump of
quicksilver in each boot, when he went home to dinner. This power of
rapidly dramatizing a dry fact into flesh and blood and the vivid
conception of Joe as a human thermometer strike me as showing a poetic
sense that may be refined into faculty. At any rate there is humor here,
and not mere quickness of wit,--the deeper and not the shallower
quality. The _tendency_ of humor is always towards overplus of
expression, while the very essence of wit is its logical precision.
Captain Basil Hall denied that our people had any humor, deceived,
perhaps, by their gravity of manner. But this very seriousness is often
the outward sign of that humorous quality of the mind which delights in
finding an element of identity in things seemingly the most incongruous,
and then again in forcing an incongruity upon things identical. Perhaps
Captain Hall had no humor himself, and if so he would never find it. Did
he always feel the point of what was said to himself? I doubt it,
because I happen to know a chance he once had given him in vain. The
Captain was walking up and down the veranda of a country tavern in
Massachusetts while the coach changed horses. A thunder-storm was going
on, and, with that pleasant European air of indirect self-compliment in
condescending to be surprised by American merit, which we find so
conciliating, he said to a countryman lounging against the door, 'Pretty
heavy thunder you have here.' The other, who had divined at a glance his
feeling of generous concession to a new country, drawled gravely, 'Waal,
we _du_, considerin' the number of inhabitants.' This, the more I
analyze it, the more humorous does it seem. The same man was capable of
wit also, when he would. He was a cabinet-maker, and was once employed
to make some commandment-tables for the parish meeting-house. The
parson, a very old man, annoyed him by looking into his workshop every
morning, and cautioning him to be very sure to pick out 'clear mahogany
without any _knots_ in it.' At last, wearied out, he retorted one day:
'Wal, Dr. B., I guess ef I was to leave the _nots_ out o' some o' the
c'man'ments, 't'ould soot you full ez wal!'
If I had taken the pains to write down the proverbial or pithy phrases I
have heard, or if I had sooner thought of noting the Yankeeisms I met
with in my reading, I might have been able to do more justice to my
theme. But I have done all I wished in respect to pronunciation, if I
have proved that where we are vulgar, we have the countenance of very
good company. For, as to the _jus et norma loquendi_, I agree with
Horace and those who have paraphrased or commented him, from Boileau to
Gray. I think that a good rule for style is Galiani's definition of
sublime oratory,--'l'art de tout dire sans etre mis a la Bastille dans
un pays ou il est defendu de rien dire.' I profess myself a fanatical
purist, but with a hearty contempt for the speech-gilders who affect
purism without any thorough, or even pedagogic knowledge of the
engendure, growth, and affinities of the noble language about whose
_mesalliances_ they profess (like Dean Alford) to be so solicitous. If
_they_ had their way--! 'Doch es sey,' says Lessing, 'dass jene
gotbische Hoeflichkeit eine unentbehrliche Tugend des heutigen Umganges
ist. Soll sie darum unsere Schriften eben so schaal und falsch machen
als unsern Umgang?' And Drayton was not far wrong in affirming that
'Tis possible to climb,
To kindle, or to slake,
Although in Skelton's rhyme.'
Cumberland in his Memoirs tells us that when, in the midst of Admiral
Rodney's great sea-fight, Sir Charles Douglas said to him, 'Behold, Sir
George, the Greeks and Trojans contending for the body of Patroclus!'
the Admiral answered, peevishly, 'Damn the Greeks and damn the Trojans!
I have other things to think of.' After the battle was won, Rodney thus
to Sir Charles, 'Now, my dear friend, I am at the service of your Greeks
and Trojans, and the whole of Homer's Iliad, or as much of it as you
please!' I had some such feeling of the impertinence of our
pseudo-classicality when I chose our homely dialect to work in. Should
we be nothing, because somebody had contrived to be something (and that
perhaps in a provincial dialect) ages ago? and to be nothing by our very
attempt to be that something, which they had already been, and which
therefore nobody could be again without being a bore? Is there no way
left, then, I thought, of being natural, of being _naif_, which means
nothing more than native, of belonging to the age and country in which
you are born? The Yankee, at least, is a new phenomenon; let us try to
be _that_. It is perhaps a _pis aller_, but is not _No Thoroughfare_
written up everywhere else? In the literary world, things seemed to me
very much as they were in the latter half of the last century. Pope,
skimming the cream of good sense and expression wherever he could find
it, had made, not exactly poetry, but an honest, salable butter of
worldly wisdom which pleasantly lubricated some of the drier morsels of
life's daily bread, and, seeing this, scores of harmlessly insane people
went on for the next fifty years coaxing his buttermilk with the regular
up and down of the pentameter churn. And in our day do we not scent
everywhere, and even carry away in our clothes against our will, that
faint perfume of musk which Mr. Tennyson has left behind him, or worse,
of Heine's _patchouli_? And might it not be possible to escape them by
turning into one of our narrow New England lanes, shut in though it were
by bleak stone walls on either hand, and where no better flowers were to
be gathered than goldenrod and hardhack?
Beside the advantage of getting out of the beaten track, our dialect
offered others hardly inferior. As I was about to make an endeavor to
state them, I remembered something that the clear-sighted Goethe had
said about Hebel's 'Allemannische Gedichte,' which, making proper
deduction for special reference to the book under review, expresses what
I would have said far better than I could hope to do: 'Allen diesen
innern guten Eigenschaften kommt die behagliche naive Sprache sehr zu
statten. Man findet mehrere sinnlich bedeutende and wohlklingende Worte
... von einem, zwei Buchstaben, Abbreviationen, Contractionen, viele
kurze, leichte Sylben, neue Reime, welches, mehr als man glaubt, ein
Vortheil fuer den Dichter ist. Diese Elemente werden durch glueckliche
Constructionen und lebhafte Formen zu einem Styl zusammengedraengt der zu
diesem Zwecke vor unserer Buechersprache grosse Vorzuege hat.' Of course I
do not mean to imply that _I_ have come near achieving any such success
as the great critic here indicates, but I think the success is _there_,
and to be plucked by some more fortunate hand.
Nevertheless, I was encouraged by the approval of many whose opinions I
valued. With a feeling too tender and grateful to be mixed with any
vanity, I mention as one of these the late A.H. Clough, who more than
any one of those I have known (no longer living), except Hawthorne,
impressed me with the constant presence of that indefinable thing we
call genius. He often suggested that I should try my hand at some Yankee
Pastorals, which would admit of more sentiment and a higher tone without
foregoing the advantage offered by the dialect. I have never completed
anything of the kind, but, in this Second Series, both my remembrance of
his counsel and the deeper feeling called up by the great interests at
stake, led me to venture some passages nearer to what is called poetical
than could have been admitted without incongruity into the former
series. The time seemed calling to me, with the old poet,--
'Leave, then, your wonted prattle,
The oaten reed forbear;
For I hear a sound of battle,
And trumpets rend the air!'
The only attempt I had ever made at anything like a pastoral (if that
may be called an attempt which was the result almost of pure accident)
was in 'The Courtin'.' While the introduction to the First Series was
going through the press, I received word from the printer that there was
a blank page left which must be filled. I sat down at once and
improvised another fictitious 'notice of the press,' in which, because
verse would fill up space more cheaply than prose, I inserted an extract
from a supposed ballad of Mr. Biglow. I kept no copy of it, and the
printer, as directed, cut it off when the gap was filled. Presently I
began to receive letters asking for the rest of it, sometimes for the
_balance_ of it. I had none, but to answer such demands, I patched a
conclusion upon it in a later edition. Those who had only the first
continued to importune me. Afterward, being asked to write it out as an
autograph for the Baltimore Sanitary Commission Fair, I added other
verses, into some of which I fused a little more sentiment in a homely
way, and after a fashion completed it by sketching in the characters'
and making a connected story. Most likely I have spoiled it, but I shall
put it at the end of this Introduction, to answer once for all those
kindly importunings.
As I have seen extracts from what purported to be writings of Mr.
Biglow, which were not genuine, I may properly take this opportunity to
say, that the two volumes now published contain every line I ever
printed under that pseudonyme, and that I have never, so far as I can
remember, written an anonymous article (elsewhere than in the 'North
American Review' and the 'Atlantic Monthly,' during my editorship of it)
except a review of Mrs. Stowe's 'Minister's Wooing,' and, some twenty
years ago, a sketch of the antislavery movement in America for an
English journal.
