The Biglow Papers Part 7

I have in the foregoing letter mentioned General Scott in connexion 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 Mexican killed, wounded, and maimed be obtained, it would 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 mult.i.tude. 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 honoured 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 reality to those fict.i.tious 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 circ.u.mstance with regret rather than pride. Had I been summoned to actual warfare, I trust that I might have been strengthened to bear myself 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 pa.s.sage 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 EX-TRUMPERY CAUCUS IN STATE STREET, REPORTED BY MR. H. BIGLOW.

[The ingenious reader will at once understand that no such speech as the following was ever _totidem verbis_ p.r.o.nounced. But 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 overpa.s.ses, 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 gla.s.s 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 Shakspeare, more historically valuable than that other which Appian has reported, by as much as the understanding of the Englishman was more comprehensive than that of the Alexandrian. Mr.

Biglow, in the present instance, has only made use of a licence a.s.sumed 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 a.s.semblages for speech-making which do not better deserve the t.i.tle of _Parliamentum Indoctorum_ than did the 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 a merry tale of a certain amba.s.sador 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 amba.s.sador, 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 inst.i.tution in common with the ancient Athenians: I mean 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 _sh.e.l.ls_ (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 traiter.

Forgive me, my friends, ef I seem to be het, But a crisis like this must with vigour 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 Would be run by a chap thet wuz chose fer a Wig?

"We knowed wut his principles wuz 'fore we sent him"?

What wuz ther in them from this vote to pervent him?

A marciful Providunce fashioned us holler O' purpose thet we might our principles swaller; It can hold any quant.i.ty on 'em, the belly can, An' bring 'em up ready fer use like the pelican, Or more like the kangaroo, who (wich is stranger) Puts her family into her pouch wen there 's danger.

Aint principle precious? then, who 's goin' to use it Wen there 's risk o' some chaps gittin' up to abuse it?

I can't tell the wy on 't, but nothin' is _so_ sure Ez thet principle kind o' gits spiled by exposure;[13]

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

Besides, ther 's a wonderful power in lat.i.tude To shift a man's morril relations an' att.i.tude; Some flossifers think thet a fakkilty 's granted 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'litickle 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, when he gets to the Deestrict, Fer a coat thet sets wal here in ole Ma.s.sachusetts, Wen it gits on to Washinton, somehow askew sets.

Resolves, do you say, o' the Springfield Convention?

Thet 's percisely the pint I was goin' to mention; Resolves air a thing we most gen'ally keep ill, They 're a cheap kind o' dust fer the eyes o' the people; A parcel o' delligits jest git together An' chat fer a spell o' the crops an' the weather, Then, comin' to order, they squabble awile An' let off the speeches they 're ferful 'll spile; Then--Resolve,--Thet we wunt hev an inch o' slave territory; That President Polk's holl perceedins air very tory; Thet the war 's a d.a.m.ned war, an' them thet enlist in it Should hev a cravat with a dreffle tight twist in it; Thet the war is a war fer the spreadin' o' slavery; Thet our army desarves our best thanks fer their bravery; 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 a kindness,-- The American eagle, the Pilgrims thet landed, Till on ole Plymouth Rock they git finally stranded.

Wal, the people they listen and say, "Thet 's the ticket!

Ez for Mexico, t'aint no glory to lick it, But 't would be a darned shame to go pullin' o' triggers To extend the aree of abusin' the n.i.g.g.e.rs."

So they march in percessions, an' git up hooraws, An' tramp thru the mud fer the good o' the cause, An' think they 're kind o' fulfillin' the prophecies, Wen they 're on'y jest changin' the holders of offices; Ware A sot afore, B is comf'tably seated, One humbug 's victor'ous, an' t'other defeated.

Each honnable doughface gits jest wut he axes, An' the people--their annooal soft sodder an' taxes.

Now, to keep unimpaired all these glorious feeturs Thet characterize morril an' reasonin' creeturs, Thet give every paytriot all he can cram, Thet oust the untrustworthy Presidunt Flam, An' stick honest Presidunt Sham in his place, To the manifest gain o' the holl human race, An' to some indervidgewals on 't in partickler, Who love Public Opinion an' know how to tickle her,-- I say thet a party with great aims like these Must stick jest ez close ez a hive full o' bees.

