An' ole Wig doctrines act'lly look, their occ'pants bein' gone,

Lonesome ez staddles on a mash without no hayricks on.

I spose it's time now I should give my thoughts upon the plan,

Thet chipped the shell at Buffalo, o' settin' up ole Van.

I used to vote fer Martin, but, I swan, I'm clean disgusted,

He aint the man thet I can say is fittin' to be trusted;

He aint half antislav'ry 'nough, nor I aint sure, ez some be,

He'd go in fer abolishin' the Deestrick o' Columby;

An', now I come to recollect, it kin' o' makes me sick 'z

A horse, to think o' wut he wuz in

eighteen thirty-six.

An' then, another thing; - I guess, though mebby I am wrong, This Buff'lo plaster aint agoin' to dror almighty strong

Some folks, I know, hev gut th' idee thet No'thun dough 'll rise, Though, 'fore I see it riz an' baked, I would n't trust my eyes; "I will take more emptins, a long chalk, than this noo party 's gut, To give sech heavy cakes ez them a start, I tell ye wut.

But even ef they caird the day, there would n't be no endurin' To stan' upon a platform with sech critters ez Van Buren ;An' his son John, tu, I can't think how thet 'ere chap should dare

To speak ez he doos; wy, they say he used to cuss an' swear!

I

spose he never read the hymn thet tells how down the stairs A feller with long legs wuz throwed thet would n't say his prayers. This brings me to another pint: the

leaders o' the party Aint jest sech men ez I can act along with free an' hearty; They aint not quite respectable, an' wen a feller's morrils

Don't toe the straightest kin' o' mark, wy, him an' me jest quarrils.

I went to a free soil meetin' once, an' wut d'ye think I see?

A feller was aspoutin' there thet act❜lly come to me,

About two year ago last spring, ez nigh ez I can jedge,

An' axed me ef I did n't want to sign the Temprunce pledge! He's one o' them that goes about an' sez you hed n't ough' ter Drink nothin', mornin', noon, or night, stronger 'an Taunton water. There's one rule I 've ben guided by, in settlin' how to vote, ollers, I take the side thet is n't took by them consarned teetotallers.

shou'dered queen's-arm an' stumped out, an' wen I come t' th' swamp, 'T worn't very long afore I gut upon the nest o' Pomp;

I come acrost a kin' o'hut, an', playin' round the door,

Some little woolly-headed cubs, ez many 'z six or more.

At fust I thought o' firin', but think twice is safest ollers;

There aint, thinks I, not one on 'em but 's wuth his twenty dollars, Or would be, ef I hed 'em back into a Christian land, How temptin' all on 'em would look upon an auction-stand! (Not but wut I hate Slavery in th' abstract, stem to starn,

I leave it ware our fathers did, a privit State consarn.)

Soon 'z they see me, they yelled an' run, but Pomp wuz out ahoein' A leetle patch o' corn he hed, or else there aint no knowin'

He would n't ha' took a pop at me; but I hed gut the start,

An' wen he looked, I vow he groaned ez though he'd broke his heart:

I 'xpect my eye-teeth every mail, so jest shet up," sez I.

"Don't go to actin' ugly now, or else I'll jest let strip,

You'd best draw kindly, seein' 'z how I've gut ye on the hip;

Besides, you darned ole fool, it aint no gret of a disaster

To be benev❜lently druv back to a contented master,

Ware you hed Christian priv'ledges you don't seem quite aware of,

Or

you 'd ha' never run away from bein' well took care of;

Ez fer kin' treatment, wy, he wuz so fond on ye, he said

He'd give a fifty spot right out, to git ye, 'live or dead;

Wite folks aint sot by half ez much; 'member I run away,

Wen I wuz bound to Cap'n Jakes, to

Mattysqumscot Bay; Don' know him, likely? Spose not; wal, the mean ole codger went An' offered-wut reward, think? Wal, it worn't no less 'n a cent."

The pis'nous brutes, I'd no idee o' the ill-will they bore me; We walked till som'ers about noon, an' then it grew so hot

I thought it best to camp awile, so I chose out a spot

Jest under a magnoly tree, an' there right down I sot;

Then I unstrapped my wooden leg, coz it begun to chafe,

An' laid it down 'long side o' me, supposin' all wuz safe;

I made my darkies all set down around me in a ring,

An' sot an' kin' o' ciphered up how much the lot would bring; But, wile I drinked the peaceful cup of a pure heart an' mind

(Mixed with some wiskey, now an' then), Pomp he snaked up behind, An' creepin' grad'lly close tu, ez quiet ez a mink,

Jest grabbed my leg, and then pulled foot, quicker 'an you could wink, An', come to look, they each on 'em hed gut behin' a tree, Pomp poked out the leg a piece, jest so ez I could see, yelled to me to throw away my pistils an' my gun,

An'

An'

Or else thet they 'd cair off the leg, an' fairly cut an' run.

I vow I did n't b'lieve there wuz a decent alligatur

Thet hed a heart so destitoot o' common human natur;

However, ez there worn't no help, I finally give in

An' heft my arms away to git my leg safe back agin.