A word more on pronunciation. I have endeavored to express this so far
as I could by the types, taking such pains as, I fear, may sometimes
make the reading harder than need be. At the same time, by studying
uniformity I have sometimes been obliged to sacrifice minute exactness.
The emphasis often modifies the habitual sound. For example, _for_ is
commonly _fer_ (a shorter sound than _fur_ for _far_), but when emphatic
it always becomes _for_, as 'wut _for!_' So _too_ is pronounced like
_to_ (as it was anciently spelt), and _to_ like _ta_ (the sound as in
the _tou_ of _touch_), but _too_, when emphatic, changes into _tue_, and
_to_, sometimes, in similar cases, into _toe_, as 'I didn' hardly know
wut _toe_ du!' Where vowels come together, or one precedes another
following an aspirate, the two melt together, as was common with the
older poets who formed their versification on French or Italian models.
Drayton is thoroughly Yankee when he says 'I 'xpect,' and Pope when he
says, 't' inspire.' _With_ becomes sometimes _'ith_, _'[)u]th_, or
_'th_, or even disappears wholly where it comes before _the_, as, 'I
went along _th'_ Square' (along with the Squire), the _are_ sound being
an archaism which I have noticed also in _choir_, like the old Scottish
_quhair_.[33] (Herrick has, 'Of flowers ne'er sucked by th' theeving
bee.') _Without_ becomes _athout_ and _'thout_. _Afterwards_ always
retains its locative _s_, and is pronounced always _ahterwurds'_, with a
strong accent on the last syllable. This oddity has some support in the
erratic _towards'_ instead of _to'wards_, which we find in the poets and
sometimes hear. The sound given to the first syllable of _to'wards_, I
may remark, sustains the Yankee lengthening of the _o_ in _to_. At the
beginning of a sentence, _ahterwurds_ has the accent on the first
syllable; at the end of one, on the last; as, '_ah'terwurds_ he tol'
me,' 'he tol' me _ahterwurds'_.' The Yankee never makes a mistake in his
aspirates. _U_ changes in many words to _e_, always in _such, brush,
tush, hush, rush, blush_, seldom in _much_, oftener in _trust_ and
_crust_, never in _mush, gust, bust, tumble_, or (?) _flush_, in the
latter case probably to avoid confusion with _flesh_. I have heard
_flush_ with the _e_ sound, however. For the same reason, I suspect,
never in _gush_ (at least, I never heard it), because we have already
one _gesh_ for _gash_. _A_ and _i_ short frequently become _e_ short.
_U_ always becomes _o_ in the prefix _un_ (except _unto_), and _o_ in
return changes to _u_ short in _uv_ for _of_, and in some words
beginning with _om_. _T_ and _d_, _b_ and _p_, _v_ and _w_, remain
intact. So much occurs to me in addition to what I said on this head in
the preface to the former volume.
Of course in what I have said I wish to be understood as keeping in mind
the difference between provincialisms properly so called and _slang_.
_Slang_ is always vulgar, because it is not a natural but an affected
way of talking, and all mere tricks of speech or writing are offensive.
I do not think that Mr. Biglow can be fairly charged with vulgarity, and
I should have entirely failed in my design, if I had not made it appear
that high and even refined sentiment may coexist with the shrewder and
more comic elements of the Yankee character. I believe that what is
essentially vulgar and mean-spirited in politics seldom has its source
in the body of the people, but much rather among those who are made
timid by their wealth or selfish by their love of power. A democracy can
_afford_ much better than an aristocracy to follow out its convictions,
and is perhaps better qualified to build those convictions on plain
principles of right and wrong, rather than on the shifting sands of
expediency. I had always thought 'Sam Slick' a libel on the Yankee
character, and a complete falsification of Yankee modes of speech,
though, for aught I know, it may be true in both respects so far as the
British provinces are concerned. To me the dialect was native, was
spoken all about me when a boy, at a time when an Irish day-laborer was
as rare as an American one now. Since then I have made a study of it so
far as opportunity allowed. But when I write in it, it is as in a mother
tongue, and I am carried back far beyond any studies of it to long-ago
noonings in my father's hay-fields, and to the talk of Sam and Job over
their jug of _blackstrap_ under the shadow of the ash-tree which still
dapples the grass whence they have been gone so long.
But life is short, and prefaces should be. And so, my good friends, to
whom this introductory epistle is addressed, farewell. Though some of
you have remonstrated with me, I shall never write any more 'Biglow
Papers,' however great the temptation,--great especially at the present
time,--unless it be to complete the original plan of this Series by
bringing out Mr. Sawin as an 'original Union man.' The very favor with
which they have been received is a hindrance to me, by forcing on me a
self-consciousness from which I was entirely free when I wrote the First
Series. Moreover, I am no longer the same careless youth, with nothing
to do but live to myself, my books, and my friends, that I was then. I
always hated politics, in the ordinary sense of the word, and I am not
likely to grow, fonder of them, now that I have learned how rare it is
to find a man who can keep principle clear from party and personal
prejudice, or can conceive the possibility of another's doing so. I feel
as if I could in some sort claim to be an _emeritus_, and I am sure that
political satire will have full justice done it by that genuine and
delightful humorist, the Rev. Petroleum V. Nasby. I regret that I killed
off Mr. Wilbur so soon, for he would have enabled me to bring into this
preface a number of learned quotations, which must now go a-begging, and
also enabled me to dispersonalize myself into a vicarious egotism. He
would have helped me likewise in clearing myself from a charge which I
shall briefly touch on, because my friend Mr. Hughes has found it
needful to defend me in his preface to one of the English editions of
the 'Biglow Papers.' I thank Mr. Hughes heartily for his friendly care
of my good name, and were his Preface accessible to my readers here (as
I am glad it is not, for its partiality makes me blush), I should leave
the matter where he left it. The charge is of profanity, brought in by
persons who proclaimed African slavery of Divine institution, and is
based (so far as I have heard) on two passages in the First Series--
'An' you've gut to git up airly,
Ef you want to take in God,'
and,
'God'll send the bill to you,'
and on some Scriptural illustrations by Mr. Sawin.
Now, in the first place, I was writing under an assumed character, and
must talk as the person would whose mouthpiece I made myself. Will any
one familiar with the New England countryman venture to tell me that he
does _not_ speak of sacred things familiarly? that Biblical allusions
(allusions, that is, to the single book with whose language, from his
church-going habits, he is intimate) are _not_ frequent on his lips? If
so, he cannot have pursued his studies of the character on so many
long-ago muster-fields and at so many cattle-shows as I. But I scorn any
such line of defence, and will confess at once that one of the things I
am proud of in my countrymen is (I am not speaking now of such persons
as I have assumed Mr. Sawin to be) that they do not put their Maker away
far from them, or interpret the fear of God into being afraid of Him.
The Talmudists had conceived a deep truth when they said, that 'all
things were in the power of God, save the fear of God;' and when people
stand in great dread of an invisible power, I suspect they mistake quite
another personage for the Deity. I might justify myself for the passages
criticised by many parallel ones from Scripture, but I need not. The
Reverend Homer Wilbur's note-books supply me with three apposite
quotations. The first is from a Father of the Roman Church, the second
from a Father of the Anglican, and the third from a Father of Modern
English poetry. The Puritan divines would furnish me with many more
such. St. Bernard says, _Sapiens nummularius est Deus: nummum fictum non
recipiet_; 'A cunning money-changer is God: he will take in no base
coin.' Latimer says, 'You shall perceive that God, by this example,
shaketh us by the noses and taketh us by the ears.' Familiar enough,
both of them, one would say! But I should think Mr. Biglow had verily
stolen the last of the two maligned passages from Dryden's 'Don
Sebastian,' where I find
'And beg of Heaven to charge the bill on me!'
And there I leave the matter, being willing to believe that the Saint,
the Martyr, and even the Poet, were as careful of God's honor as my
critics are ever likely to be.
II. GLOSSARY TO THE BIGLOW PAPERS
Act'lly, _actually_.
Air, _are_.
Airth, _earth_.
Airy, _area_.
Aree, _area_.
Arter, _after_.
Ax, _ask_.
Beller, _bellow_.
Bellowses, _lungs_.
Ben, _been_.
Bile, _boil_.
Bimeby, _by and by_.
Blurt out, _to speak bluntly_.
Bust, _burst_.
Buster, _a roistering blade_; used also as a general superlative.
Caird, _carried_.
Cairn, _carrying_.
Caleb, _a turncoat_.
Cal'late, _calculate_.
Cass, _a person with two lives_.
