1ates, and deduct the amount from the proceeds in your hands from the sale of iny discourse, when it shall be printed. My circular is much longer and more explicit, and will be forwarded without charge to any who may desire it. It has been very neatly executed on a letter sheet, by a very deserving printer, who attends upon my ministry, and is a creditable specimen of the typographic art. have one hung over my mantel-piece in a neat frame, where it inakes a beautiful and appropriate ornament, and balances the profile of Mrs. W., cut with her toes by the young lady born without arms. H. W."

I

I have in the foregoing letter mentioned General Scott in connection with the Presidency, because I have been given to understand that he has blown to pieces and otherwise caused to be destroyed more Mexicans than any other commander. His claim would therefore be deservedly considered the strongest. Until accurate returns of the Mexicans killed, wounded, and maimed be obtained, it will be difficult to settle these nice points of precedence. Should it prove that any other officer has been more meritorious and destructive than General S., and has thereby rendered himself more worthy of the confidence and support of the conservative portion of our community, I shall cheerfully insert his name, instead of that of General S., in a future edition. It may be thought, likewise, that General S has invalidated his claims by too much attention to the decencies of apparel, and the habits belonging to a gentleman. These abstruser points of statesmanship are beyond my scope. I wonder not that successful military achievement should attract the admiration of the multitude. Rather do I rejoice with wonder to behold how rapidly this sentiment is losing its hold upon the popular mind. It is related of Thomas Warton, the second of that honored name who held the office of Poetry Professor at Oxford, that, when one wished to find him, being absconded, as was his wont, in some obscure alehouse, he was counselled to traverse the city with a drum and fife, the sound of which inspiring music would be sure to draw the Doctor from his retirement into the street. We are all more or less bitten with this martial insanity. Nescio qua dulcedine .... cunctos ducit. I confess to some infection of that itch myself. When I see a Brigadier-General maintaining his insecure. elevation in the saddle under the severe fire of the training-field, and when I remember that some military enthusiasts, through haste, inexperience, or an over-desire to lend real. ity to those fictitious combats, will sometimes discharge their ramrods, I cannot but admire, while I deplore, the mistaken devotion of those heroic officers. Semel insanivimus

omnes. I was myself, during the late war with Great Britain, chaplain of a regiment, which was fortunately never called to active

military duty. I mention this circumstance with regret rather than pride. Had I been summoned to actual warfare, I trust that I might have been strengthened to bear my self after the manner of that reverend father in our New England Israel, Dr. Benjamin Colman, who, as we are told in Turell's life of him, when the vessel in which he had taken passage for England was attacked by a French privateer, "fought like a philosopher and a Christian, and prayed all

the while he charged and fired." As this note is already long, I shall not here enter upon a discussion of the question, whether Christians may lawfully be soldiers. I think it sufficiently evident, that, during the first two centuries of the Christian era, at least, the two professions were esteemed incompatible. Consult Jortin on this head.-H. W.]

No. IV.

REMARKS OF INCREASE D. O'PHACE, ESQUIRE, AT AN EXTRUMPERY CAUCUS IN STATE STREET, REPORTED BY MR. H. BIGLOW.

But

THE ingenious reader will at once understand that no such speech as the following was ever totidem verbis pronounced. there are simpler and less guarded wits, for the satisfying of which such an explanation may be needful. For there are certain invisible lines, which as Truth successively overpasses, she becomes Untruth to one and another of us, as a large river, flowing from one kingdom into another, sometimes takes a new name, albeit the waters undergo no change, how small soever. There is, moreover, a truth of fiction more veracious than the truth of fact, as that of the Poet, which represents to us things and events as they ought to be, rather than servilely copies them as they are imperfectly imaged in the crooked and smoky glass of our mundane affairs. It is this which makes the speech of Antonius, though originally spoken in no wider a forum than the brain of Shakespeare, more histori. cally valuable than that other which Appian has reported, by as much as the understanding of the Englishman was more comprehen sive than that of the Alexandrian. Mr. Biglow, in the present instance, has only made use of a license assumed by all the historians of antiquity, who put into the mouths of various characters such words as seem to them most fitting to the occasion and to the speaker. If it be objected that no such oration could ever have been delivered, I answer, that there are few assemblages for speechmaking which do not better deserve the title of Parliamentum Indoctorum than did the