Pomp gethered all the weapins up, an' then he come an' grinned, He showed his ivory some, I guess, an' sez, "You're fairly pinned; Jest buckle on your leg agin, an' git right up an' come,

'T wun't du fer fammerly men like me to be so long from hum." At fust I put my foot right down an' swore I would n't budge. "Jest ez you choose," sez he, quite cool, either be shot or trudge. So this black-hearted monster took an' act'lly druv me back Along the very feetmarks o' my happy mornin' track,

An' kep' me pris'ner 'bout six months, an' worked me, tu, like sin,

Till I hed gut his corn an' his Carliny taters in ;

He made me larn him readin', tu (although the crittur saw How much it hut my morril sense to act agin the law),

So'st he could read a Bible he'd gut; an' axed ef I could pint The North Star out; but there I put his nose some out o' jint, Fer I weeled roun' about sou'west, an', lookin' up a bit,

Picked out a middlin' shiny one an tole him thet wuz is.

Fin'lly, he took me to the door, an', givin' me a kick,

Sez, Ef you know wut 's best fer ye, be off, now, double-quick; The winter-time 's a comin' on, an', though I gut ye cheap, You're so darned lazy, I don't think

you 're hardly wuth your keep; Besides, the childrín's growin' up, an' you aint jest the model

I'd like to hev 'em immertate, an' so you'd better toddle !"

Now is there anythin' on airth 'll ever prove to me

Thet renegader slaves like him air fit fer bein' free?

D' you think they 'll suck me in to jine the Buff 'lo chaps, an' them Rank infidels thet go agin the Scriptur'l cus o' Shem?

Not by a jugfull! sooner 'n thet, I'd go thru fire an' water; Wen I hev once made up my mind, a meet'nhus aint sotter ; No, not though all the crows thet flies to pick my bones wuz cawin', 1 guess we 're in a Christian land, Yourn,

BIRDOFREDUM SAWIN.

[Here, patient reader, we take leave of each other, I trust with some mutual satisfaction. I say patient, for I love not that kind which skims dippingly over the surface of the page, as swallows over a pool before rain. By such no pearls shall be gathered. But if no pearls there be (as, indeed, the world is not without example of books wherefrom the longest-winded diver shall bring up no more than his proper handful of mud), yet let us hope that an oyster or two may reward adequate perseverance. If neither pearls nor oysters, yet is patience itself a gem worth diving deeply for.

It may seem to some that too much space has been usurped by my own private lucubrations, and some may be fain to bring against me that old jest of him who preached all his hearers out of the meeting-house save only the sexton who, remaining for yet a little space, from a sense of official duty, at last gave out also, and, presenting the keys. humbly requested our preacher to lock the doors, when he should have wholly relieved himself of his testimony. I confess to a satisfaction in the self act of preaching, nor do I esteem a discourse to be wholly thrown away even upon a sleeping or unintelligent auditory. I cannot easily believe that the Gos.

pel of Saint John, which Jacques Cartier ordered to be read in the Latin tongue to the Canadian savages, upon his first meeting with them, fell altogether upon stony ground. For the earnestness of the preacher is a sermon appreciable by dullest intellects and most alien cars. In this wise did Episcopius convert many to his opinions, who yet understood not the language in which he discoursed. The chief thing is that the messenger believe that he has an authentic message to deliver. For counterfeit messengers that mode of treatment which Father John de Plano Carpini relates to have prevailed among the Tartars would seem effectual, and, perhaps, deserved enough. For my own part, I may lay claim to so much of the spirit of martyrdom as would have led me to go into banishment with those clergymen whom Alphonso the Sixth of Portugal drave out of his kingdom for refusing to shorten their pulpit eloquence. It is possible, that, having been invited into my brother Biglow's desk, I may have been too little scrupulous in using it for the venting of my own peculiar doctrines to a congregation drawn together in the expectation and with the desire of hearing hin.

I am not wholly unconscious of a peculiarity of mental organization which impels me, like the railroad-engine with its train of cars, to run backward for a short distance in order to obtain a fairer start. I may compare myself to one fishing from the rocks when the sea runs high, who, misinterpreting the suction of the undertow for the biting of some larger fish, jerks suddenly, and finds that he has caught bottom, hauling in upon the end of his line a trail of various alga, among which, nevertheless, the naturalist may haply find somewhat to repay the disappointment of the angler. Yet have I conscientiously endeavored to adapt myself to the impatient temper of the age, daily degenerating more and more from the high standard of our pristine New England. To the catalogue of fost arts I would mournfully add also that of listening to two-hour sermons. Surely we have been abridged into a race of pygmies. For, truly, in those of the old discourses yet subsisting to us in print, the endless spinal column of divisions and subdivisions can be likened to nothing so exactly as to the vertebræ of the saurians, whence the theorist may conjecture a race of Anakim proportionate to the withstanding of these other monsters. I say Anakim rather than Nephelim, because there seem reasons for supposing that the race of those whose heads (though no giants) are constantly enveloped in clouds (which that name imports) will never become extinct. The attempt to vanquish the innumerable heads of one of those aforemen tioned discourses may supply us with a plausi ble interpretation of the second labor of Hercules, and his successful experiment with fire affords us a useful precedent.

But while I lament the degeneracy of the

age in this regard, I cannot refuse to succumb to its influence. Looking out through my study-window, I see Mr. Biglow at a distance busy in gathering his Baldwins, of which, to judge by the number of barrels lying about under the trees, his crop is more abun

dant than my own, by which sight I am admonished to turn to those orchards of the mind wherein my labors may be more prospered, and apply myself diligently to the preparation of my next Sabbath's discourse. -H. W,]