Close, _clothes_.
Cockerel, _a young cock_.
Cocktail, _a kind of drink_; also, _an ornament peculiar to
soldiers_.
Convention, _a place where people are imposed on; a juggler's show_.
Coons, _a cant term for a now defunct party_; derived, perhaps, from
the fact of their being commonly _up a tree_.
Cornwallis, _a sort of muster in masquerade_; supposed to have had
its origin soon after the Revolution, and to commemorate the surrender
of Lord Cornwallis. It took the place of the old Guy Fawkes procession.
Crooked stick, _a perverse, froward person_.
Cunnle, _a colonel_.
Cus, _a curse_; also, _a pitiful fellow_.
Darsn't, used indiscriminately, either in singular or plural number,
for _dare not, dares not_, and _dared not_.
Deacon off, _to give the cue to_; derived from a custom, once
universal, but now extinct, in our New England Congregational churches.
An important part of the office of deacon was to read aloud the hymns
_given out_ by the minister, one line at a time, the congregation
singing each line as soon as read.
Demmercrat, leadin', _one in favor of extending slavery; a free-trade
lecturer maintained in the custom-house_.
Desput, _desperate_.
D[=o]', _don't_.
Doos, _does_.
Doughface, _a contented lick-spittle_; a common variety of Northern
politician.
Dror, _draw_.
Du, _do_.
Dunno, dno, _do not_ or _does not know_.
Dut, _dirt_.
Eend, _end_.
Ef, _if_.
Emptins, _yeast_.
Env'y, _envoy_.
Everlasting, an intensive, without reference to duration.
Ev'y, _every_.
Ez, _as_.
Fence, on the; said of one who halts between two opinions; a trimmer.
Fer, _for_.
Ferfle, ferful, _fearful_; also an intensive.
Fin', _find_.
Fish-skin, used in New England to clarify coffee.
Fix, _a difficulty, a nonplus_.
Foller, folly, _to follow_.
Forrerd, _forward_.
Frum, _from_.
Fur, _for_
Furder, _farther_.
Furrer, _furrow_. Metaphorically, _to draw a straight furrow_ is to
live uprightly or decorously.
Fust, _first_.
Gin, _gave_.
Git, _get_.
Gret, _great_.
Grit, _spirit, energy, pluck_.
Grout, _to sulk_.
Grouty, _crabbed, surly_.
Gum, _to impose on_.
Gump, _a foolish fellow, a dullard_.
Gut, _got_.
Hed, _had_.
Heern, _heard_.
Hellum, _helm_.
Hendy, _handy_.
Het, _heated_.
Hev, _have_.
Hez, _has_.
Holl, _whole_.
Holt, _hold_.
Huf, _hoof_.
Hull, _whole_.
Hum, _home_.
Humbug, _General Taylor's antislavery_.
Hut, _hurt_.
Idno, _I do not know_.
In'my, _enemy_.
Insines, _ensigns_; used to designate both the officer who carries the
standard, and the standard itself.
Inter, intu, _into_.
Jedge, _judge_.
Jest, _just_.
Jine, _join_.
Jint, _joint_.
Junk, _a fragment of any solid substance_.
Keer, _care_.
Kep', _kept_.
Killock, _a small anchor_.
Kin', kin' o', kinder, _kind, kind of_.
Lawth, _loath_.
Less, _let's, let us_.
Let daylight into, _to shoot_.
Let on, _to hint, to confess, to own_.
Lick, _to beat, to overcome_.
Lights, _the bowels_.
Lily-pads, _leaves of the water-lily_.
Long-sweetening, _molasses_.
Mash, _marsh_.
Mean, _stingy, ill-natured_.
Min', _mind_.
Nimepunce, _ninepence, twelve and a half cents_.
Nowers, _nowhere_.
Offen, _often_.
Ole, _old_.
Ollers, olluz, _always_.
On, _of_; used before _it_ or _them,_ or at the end of a
sentence, as _on 't, on 'em, nut ez ever I heerd on_.
On'y, _only_.
Ossifer, _officer_ (seldom heard).
Peaked, _pointed_.
Peek, _to peep_.
Pickerel, _the pike, a fish_.
Pint, _point_.
Pocket full of rocks, _plenty of money_.
Pooty, _pretty_.
Pop'ler, _conceited, popular_.
Pus, _purse_.
Put out, _troubled, vexed_.
Quarter, _a quarter-dollar_.
Queen's-arm, _a musket_.
Resh, _rush_.
Revelee, _the reveille_.
Rile, _to trouble_.
Riled, _angry; disturbed,_ as the sediment in any liquid.
Riz, _risen_.
Row, a long row to hoe, _a difficult task_.
Rugged, _robust_.
Sarse, _abuse, impertinence_.
Sartin, _certain_.
Saxon, _sacristan, sexton_.
Scaliest, _worst_.
Scringe, _cringe_.
Scrouge, _to crowd_.
Sech, _such_.
Set by, _valued_.
Shakes, great, _of considerable consequence_.
Shappoes, _chapeaux, cocked-hats_.
Sheer, _share_.
Shet, _shut_.
Shut, _shirt_.
Skeered, _scared_.
Skeeter, _mosquito_.
Skooting, _running,_ or _moving swiftly_.
Slarterin', _slaughtering_.
Slim, _contemptible_.
Snake, _crawled like a snake_; but _to snake any one out_
is to track him to his hiding-place; _to snake a thing out_ is
to snatch it out.
Soffies, _sofas_.
Sogerin', _soldiering_; a barbarous amusement common among men
in the savage state.
Som'ers, _somewhere_.
So'st, _so as that_.
Sot, _set, obstinate, resolute_.
Spiles, _spoils; objects of political ambition_.
Spry, _active_.
Steddles, _stout stakes driven into the salt marshes_, on which the
hay-ricks are set, and thus raised out of the reach of high tides.
Streaked, _uncomfortable, discomfited_.
Suckle, _circle_.
Sutthin', _something_.
Suttin, _certain_.
Take on, _to sorrow_.
Talents, _talons_.
Taters, _potatoes_.
Tell, _till_.
Tetch, _touch_.
Tetch tu, _to be able_; used always after a negative in this sense.
Tollable, _tolerable_.
Toot, used derisively for _playing on any wind instrument_.
Thru, _through_.
Thundering, a euphemism common in New England for the profane English
expression _devilish_. Perhaps derived from the belief, common
formerly, that thunder was caused by the Prince of the Air, for some
of whose accomplishments consult Cotton Mather.
Tu, _to, too_; commonly has this sound when used emphatically,
or at the end of a sentence. At other times it has the sound of _t_
in _tough_, as _Ware ye gain' tu? Goin' ta Boston_.
Ugly, _ill-tempered, intractable_.
Uncle Sam, _United States_; the largest boaster of liberty and
owner of slaves.
Unrizzest, applied to dough or bread; _heavy, most unrisen, or most
incapable of rising_.
V-spot, _a five-dollar bill_.
Vally, _value_.
Wake snakes, _to get into trouble_.
Wal, _well_; spoken with great deliberation, and sometimes with the
_a_ very much flattened, sometimes (but more seldom) very much
broadened.
Wannut, _walnut (hickory)_.
Ware, _where_.
Ware, _were_.
Whopper, _an uncommonly large lie_; as, that General Taylor is in
favor of the Wilmot Proviso.
Wig, _Whig_; a party now dissolved.
Wunt, _will not_.
Wus, _worse_.
Wut, _what_.
Wuth, _worth_; _as, Antislavery perfessions 'fore 'lection aint
wuth a Bungtown copper_.
Wuz, _was_, sometimes _were_.
Yaller, _yellow_.
Yeller, _yellow_.
Yellers, _a disease of peach-trees_.
Zack, Ole, _a second Washington, an antislavery slaveholder; a humane
buyer and seller of men and women, a Christian hero generally_.
III. INDEX TO BIGLOW PAPERS
A.
A. wants his axe ground.
A.B., Information wanted concerning.
Abraham (Lincoln), his constitutional scruples.
Abuse, an, its usefulness.
Adam, eldest son of,
respected,
his fall,
how if he had bitten a sweet apple?
Adam, Grandfather, forged will of.
AEeneas goes to hell.
AEeolus, a seller of money, as is supposed by some.
AEeschylus, a saying of.
Alligator, a decent one conjectured to be, in some sort, humane.
Allsmash, the eternal.
Alphonso the Sixth of Portugal, tyrannical act of.