a

sixth Parliament of Henry the Fourth, and that men still continue to have as much faith in the Oracle of Fools as ever Pantagruel had. Howell, in his letters, recounts merry tale of a certain ambassador of Queen Elizabeth, who, having written two letters,one to her Majesty, and the other to his wife,directed them at cross-purposes, so that the Queen was beducked and bedeared and requested to send a change of hose, and the wife was beprincessed and otherwise unwontedly besuperlatived, till the one feared for the wits of her ambassador, and the other for those of her husband. In like manner it may be presumed that our speaker has misdirected some of his thoughts, and given to the whole theatre what he would have wished to confide only to a select auditory at the back of the curtain. For it is seldom that we can get any frank utterance from men, who address, for the most part, a Buncombe either in this world or the next. As for their audiences, it may be truly said of our people, that they enjoy one political institution in common with the ancient Athenians: I inean a certain profitless kind of ostracism, wherewith, nevertheless, they seem hitherto well enough content. For in Presidential elections, and other affairs of the sort, whereas I observe that the oysters fall to the lot of comparatively few, the shells (such as the privileges of voting as they are told to do by the ostrivori aforesaid, and of huzzaing at public meetings) are very liberally distributed among the people, as being their prescriptive and quite sufficient portion.

The occasion of the speech is supposed to be Mr. Palfrey's refusal to vote for the Whig candidate for the Speakership.-H. W.]

No? Hez he? He haint, though?

Wut? Voted agin him?

Ef the bird of our country could ketch him, she 'd skin him;

I seem 's though I see her, with wrath in each quill,

Like a chancery lawyer, afilin' her bill, An' grindin' her talents ez sharp ez all nater,

To pounce like a writ on the back o' the traitor.

Forgive me, my friends, ef I seem to be het,

But a crisis like this must with vigor be met;

Wen an Arnold the star-spangled banner bestains,

Holl Fourth o' Julys seem to bile in my veins.

Who ever 'd ha' thought sech a pisonous rig

exposure;

*

A man thet lets all sorts o' folks git a sight on 't

Ough' to hev it all took right away, every mite on 't;

Ef he can't keep it all to himself wen it's wise to,

He aint one it's fit to trust nothin' so nice to.

Besides, ther's a wonderful power in latitude

To shift a man's morril relations an' attitude;

Some flossifers think thet a fakkilty's granted

The speaker is of a different mind from Tully, who, in his recently discovered tractate De Republica, tells us,-Nec vero habere virtutem satis est, quasi artem aliquam, nisi utare, and from our Milton, who says: "I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat."- Areop. He had taken the words out of the Roman's mouth, without knowing it, and might well exclaim with Austin (if a saint's naine may stand sponsor for a curse), Pereant qui ante nos nostra dixerint!H. W.

The minnit it's proved to be thoroughly wanted,

Thet a change o' demand makes a change o' condition,

An' thet everythin' 's nothin' except by position;

Ez, fer instance, thet rubber-trees fust begun bearin'

Wen p'litikle conshunces come into wearin',

Thet the fears of a monkey, whose holt chanced to fail,

Drawed the vertibry out to a prehensile tail;

So, wen one's chose to Congriss, ez soon ez he 's in it,

A collar grows right round his neck in a minnit,

An' sartin it is thet a man cannot be strict

In bein' himself, wen he gits to the Deestrict,

Fer a coat thet sets wal here in ole Massachusetts,

Wen it gits on to Washinton, somehow

Thet we're the original friends o' the nation,

All the rest air a paltry an' base fabrication;

Thet we highly respect Messrs. A, B, an' C,

An' ez deeply despise Messrs. E, F, an' G.

In this way they go to the eend o' the chapter,

An' then they bust out in a kind of a raptur

About their own vartoo, an' folks's stone-blindness

To the men thet 'ould actilly do 'em > kindness, The American eagle, thet landed,

the Pilgrim

Thet no one on airth aint responsible for ;

They've run us a hundred cool millions in debt

(An' fer Demmercrat Horners ther's good plums left yet);

They talk agin tayriffs, but act fer a high one,

An' so coax all parties to build up their Zion;

To the people they 're ollers ez slick ez molasses,

An' butter their bread on both sides with The Masses,

Half o' whom they 've persuaded, by way of a joke,

Thet Washinton's mantelpiece fell upon Polk.