I 'm willin' a man should go tollable strong Agin wrong in the abstract, fer that kind o' wrong Is ollers unpop'lar an' never gits pitied, Because it 's a crime no one never committed; But he mus' n't be hard on partickler sins, Coz then he 'll be kickin' the people's own shins; On'y look at the Demmercrats, see wut they 've done Jest simply by stickin' together like fun; They 've sucked us right into a mis'able war 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 mola.s.ses, An' b.u.t.ter their bread on both sides with The Ma.s.ses, Half o' whom they 've persuaded, by way of a joke, Thet Washinton's mantelpiece fell upon Polk.

Now all o' these blessins the Wigs might enjoy, Ef they 'd gumption enough the right means to imploy;[14]

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 a.s.s did to Balaam; In this way they screw into second-rate 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 const.i.toounts,"-- Wen every fool knows thet a man represents 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.

Const.i.toounts 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 That hev any consarn in 't, an' thet is the end on 't.

Now here wuz New England ahevin' the honor Of a chance at the speakership showered upon her;-- Do you say,--"She don't want no more Speakers, but fewer; She 's hed plenty o' them, wut she wants is a _doer_"?

Fer the matter o' thet, it 's notorous in 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 gettin' on prime with our hot an' cold blowin', Acondemnin' the war wilst we kep' it agoin'?

We 'd a.s.sumed 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 for infringin' our paytended 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 from 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 const.i.tootional pillers Our four fathers fetched with 'em over the billers, Them pillers the people so soundly hev slept on, Wile to slav'ry, invasion, an' debt they were swept 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 kickin' agin 'em, They wunt hev so much ez a feather left in 'em.

An', ez fer this Palfrey,[15] we thought wen we 'd gut him in, He 'd go kindly in wutever harness we put him in; Supposin' we _did_ know thet he wuz a peace man?

Does he think he can be Uncle Samwell'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 paytriots 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; Ef it aint jest the thing thet 's well pleasin' to G.o.d, It makes us thought highly on elsewhere abroad; The Rooshian black eagle looks blue in his eerie An' shakes both his heads wen he hears o' Monteery; Wile in the Tower Victory sets, all of a fl.u.s.ter, An' reads, with locked doors, how we won Cherry Buster; An' old Philip Lewis--thet come an' kep' school here Fer the mere sake o' scorin' his ryalist ruler On the tenderest part of our kings _in futuro_-- Hides his crown underneath an old shut in his bureau Breaks off in his brags to a suckle o' merry kings, How he often hed hided young native Amerrikins, An', turnin' quite faint in the midst of his fooleries, Sneaks down stairs to bolt the front door o' the Tooleries.[16]

You say,--"We 'd ha' scared 'em by growin' in peace, A plaguy sight more then by bobberies like these"?

Who is it dares say thet "our naytional eagle Wun't much longer be cla.s.sed with the birds thet air regal, Coz theirn be hooked beaks, an' she, arter this slaughter, 'll bring back a bill ten times longer 'n she ough' to"?

Wut 's your name? Come, I see ye, you up-country feller, You 've put me out severil times with your beller; Out with it! Wut? Biglow? I say nothin' furder, Thet feller would like nothin' better 'n a murder; He 's a traiter, blasphemer, an' wut ruther worse is, He put all his ath'ism in dreffle bad verses; Socity aint safe till sech monsters air out on it, Refer to the Post, ef you hev the least doubt on it; Wy, he goes agin war, agin indirect taxes, Agin sellin' wild lands 'cept to settlers with axes, Agin holdin' o' slaves, though he knows it 's the corner Our libbaty rests on, the mis'able scorner!

In short, he would wholly upset with his ravages All thet keeps us above the brute critters an' savages, An' pitch into all kinds o' briles an' confusions The holl of our civilized, free inst.i.tutions; He writes fer thet rather unsafe print, the Courier, An' likely ez not hez a squintin' to Foorier; I 'll be ----, thet is, I mean I 'll be blest, Ef I hark to a word frum so noted a pest; I shan't talk with _him_, my religion 's too fervent.-- Good mornin', my friends, I 'm your most humble servant.