Ambrose, Saint, excellent (but rationalistic) sentiment of.
'American Citizen,' new compost so called.
American Eagle,
a source of inspiration,
hitherto wrongly classed,
long bill of.
Americans bebrothered.
Amos cited.
Anakim, that they formerly existed, shown.
Angels
providentially speak French,
conjectured to be skilled in all tongues.
Anglo-Saxondom, its idea, what.
Anglo-Saxon mask.
Anglo-Saxon race.
Anglo-Saxon verse, by whom carried to perfection.
Antiquaries, Royal Society of Northern.
Antonius,
a speech of,
by whom best reported.
Antony of Padua, Saint, happy in his hearers.
Apocalypse, beast in, magnetic to theologians.
Apollo, confessed mortal by his own oracle.
Apollyon, his tragedies popular.
Appian, an Alexandrian, not equal to Shakespeare as an orator.
Applause, popular, the _summum bonum_.
Ararat, ignorance of foreign tongues is an.
Arcadian background.
Ar c'houskezik, an evil spirit.
Ardennes, Wild Boar of, an ancestor of Rev. Mr. Wilbur.
Aristocracy, British, their natural sympathies.
Aristophanes.
Arms, profession of, once esteemed, especially that of gentlemen.
Arnold.
Ashland.
Astor, Jacob, a rich man.
Astraea, nineteenth century forsaken by.
Athenians, ancient, an institution of.
Atherton, Senator, envies the loon.
'Atlantic,' editors of. See _Neptune_.
Atropos, a lady skilful with the scissors.
Austin, Saint, prayer of.
Austrian eagle split.
Aye-aye, the, an African animal, America supposed to be settled by.
B., a Congressman, _vide_ A.
Babel,
probably the first Congress,
gabble-mill.
Baby, a low-priced one.
Bacon, his rebellion.
Bacon, Lord, quoted.
Bagowind, Hon. Mr., whether to be damned.
Balcom, Elder Joash Q., 2d, founds a Baptist society in Jaalam, A.D. 1830.
Baldwin apples.
Baratarias, real or imaginary, which most pleasant.
Barnum, a great natural curiosity recommended to.
Barrels, an inference from seeing.
Bartlett, Mr., mistaken.
Baton Rouge,
strange peculiarities of laborers at.
Baxter, R., a saying of,
Bay, Mattysqumscot.
Bay State, singular effect produced on military officers by leaving it.
Beast, in Apocalypse,
a loadstone for whom,
tenth horn of, applied to recent events.
Beaufort.
Beauregard real name Toutant.
Beaver brook.
Beelzebub, his rigadoon.
Behmen, his letters not letters.
Behn, Mrs. Aphra, quoted.
Sellers,
a saloon-keeper,
inhumanly refuses credit to a presidential candidate.
Belmont. See Woods.
Bentley, his heroic method with Milton.
Bible, not composed for use of colored persons.
Biglow, Ezekiel,
his letter to Hon. J.T. Buckingham,
never heard of any one named Mandishes,
nearly fourscore years old,
his aunt Keziah, a notable saying of.
Biglow, Hosea, Esquire,
excited by composition,
a poem by,
his opinion of war,
wanted at home by Nancy,
recommends a forcible enlistment of warlike editors,
would not wonder, if generally agreed with,
versifies letter of Mr. Sawin,
a letter from,
his opinion of Mr. Sawin,
does not deny fun at Cornwallis,
his idea of militia glory,
a pun of,
is uncertain in regard to people of Boston,
had never heard of Mr. John P. Robinson,
_aliquid sufflaminandus_,
his poems attributed to a Mr. Lowell,
is unskilled in Latin,
his poetry maligned by some,
his disinterestedness,
his deep share in commonweal,
his claim to the presidency,
his mowing,
resents being called Whig,
opposed to tariff,
obstinate,
infected with peculiar notions,
reports a speech,
emulates historians of antiquity,
his character sketched from a hostile point of view,
a request of his complied with,
appointed at a public meeting in Jaalam,
confesses ignorance, in one minute particular, of propriety,
his opinion of cocked hats,
letter to,
called 'Dear Sir,' by a general,
probably receives same compliment from two hundred and nine,
picks his apples,
his crop of Baldwins conjecturally large,
his labors in writing autographs,
visits the Judge and has a pleasant time,
born in Middlesex County,
his favorite walks,
his gifted pen,
born and bred in the country,
feels his sap start in spring,
is at times unsocial,
the school-house where he learned his a b c,
falls asleep,
his ancestor a Cromwellian colonel,
finds it harder to make up his mind as he grows older,
wishes he could write a song or two,
liable to moods,
loves nature and is loved in return,
describes some favorite haunts of his,
his slain kindred,
his speech in March meeting,
does not reckon on being sent to Congress,
has no eloquence,
his own reporter,
never abused the South,
advises Uncle Sam,
is not Boston-mad,
bids farewell.
Billings, Dea. Cephas.
_Billy, Extra, demagogus._
Birch, virtue of, in instilling certain of the dead languages.
Bird of our country sings hosanna.
Bjarna Grimolfsson invents smoking.
Blind, to go it.
Blitz pulls ribbons from his mouth.
Bluenose potatoes, smell of, eagerly desired.
Bobolink, the.
Bobtail obtains a cardinal's hat.
Boggs, a Norman name.
Bogus Four-Corners Weekly Meridian.
Bolles, Mr. Secondary,
author of prize peace essay,
presents sword to Lieutenant-Colonel,
a fluent orator,
found to be in error.
Bonaparte, N., a usurper.
Bonds, Confederate,
their specie basis cutlery,
when payable (attention, British stockholders!).
Boot-trees, productive, where.
Boston, people of,
supposed educated,
has a good opinion of itself.
Bowers, Mr. Arphaxad, an ingenious photographic artist.
Brahmins, navel-contemplating.
Brains, poor substitute for.
Bread-trees.
Bream, their only business.
Brigadier-Generals in militia, devotion of.
Brigadiers, nursing ones, tendency in, to literary composition.
_Brigitta, viridis_.
Britannia, her trident.
Brotherhood, subsides after election.
Brown, Mr., engages in an unequal contest.
Browne, Sir T., a pious and wise sentiment of, cited and commended.
Brutus Four-Corners.
Buchanan, a wise and honest man.
Buckingham, Hon. J.T., editor of the Boston Courier,
letters to,
not afraid.
Buffalo,
a plan hatched there,
plaster, a prophecy in regard to.
Buffaloes, herd of, probable influence of tracts upon.
Bull, John,
prophetic allusion to, by Horace,
his 'Run,'
his mortgage,
unfortunate dip of,
wool pulled over his eyes.
Buncombe,
in the other world supposed,
mutual privilege, in.
Bung, the eternal, thought to be loose.
Bungtown Fencibles, dinner of.
Burke, Mr., his age of chivalry surpassed.
Burleigh, Lord, quoted for something said in Latin long before.
Burns, Robert, a Scottish poet.
Bushy Brook.
Butler, Bishop.
Butter in Irish bogs.
C., General,
commended for parts,
for ubiquity,
for consistency,
for fidelity,
is in favor of war,
his curious valuation of principle.
Cabbage-heads, the, always in majority.
Cabinet, English, makes a blunder.
Caesar,
tribute to,
his veni, vidi, vici, censured for undue prolixity.
Cainites, sect of, supposed still extant.
Caleb, a monopoly of his denied,
curious notions of, as to meaning of 'shelter,'
his definition of Anglo-Saxon,
charges Mexicans (not with bayonets but) with improprieties.
Calhoun, Hon. J.C.,
his cow-bell curfew, light of the nineteenth century to be extinguished
at sound of,
cannot let go apron-string of the Past,
his unsuccessful tilt at Spirit of the Age,
the Sir Kay of modern chivalry,
his anchor made of a crooked pin,
mentioned.
_Calyboosus, carcer_.
Cambridge Platform, use discovered for.
Canaan in quarterly instalments.
Canary Islands.
Candidate,
presidential, letter from,
smells a rat,
against a bank,
takes a revolving position,
opinion of pledges,
is a periwig,
fronts south by north,
qualifications of, lessening,
wooden leg (and head) useful to.
Cape Cod clergyman,
what,
Sabbath-breakers, perhaps, reproved by.
Captains, choice of, important.
Carolina, foolish act of.
Caroline, case of.
Carpini, Father John de Piano, among the Tartars.
Cartier, Jacques, commendable zeal of.