Now all o' these blessin's the Wigs

might enjoy,

Ef they'd gumption enough the right means to imploy;

That was a pithy saying of Persius, and fits our politicians without a wrinkle, -Magister artis, ingeniique largitor venter.— H. W.

Fer the silver spoon born in Dermocracy's mouth

Is a kind of a scringe thet they hev to the South;

Their masters can cuss 'em an' kick 'em an' wale 'em,

An' they notice it less 'an the ass did to Balaam;

In this way they screw into secondrate offices

Wich the slaveholder thinks 'ould substract too much off his ease;

The file-leaders, I mean, du, fer they, by their wiles,

Unlike the old viper, grow fat on their files.

Wal, the Wigs hev been tryin' to grab all this prey frum 'em

An' to hook this nice spoon o' good fortin' away frum 'em,

An' they might ha' succeeded, ez likely ez not,

In lickin' the Demmercrats all round the lot,

Ef it warn't thet, wile all faithful Wigs were their knees on,

Some stuffy old codger would holler out, Treason! You must keep a sharp eye on a dog thet hez bit you once,

An' I aint agoin' to cheat my constitoounts,"

Wen every fool knows thet a man rep

resents

Not the fellers thet sent him, but them on the fence,

Impartially ready to jump either side An' make the fust use of a turn o' the tide,

The waiters on Providunce here in the city,

Who compose wut they call a State
Centerl Committy.
Constitoounts air hendy to help a man
in,

But arterwards don't weigh the heft of a pin.

Wy, the people can't all live on Uncle Sam's pus,,

So they've nothin' to du with 't fer better or wus;

It's the folks thet air kind o' brought up to depend on 't

Thet hev any consarn in 't, an' thet is the end on 't.

town

Thet her own representatives du her quite brown.

But thet 's nothin' to du with it; wut right hed Palfrey

To mix himself up with fanatical small fry?

Warn't we gittin' on prime with our hot an' cold blowin',

Acondemnin' the war wilst we kep' it agoin'?

We'd assumed with gret skill a commandin' position,

On this side or thet, no one could n't tell wich one,

So, wutever side wipped, we'd a chance at the plunder

An' could sue fer infringin' our paytented thunder;

We were ready to vote fer whoever wuz eligible,

Ef on all pints at issoo he 'd stay unintelligible.

Wal, sposin' we hed to gulp down our perfessions,

We were ready to come out next mornin' with fresh ones;

Besides, ef we did, 't was our business alone,

Fer could n't we du wut we would with our own?

An' ef a man can, wen pervisions hev riz so,

Eat up his own words, it's a marcy it

is so.

Wy, these chaps frum the North, with back-bones to 'em, darn 'em, 'Ould be wuth more 'an Gennle Tom Thumb is to Barnum: Ther's enough thet to office on this very plan grow,

By exhibitin' how very small a man can grow;

But an M. C. frum here ollers hastens to state he

Belongs to the order called invertebraty,

Wence some gret filologists judge primy fashy

Thet M. C. is M. T. by paronomashy; An' these few exceptions air loosus naytury

Folks 'ould put down their quarters to stare at, like fury.

It's no use to open the door o' success, Ef a member can bolt so fer nothin' or less;

Wy, all o' them grand constitootional pillers Our fore-fathers fetched with 'em over the billers,

Them pillers the people so soundly hev slep' on,

Wile to slav'ry, invasion, an' debt they were swep' on,

Wile our Destiny higher an' higher kep' mountin'

(Though I guess folks 'll stare wen she hends her account in),

Ef members in this way go kicken

agin 'em,

They wunt hev so much ez a feather left in 'em.

An', ez fer this Palfrey, we thought wen we'd gut him in,

He'd go kindly in wufever harness we put him in ;

Supposin' we did know thet he wuz a peace man?

Doos he think he can be Uncle Sammle's policeman,

An' wen Sam gits tipsy an' kicks up a riot,

Lead him off to the lockup to snooze till he's quiet?

Wy, the war is a war thet true pay riots can bear, ef

It leads to the fat promised land of a tayriff;

We don't go an' fight it, nor aint to be driv on,

Nor Demmercrats nuther, thet hev wut to live on ;