[Into the question, whether the ability to express ourselves in articulate language has been productive of more good or evil, I shall not here enter at large. The two faculties of speech and of speech-making are wholly diverse in their natures. By the first we make ourselves intelligible, by the last unintelligible, to our fellows. It has not seldom occurred to me (noting how in our national legislature everything runs to talk, as lettuces, if the season or the soil be unpropitious, shoot up lankly to seed, instead of forming handsome heads) that Babel was the first Congress, the earliest mill erected for the manufacture of gabble. In these days, what with Town Meetings, School Committees, Boards (lumber) of one kind and another, Congresses, Parliaments, Diets, Indian Councils, Palavers, and the like, there is scarce a village which has not its factories of this description driven by (milk-and-) water power. I cannot conceive the confusion of tongues to have been the curse of Babel, since I esteem my ignorance of other languages as a kind of Martello-tower, in which I am safe from the furious bombardments of foreign garrulity. For this reason I have ever preferred the study of the dead languages, those primitive formations being Ararats upon whose silent peaks I sit secure and watch this new deluge without fear, though it rain figures (_simulacra_, semblances) of speech forty days and nights together, as it not uncommonly happens.

Thus is my coat, as it were, without b.u.t.tons by which any but a vernacular wild bore can seize me. Is it not possible that the Shakers may intend to convey a quiet reproof and hint, in fastening their outer garments with hooks and eyes?

This reflection concerning Babel, which I find in no Commentary, was first thrown upon my mind when an excellent deacon of my congregation (being infected with the Second Advent delusion) a.s.sured me that he had received a first instalment of the gift of tongues as a small earnest of larger possessions in the like kind to follow. For, of a truth, I could not reconcile it with my ideas of the Divine justice and mercy that the single wall which protected people of other languages from the incursions of this otherwise well-meaning propagandist should be broken down.

In reading Congressional debates, I have fancied, that, after the subsidence of those painful buzzings in the brain which result from such exercises, I detected a slender residuum of valuable information. I made the discovery that _nothing_ takes longer in the saying than anything else, for, as _ex nihilo nihil fit_, so from one polypus _nothing_ any number of similar ones may be produced. I would recommend to the attention of _viva voce_ debaters and controversialists the admirable example of the monk Copres, who, in the fourth century, stood for half an hour in the midst of a great fire, and thereby silenced a Manichaean antagonist who had less of the salamander in him. As for those who quarrel in print, I have no concern with them here, since the eyelids are a Divinely-granted shield against all such. Moreover, I have observed in many modern books that the printed portion is becoming gradually smaller, and the number of blank or fly-leaves (as they are called) greater. Should this fortunate tendency of literature continue, books will grow more valuable from year to year, and the whole Serbonian bog yield to the advances of firm arable land.

I have wondered, in the Representatives' Chamber of our own Commonwealth, to mark how little impression seemed to be produced by that emblematic fish suspended over the heads of the members. Our wiser ancestors, no doubt, hung it there as being the animal which the Pythagoreans reverenced for its silence, and which certainly in that particular does not so well merit the epithet _cold-blooded_, by which naturalists distinguish it, as certain bipeds, afflicted with ditch-water on the brain, who take occasion to tap themselves in Fanueil Halls, meeting-houses, and other places of public resort.--H. W.]

FOOTNOTES:

[13] 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 saint's name may stand sponsor for a curse). _Pereant qui ante nos nostra dixerint!_--H. W.

[14] That was a pithy saying of Persius, and fits our politicians without a wrinkle,--_Magister artis, ingeniique largitor venter._--H. W.

[15] There is truth yet in this of Juvenal,--

"Dat veniam corvis, vexat censura columbas."

[16] Jortin is willing to allow of other miracles besides those recorded in Holy Writ, and why not of other prophecies? It is granting too much to Satan to suppose him, as divers of the learned have done, the inspirer of the ancient oracles. Wiser, I esteem it, to give chance the credit of the successful ones. What is said here of Louis Philippe was verified in some of its minute particulars within a few months' time.

Enough to have made the fortune of Delphi or Ammon, and no thanks to Beelzebub neither! That of Seneca in Medea will suit here:--

"Rapida fortuna ac levis, Praecepsque regno eripuit, exsilio dedit."