Cass,
General,
clearness of his merit,
limited popularity at 'Bellers's.'
Castles, Spanish, comfortable accommodations in.
Cato, letters of, so called, suspended _naso adunco_.
C.D., friends of, can hear of him.
Century, nineteenth.
Chalk egg, we are proud of incubation of.
Chamberlayne, Doctor, consolatory citation from.
Chance,
an apothegm concerning,
is impatient.
Chaplain, a one-horse, stern-wheeled variety of.
Chappelow on Job, a copy of, lost.
Charles I., accident to his neck.
Charles II., his restoration, how brought about.
Cherubusco, news of, its effects on English royalty.
Chesterfield no letter-writer.
Chief Magistrate, dancing esteemed sinful by.
Children naturally speak Hebrew.
China-tree.
Chinese, whether they invented gunpowder before the Christian era
not considered.
Choate hired.
Christ,
shuffled into Apocrypha,
conjectured to disapprove of slaughter and pillage,
condemns a certain piece of barbarism.
Christianity, profession of, plebeian, whether.
Christian soldiers, perhaps inconsistent whether.
Cicero,
an opinion of, disputed.
Cilley, Ensign, author of nefarious sentiment.
_Cimex lectularius_.
Cincinnati, old, law and order party of.
Cincinnatus, a stock character in modern comedy.
Civilization,
progress of, an alias,
rides upon a powder-cart.
Clergymen,
their ill husbandry,
their place in processions,
some, cruelly banished for the soundness of their lungs.
Clotho, a Grecian lady.
Cocked-hat, advantages of being knocked into.
College of Cardinals, a strange one.
Colman, Dr. Benjamin, anecdote of.
Colored folks, curious national diversion of kicking.
Colquitt,
a remark of,
acquainted with some principles of aerostation.
Columbia, District of,
its peculiar climatic effects,
not certain that Martin is for abolishing it.
Columbiads, the true fifteen-inch ones.
Columbus,
a Paul Pry of genius,
will perhaps be remembered,
thought by some to have discovered America.
Columby.
Complete Letter-Writer, fatal gift of.
Compostella, Saint James of, seen.
Compromise system, the, illustrated.
Conciliation, its meaning.
Congress,
singular consequence of getting into,
a stumbling-block.
Congressional debates found instructive.
Constituents, useful for what, 194.
Constitution,
trampled on,
to stand upon what.
Convention, what.
Convention, Springfield.
Coon, old, pleasure in skinning.
Co-operation defined.
Coppers, _caste_ in picking up of.
Copres, a monk, his excellent method of arguing.
Corduroy-road, a novel one.
Corner-stone, patent safety.
Cornwallis,
a,
acknowledged entertaining.
Cotton loan, its imaginary nature.
Cotton Mather, summoned as witness.
Country, our,
its boundaries more exactly defined,
right or wrong, nonsense about, exposed,
lawyers, sent providentially.
Earth's biggest, gets a soul.
Courier, The Boston, an unsafe print.
Court, General, farmers sometimes attain seats in.
Court, Supreme.
Courts of law, English, their orthodoxy.
Cousins, British, our _ci-devant_.
Cowper, W., his letters commended.
Credit defined.
Creditors all on Lincoln's side.
Creed, a safe kind of.
Crockett, a good rule of.
Cruden, Alexander, his Concordance.
Crusade, first American.
Cuneiform script recommended.
Curiosity distinguishes man from brutes.
Currency, Ethiopian, inconveniences of.
Cynthia, her hide as a means of conversion.
Daedalus first taught men to sit on fences.
Daniel in the lion's den.
Darkies dread freedom.
Davis, Captain Isaac, finds out something to his advantage.
Davis, Jefferson (a new species of martyr),
has the latest ideas on all subjects,
superior in financiering to patriarch Jacob,
is _some_,
carries Constitution in his hat,
knows how to deal with his Congress,
astonished at his own piety,
packed up for Nashville,
tempted to believe his own lies,
his snake egg,
blood on his hands.
Davis, Mr., of Mississippi, a remark of his.
Day and Martin, proverbially "on hand."
Death, rings down curtain.
De Bow (a famous political economist).
Delphi, oracle of,
surpassed,
alluded to.
Democracy,
false notion of,
its privileges.
Demosthenes.
Destiny, her account.
Devil, the,
unskilled in certain Indian tongues,
letters to and from.
Dey of Tripoli.
Didymus, a somewhat voluminous grammarian.
Dighton rock character might be usefully employed in some emergencies.
Dimitry Bruisgins, fresh supply of.
Diogenes, his zeal for propagating certain variety of olive.
Dioscuri, imps of the pit.
District-Attorney, contemptible conduct of one.
Ditchwater on brain, a too common ailing.
Dixie, the land of.
Doctor, the, a proverbial saying of.
Doe, Hon. Preserved, speech of.
Donatus, profane wish of.
Doughface, yeast-proof.
Downing Street.
Drayton,
a martyr,
north star, culpable for aiding, whether.
Dreams, something about.
Dwight, President, a hymn unjustly attributed to.
D.Y., letter of.
Eagle, national, the late, his estate administered upon.
Earth, Dame, a peep at her housekeeping.
Eating words, habit of, convenient in time of famine.
Eavesdroppers.
Echetlaeus.
Editor,
his position,
commanding pulpit of,
large congregation of,
name derived from what,
fondness for mutton,
a pious one, his creed,
a showman,
in danger of sudden arrest, without bail.
Editors, certain ones who crow like cockerels.
Edwards, Jonathan.
Eggs, bad, the worst sort of.
Egyptian darkness, phial of, use for.
Eldorado, Mr. Sawin sets sail for.
Elizabeth, Queen, mistake of her ambassador.
Emerson.
Emilius, Paulus.
Empedocles.
Employment, regular, a good thing.
Enfield's Speaker, abuse of.
England, late Mother-Country,
her want of tact,
merits as a lecturer,
her real greatness not to be forgotten,
not contented (unwisely) with her own stock of fools,
natural maker of international law,
her theory thereof,
makes a particularly disagreeable kind of sarse,
somewhat given to bullying,
has respectable relations,
ought to be Columbia's friend,
anxious to buy an elephant.
Epaulets, perhaps no badge of saintship.
Epimenides, the Cretan Rip Van Winkle.
Episcopius, his marvellous oratory.
Eric, king of Sweden, his cap.
Ericsson, his caloric engine.
Eriksson, Thorwald, slain by natives.
Essence-peddlers.
Ethiopian, the, his first need.
Evangelists, iron ones.
Eyelids, a divine shield against authors.
Ezekiel, text taken from.
Ezekiel would make a poor figure at a caucus.
Faber, Johannes.
Factory-girls, expected rebellion of.
Facts,
their unamiability,
compared to an old-fashioned stage-coach.
_Falstaffii, legio_.
Family-trees,
fruit of jejune,
a primitive forest of.
Faneuil Hall,
a place where persons tap themselves for a species of hydrocephalus,
a bill of fare mendaciously advertised in.
Father of country, his shoes.
Female Papists, cut off in the midst of idolatry.
_Fenianorum, rixae_.
Fergusson, his 'Mutual Complaint,' etc.
F.F., singular power of their looks.
Fire, we all like to play with it.
Fish, emblematic, but disregarded, where.
Fitz, Miss Parthenia Almira, a sheresiarch.
Flam, President, untrustworthy.
Flirt, Mrs.
Flirtilla, elegy on death of.
Floyd, a taking character.
_Floydus, furcifer_.
Fly-leaves, providential increase of.
Fool, a cursed, his inalienable rights.
Foote, Mr., his taste for field-sports.
Fourier, a squinting toward.
Fourth of July ought to know its place.
Fourth of Julys, boiling.
France,
a strange dance begun in,
about to put her foot in it.
Friar John.
Fuller, Dr. Thomas, a wise saying of.
Funnel, old, hurraing in.
Gabriel, his last trump, its pressing nature.
Gardiner, Lieutenant Lion.
Gawain, Sir, his amusements.
Gay, S.H., Esquire, editor of National Antislavery Standard, letter to.
Geese, how infallibly to make swans of.
Gentleman, high-toned Southern, scientifically classed.
Getting up early.
Ghosts, some, presumed fidgety, (but see Stilling's Pneumatology.)
Giants formerly stupid.
Gideon, his sword needed.
Gift of tongues, distressing case of.
Gilbert, Sir Humphrey.
Globe Theatre, cheap season-ticket to.
Glory,
a perquisite of officers,
her account with B. Sawin, Esq.
Goatsnose, the celebrated interview with.
God, the only honest dealer.
Goings, Mehetable, unfounded claim of, disproved.
Gomara,
has a vision,
his relationship to the Scarlet Woman.
Governor, our excellent.
Grandfather, Mr. Biglow's, safe advice of.
Grandfathers, the, knew something.
Grand jurors, Southern, their way of finding a true bill.
_Grantus, Dux_.
Gravestones, the evidence of Dissenting ones held doubtful.
Gray's letters are letters.
Great horn spoon, sworn by.
Greeks, ancient, whether they questioned candidates.
Green Man, sign of.
Habeas corpus, new mode of suspending it.
Hail Columbia, raised.
Ham,
sandwich, an orthodox (but peculiar) one,
his seed,
their privilege in the Bible,
immoral justification of.
Hamlets, machine for making.
Hammon.
Hampton Roads, disaster in.
Hannegan, Mr., something said by.
Harrison, General, how preserved.
Hat, a leaky one.
Hat-trees in full bearing.
Hawkins, his whetstone.
Hawkins, Sir John, stout, something he saw.
Hawthorne.
Hay-rick, electrical experiments with.
Headlong, General.
Hell,
the opinion of some concerning,
breaks loose.
Henry the Fourth of England, a Parliament of, how named.
Hens, self-respect attributed to.
Herb, the Circean.
Herbert, George, next to David.
Hercules, his second labor probably what.
Hermon, fourth-proof dew of.
Herodotus, story from.
Hesperides, an inference from.
Hessians, native American soldiers.
Hickory, Old, his method.
Higgses, their natural aristocracy of feeling.
Hitchcock, Doctor.
Hitchcock, the Rev. Jeduthun,
colleague of Mr. Wilbur,
letter from, containing notices of Mr. Wilbur,
ditto, enclosing macaronic verses,
teacher of high-school.
Hogs, their dreams.
Holden, Mr. Shearjashub,
Preceptor of Jaalam Academy,
his knowledge of Greek limited,
a heresy of his,
leaves a fund to propagate it.
Holiday, blind man's.
Hollis, Ezra, goes to Cornwallis.
Hollow, why men providentially so constructed.
Holmes, Dr., author of 'Annals of America.,'
Homer, a phrase of, cited.
Homer, eldest son of Mr. Wilbur.
Homers, democratic ones, plums left for.
Hotels, big ones, humbugs.
House, a strange one described.
Howell, James, Esq.,
story told by,
letters of, commended.
Huldah, her bonnet.
Human rights out of order on the floor of Congress.
Humbug,
ascription of praise to,
generally believed in.
Husbandry, instance of bad.
Icarius, Penelope's father.
Icelander, a certain uncertain.
Idea,
the Southern, its natural foes,
the true American.
Ideas, friction ones unsafe.
Idyl defined.
Indecision, mole-blind.
Infants, prattlings of, curious observation concerning.
Information wanted (universally, but especially at page).
Ishmael, young.
Jaalam, unjustly neglected by great events.
Jaalam Centre,
Anglo-Saxons unjustly suspected by the young ladies there
"Independent Blunderbuss," strange conduct of editor of,
public meeting at,
meeting-house ornamented with imaginary clock.
Jaalam, East Parish of.
Jaalam Point, lighthouse on, charge of, prospectively offered
to Mr. H. Biglow.
_Jacobus, rex_.
Jakes, Captain, reproved for avarice.
Jamaica.
James the Fourth, of Scots, experiment by.
Jarnagin, Mr., his opinion of the completeness of Northern education.
Jefferson, Thomas, well-meaning, but injudicious.
Jeremiah, hardly the best guide in modern politics.
Jerome, Saint, his list of sacred writers.
Jerusha, ex-Mrs. Sawin.
Job,
Book of,
Chappelow on.
Johnson, Andrew,
as he used to be,
as he is: see Arnold, Benedict.
Johnson, Mr., communicates some intelligence.
Jonah,
the inevitable destiny of,
probably studied internal economy of the cetacea,
his gourd,
his unanimity in the whale.
Jonathan to John.
Jortin, Dr., cited.
Journals, British, their brutal tone.
Juanito.
Judea,
everything not known there,
not identical with A.D.
Judge, the,
his garden,
his hat covers many things.
Juvenal, a saying of.
Kay, Sir, the, of modern chivalry.
Key, brazen one.
Keziah, Aunt, profound observation of.
Kinderhook.
Kingdom Come, march to, easy.
Koenigsmark, Count.
Lablache surpassed.
Lacedaemonians banish a great talker.
Lamb, Charles, his epistolary excellence.
Latimer, Bishop, episcopizes Satan.
Latin tongue, curious information concerning.
Launcelot, Sir, a trusser of giants formerly, perhaps would find less
sport therein now.
Laura, exploited.
Learning, three-story.
Letcher, _de la vieille roche_.
_Letcherus, nebulo_.
Letters,
classed,
their shape,
of candidates,
often fatal.
Lettres Cabalistiques, quoted.
Lewis, Dixon H., gives his view of slavery.
Lewis Philip,
a scourger of young native Americans,
commiserated (though not deserving it).
Lexington.
Liberator, a newspaper, condemned by implication.
Liberty, unwholesome for men of certain complexions.
Licking, when constitutional.
Lignum vitae, a gift of this valuable wood proposed.
Lincoln, too shrewd to hang Mason and Slidell.
Literature, Southern, its abundance.
Little Big Boosy River.
Longinus recommends swearing, note (Fuseli did same thing).
Long-sweetening recommended.
Lord, inexpensive way of lending to.
Lords, Southern, prove _pur sang_ by ablution.
Lost arts, one sorrowfully added to list of.
Louis the Eleventh of France, some odd trees of his.
Lowell, Mr. J.R., unaccountable silence of.
Luther, Martin, his first appearance as Europa.
Lyaeus.
Lyttelton, Lord, his letters an imposition.
Macrobii, their diplomacy.
Magoffin, a name naturally noble.
Mahomet, got nearer Sinai than some.
Mahound, his filthy gobbets.
Mandeville, Sir John, quoted.
Mangum, Mr., speaks to the point.
Manichaean, excellently confuted.
Man-trees, grow where.
Maori chieftains.
Mapes, Walter,
quoted,
paraphrased.
Mares'-nests, finders of, benevolent.
Marius, quoted.
Marshfield.
Martin, Mr. Sawin used to vote for him.
Mason and Dixon's line, slaves north of.
Mason an F.F.V.
Mason and Slidell, how they might have been made at once useful and
ornamental.
Mass, the, its duty defined.
Massachusetts,
on her knees,
something mentioned in connection with, worthy the attention of
tailors,
citizen of, baked, boiled, and roasted (_nefandum!_).
Masses, the, used as butter by some.
Maury, an intellectual giant, twin birth with Simms (which see).
Mayday a humbug.
M.C., an invertebrate animal.
Me, Mister, a queer creature.
Mechanics' Fair, reflections suggested at.
_Medium, ardentispirituale_.
Mediums, spiritual, dreadful liars.
Memminger, old.
Mentor, letters of, dreary.
Mephistopheles at a nonplus.
Mexican blood, its effect in raising price of cloth.
Mexican polka.
Mexicans,
charged with various breaches of etiquette,
kind feelings beaten into them.
Mexico, no glory in overcoming.
Middleton, Thomas, quoted.
Military glory spoken disrespectfully of,
militia treated still worse.
Milk-trees, growing still.
Mill, Stuart, his low ideas.
Millenniums apt to miscarry.
Millspring.
Mills for manufacturing gabble, how driven.
Mills, Josiah's.
Milton,
an unconscious plagiary,
a Latin verse of, cited,
an English poet,
his 'Hymn of the Nativity.'
Missionaries,
useful to alligators,
culinary liabilities of.
Missions, a profitable kind of.
Monarch, a pagan, probably not favored in philosophical experiments.
Money-trees,
desirable,
that they once existed shown to be variously probable.
Montaigne.
Montaigne, a communicative old Gascon.
Monterey, battle of, its singular chromatic effect on a species of
two-headed eagle.
Montezuma, licked.
Moody, Seth,
his remarkable gun,
his brother Asaph.
Moquis Indians, praiseworthy custom of.
Moses,
held up vainly as an example,
construed by Joe Smith,
(not, A.J. Moses) prudent way of following.
Muse invoked.
Myths, how to interpret readily.
Naboths, Popish ones, how distinguished.
Nana Sahib.
Nancy, presumably Mrs. Biglow.
Napoleon III., his new chairs.
Nation,
rights of, proportionate to size,
young, its first needs.
National pudding, its effect on the organs of speech, a curious
physiological fact.
Negroes,
their double usefulness,
getting too current.
Nephelim, not yet extinct.
New England,
overpoweringly honored,
wants no more speakers,
done brown by whom,
her experience in beans beyond Cicero's.
Newspaper, the,
wonderful,
a strolling theatre,
thoughts suggested by tearing wrapper of,
a vacant sheet,
a sheet in which a vision was let down,
wrapper to a bar of soap,
a cheap impromptu platter.
New World, apostrophe to.
New York, letters from, commended.
Next life, what.
Nicotiana Tabacum, a weed.
Niggers,
area of abusing, extended,
Mr. Sawin's opinions of.
Ninepence a day low for murder.
No,
a monosyllable,
hard to utter.
Noah enclosed letter in bottle, probably.
Noblemen, Nature's.
Nornas, Lapland, what.
North, the,
has no business,
bristling, crowded off roost,
its mind naturally unprincipled.
North Bend,
geese inhumanly treated at,
mentioned.
North star, a proposition to indict.
Northern Dagon.
Northmen, _gens inclytissima_.
Notre Dame de la Haine.
Now, its merits.
Nowhere, march to.
O'Brien, Smith.
Off ox.
Officers,
miraculous transformation in character of,
Anglo-Saxon, come very near being anathematized.
Old age, an advantage of.
Old One, invoked.
Onesimus made to serve the cause of impiety.
O'Phace, Increase D., Esq., speech of.
Opinion, British, its worth to us.
Opinions, certain ones compared to winter flies.
Oracle of Fools, still respectfully consulted.
Orion becomes commonplace.
Orrery, Lord, his letters (lord!).
Ostracism, curious species of.
_Ovidii Nasonis, carmen supposititium_.
Palestine.
Paley, his Evidences.
Palfrey, Hon. J.G., (a worthy representative of Massachusetts).
Pantagruel, recommends a popular oracle.
Panurge,
his interview with Goatsnose.
Paper, plausible-looking, wanted.
Papists, female, slain by zealous Protestant bomb-shell.
Paralipomenon, a man suspected of being.
Paris, liberal principles safe as far away as.
_Parliamentum Indoctorum_ sitting in permnence.
Past, the, a good nurse.
Patience, sister, quoted.
Patriarchs, the, illiterate.
_Patricius, brogipotens_.
Paynims, their throats propagandistically cut.
Penelope, her wise choice.
People,
soft enough,
want correct ideas,
the, decline to be Mexicanized.
Pepin, King.
Pepperell General, quoted.
Pequash Junction.
Periwig.
Perley, Mr. Asaph, has charge of bass-viol.
Perseus, King, his avarice.
Persius, a pithy saying of.
Pescara, Marquis, saying of.
Peter, Saint, a letter of (_post-mortem_).
Petrarch, exploited Laura.
Petronius.
Pettibone, Jabez, bursts up.
Pettus came over with Wilhelmus Conquistor.
Phaon.
Pharaoh, his lean kine.
Pharisees, opprobriously referred to.
Philippe, Louis, in pea-jacket.
Phillips, Wendell, catches a Tartar.
Phlegyas quoted.
Phrygian language, whether Adam spoke it.
Pickens, a Norman name.
Pilcoxes, genealogy of.
Pilgrim Father, apparition of.
Pilgrims, the.
Pillows, constitutional.
Pine-trees, their sympathy.
Pinto, Mr., some letters of his commended.
Pisgah, an impromptu one.
Platform, party, a convenient one.
Plato,
supped with,
his man.
Pleiades, the, not enough esteemed.
Pliny, his letters not admired.
Plotinus, a story of.
Plymouth Rock, Old, a Convention wrecked on.
Poets apt to become sophisticated.
Point Tribulation, Mr. Sawin wrecked on.
Poles, exile, whether crop of beans depends on.
Polk, _nomen gentile_.
Polk, President,
synonymous with our country,
censured,
in danger of being crushed.
Polka, Mexican.
Pomp,
a runaway slave, his nest,
hypocritically groans like white man,
blind to Christian privileges,
his society valued at fifty dollars,
his treachery,
takes Mr. Sawin prisoner,
cruelly makes him work,
puts himself illegally under his tuition,
dismisses him with contumelious epithets,
a negro.
Pontifical bull, a tamed one.
Pope, his verse excellent.
Pork, refractory in boiling.
Portico, the.
Portugal, Alphonso the Sixth of, a monster.
Post, Boston,
shaken visibly,
bad guide-post,
too swift,
edited by a colonel,
who is presumed officially in Mexico,
referred to.
Pot-hooks, death in.
Power, a first-class, elements of.
Preacher,
an ornamental symbol,
a breeder of dogmas,
earnestness of, important.
Present,
considered as an annalist,
not long wonderful.
President,
slaveholding natural to,
must be a Southern resident,
must own a nigger,
the, his policy,
his resemblance to Jackson.
Princes mix cocktails.
Principle, exposure spoils it.
Principles, bad,
when less harmful,
when useless.
Professor, Latin, in
College,
Scaliger.
Prophecies, fulfilment of.
Prophecy, a notable one.
Prospect Hill.
Providence has a natural life-preserver.
Proviso, bitterly spoken of.
Prudence, sister, her idiosyncratic teapot.
Psammeticus, an experiment of.
Psyche, poor.
Public opinion,
a blind and drunken guide,
nudges Mr. Wilbur's elbow,
ticklers of.
Punkin Falls 'Weekly Parallel.'
Putnam, General Israel, his lines.
Pythagoras a bean-hater, why.
Pythagoreans, fish reverenced by, why.
_Quid, ingens nicotianum_.
Quixote, Don.
Rafn, Professor.
Rag, one of sacred college.
Rantoul, Mr.,
talks loudly,
pious reason for not enlisting.
Recruiting sergeant, Devil supposed the first.
Religion, Southern, its commercial advantages.
Representatives' Chamber.
Rhinothism, society for promoting.
Rhyme, whether natural not considered.
Rib, an infrangible one.
Richard the First of England, his Christian fervor.
Riches conjectured to have legs as well as wings.
Ricos Hombres.
Ringtail Rangers.
Roanoke Island.
Robinson, Mr. John P., his opinions fully stated.
Rocks, pocket full of.
Roosters in rainy weather, their misery.
Rotation insures mediocrity and inexperience.
Rough and ready,
a Wig,
a kind of scratch.
Royal Society, American fellows of.
Rum and water combine kindly.
Runes resemble bird-tracks.
Runic inscriptions, their different grades of unintelligibility and
consequent value.
Russell, Earl, is good enough to expound our Constitution for us.
Russian eagle turns Prussian blue.
_Ryeus, Bacchi epitheton_.
Sabbath, breach of.
Sabellianism, one accused of.
Sailors, their rights how won.
Saltillo, unfavorable view of.
Salt-river, in Mexican, what.
_Samuel, avunculus_, 271.
Samuel, Uncle,
riotous,
yet has qualities demanding reverence,
a good provider for his family,
an exorbitant bill of,
makes some shrewd guesses,
expects his boots, 245.
Sansculottes, draw their wine before drinking.
Santa Anna, his expensive leg.
Sappho, some human nature in.
Sassycus, an impudent Indian.
Satan,
never wants attorneys,
an expert talker by signs,
a successful fisherman with little or no bait,
cunning fetch of,
dislikes ridicule,
ought not to have credit of ancient oracles,
his worst pitfall.
Satirist, incident to certain dangers.
Savages, Canadian, chance of redemption offered to.
Sawin, B., Esquire,
his letter not written in verse,
a native of Jaalam
not regular attendant on Rev. Mr. Wilbur's preaching,
a fool,
his statements trustworthy,
his ornithological tastes,
letters from,
his curious discovery in regard to bayonets,
displays proper family pride,
modestly confesses himself less wise than the Queen of Sheba,
the old Adam in, peeps out,
a _miles emeritus_,
is made text for a sermon,
loses a leg,
an eye,
left hand,
four fingers of right hand,
has six or more ribs broken,
a rib of his infrangible,
allows a certain amount of preterite greenness in himself,
his share of spoil limited,
his opinion of Mexican climate,
acquires property of a certain sort,
his experience of glory,
stands sentry, and puns thereupon,
undergoes martyrdom in some of its most painful forms,
enters the candidating business,
modestly states the (avail) abilities which qualify him for high
political station,
has no principles,
a peace-man,
unpledged,
has no objections to owning peculiar property, but would not like to
monopolize the truth,
his account with glory,
a selfish motive hinted in,
sails for Eldorado,
shipwrecked on a metaphorical promontory,
parallel between, and Rev. Mr. Wilbur (not Plutarchian),
conjectured to have bathed in river Selemnus,
loves plough wisely, but not too well,
a foreign mission probably expected by,
unanimously nominated for presidency,
his country's father-in-law,
nobly emulates Cincinnatus,
is not a crooked stick,
advises his adherents,
views of, on present state of politics,
popular enthusiasm for, at Bellers's, and its disagreeable consequences,
inhuman treatment of, by Bellers,
his opinion of the two parties,
agrees with Mr. Webster,
his antislavery zeal,
his proper self respect,
his unaffected piety,
his not intemperate temperance,
a thrilling adventure of,
his prudence and economy,
bound to Captain Jakes, but regains his freedom,
is taken prisoner,
ignominiously treated,
his consequent resolution.
Sawin, Honorable B. O'F.,
a vein of humor suspected in,
gets into an enchanted castle,
finds a wooden leg better in some respects than a living one,
takes something hot,
his experience of Southern hospitality,
water-proof internally,
sentenced to ten years' imprisonment,
his liberal-handedness,
gets his arrears of pension,
marries the widow Shannon,
confiscated,
finds in himself a natural necessity of income,
his missionary zeal,
never a stated attendant on Mr. Wilbur's preaching,
sang bass in choir,
prudently avoided contribution toward bell,
abhors a covenant of works,
if saved at all, must be saved genteelly,
reports a sermon,
experiences religion,
would consent to a dukedom,
converted to unanimity,
sound views of,
makes himself an extempore marquis,
extract of letter from,
his opinion of Paddies, of Johnson.
Sayres, a martyr.
Scaliger, saying of.
_Scarabaeus pilularius_.
Scott, General, his claims to the presidency.
Scrimgour, Rev. Shearjashub.
Scythians, their diplomacy commended.
Sea, the wormy.
Seamen, colored, sold.
_Secessia, licta_.
Secession, its legal nature defined.
Secret, a great military.
Selemnus, a sort of Lethean river.
Senate, debate in, made readable.
Seneca,
saying of,
another,
overrated by a saint (but see Lord Bolingbroke's opinion of, in a
letter to Dean Swift),
his letters not commended,
a son of Rev. Mr. Wilbur,
quoted.
Serbonian bog of literature.
Sermons, some pitched too high.
Seward, Mister, the late,
his gift of prophecy,
needs stiffening,
misunderstands parable of fatted calf.
Sextons,
demand for,
heroic official devotion of one.
Seymour, Governor.
Shakespeare,
a good reporter.
Shaking fever, considered as an employment.
Sham, President, honest.
Shannon, Mrs.,
a widow,
her family and accomplishments,
has tantrums,
her religious views,
her notions of a moral and intellectual being,
her maidan name,
her blue blood.
Sheba, Queen of.
Sheep, none of Rev. Mr. Wilbur's turned wolves.
Shem, Scriptural curse of.
Shiraz Centre, lead-mine at.
Shirley, Governor.
Shoddy, poor covering for outer or inner man.
Shot at sight, privilege of being.
Show, natural to love it.
Silver spoon born in Democracy's mouth, what.
Simms, an intellectual giant, twin-birth with Maury (which see).
Sin, wilderness of, modern, what.
Sinai suffers outrages.
Skim-milk has its own opinions.
Skin, hole in, strange taste of some for.
Skippers, Yankee, busy in the slave-trade.
Slaughter, whether God strengthen us for.
Slaughterers and soldiers compared.
Slaughtering nowadays _is_ slaughtering.
Slavery,
of no color,
corner-stone of liberty,
also keystone,
last crumb of Eden,
a Jonah,
an institution,
a private State concern.
Slidell, New York trash.
Sloanshure, Habakkuk, Esquire, President of Jaalam Bank.
Smith, Joe, used as a translation.
Smith, John, an interesting character.
Smith, Mr.,
fears entertained for,
dined with.
Smith, N.B., his magnanimity.
_Smithius, dux_.
Soandso, Mr., the great, defines his position.
Soft-heartedness, misplaced, is soft-headedness.
Sol,
the fisherman,
soundness of respiratory organs hypothetically attributed to.
Soldiers, British, ghosts of, insubordinate.
Solomon, Song of, portions of it done into Latin verse by Mr. Wilbur.
Solon, a saying of.
Soul, injurious properties of.
South,
its natural eloquence,
facts have a mean spite against.
South Carolina,
futile attempt to anchor,
her pedigrees.
Southern men,
their imperfect notions of labor,
of subscriptions,
too high pressure,
prima facie noble.
Spanish, to walk, what.
Speech-making, an abuse of gift of speech.
Spirit-rapping does not repay the spirits engaged in it.
Split-Foot, Old, made to squirm.
Spring, described.
Star, north, subject to indictment, whether.
Statesman, a genuine, defined.
Stearns, Othniel, fable by.
Stone Spike, the.
Store, cheap cash, a wicked fraud.
Strong, Governor Caleb, a patriot.
Style, the catalogue.
Sumter, shame of.
Sunday should mind its own business.
Swearing commended as a figure of speech.
Swett, Jethro C., his fall.
Swift, Dean, threadbare saying of.
Tag, elevated to the Cardinalate.
Taney, C.J.
Tarandfeather, Rev. Mr.
Tarbox, Shearjashub, first white child born in Jaalam.
Tartars, Mongrel.
Taxes, direct, advantages of.
Taylor, General, greased by Mr. Choate.
Taylor zeal, its origin.
Teapots, how made dangerous.
Ten, the upper.
Tesephone, banished for long-windedness.
Thacker, Rev. Preserved, D.D.
Thanks get lodged.
Thanksgiving, Feejee.
Thaumaturgus, Saint Gregory, letter of, to the Devil.
Theleme, Abbey of.
Theocritus, the inventor of idyllic poetry
Theory, defined.
Thermopylaes, too many.
'They'll say' a notable bully.
Thirty-nine articles might be made serviceable.
Thor, a foolish attempt of.
Thoreau.
Thoughts, live ones characterized.
Thumb, General Thomas, a valuable member of society.
Thunder, supposed in easy circumstances.
Thynne, Mr., murdered.
Tibullus.
Time,
an innocent personage to swear by,
a scene-shifter.
Tinkham, Deacon Pelatiah,
story concerning, not told,
alluded to,
does a very sensible thing.
Toms, Peeping.
Toombs, a doleful sound from.
Trees, various kinds of extraordinary ones.
Trowbridge, William, mariner, adventure of.
Truth
and falsehood start from same point,
truth invulnerable to satire,
compared to a river,
of fiction sometimes truer than fact,
told plainly, _passim_.
Tuileries,
exciting scene at,
front parlor of.
Tully, a saying of.
Tunnel, Northwest-Passage, a poor investment.
Turkey-Buzzard Boost.
Tuscaloosa.
Tutchel, Rev. Jonas, a Sadducee.
Tweedledee, gospel according to.
Tweedledum, great principles of.
_Tylerus,
juvenis insignis,
porphyrogenitus,
Iohanides, flito celeris,
bene titus_.
Tyrants, European, how made to tremble.
Ulysses,
husband of Penelope,
borrows money, (for full particulars of, see Homer and Dante)
_rex_.
Unanimity, new ways of producing.
Union,
its hoops off,
its good old meaning.
Universe, its breeching.
University, triennial catalogue of.
Us, nobody to be compared with, and see _World, passim_.
Van Buren,
fails of gaining Mr. Sawin's confidence,
his son John reproved.
Van, Old, plan to set up.
Vattel, as likely to fall on _your_ toes as on mine.
Venetians invented something once.
Vices, cardinal, sacred conclave of.
Victoria, Queen,
her natural terror,
her best carpets.
Vinland.
Virgin, the, letter of, to Magistrates of Messina.
_Virginia, descripta_.
Virginians, their false heraldry.
Voltaire, _esprit de_.
Vratz, Captain, a Pomeranian, singular views of.
Wachuset Mountain.
Wait, General.
Wales, Prince of,
calls Brother Jonathan _consanguineus noster_,
but had not, apparently, consulted the Garter King at Arms.
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