PART II.

Chapter 421,778 wordsPublic domain

FANCY TITLES FOR BOOKS.

_Furnished by Thomas Hood for a blind door in the Library at Chatsworth, for his friend the Duke of Devonshire._

Percy Vere. In Forty Volumes.

Dante’s Inferno; or Descriptions of Van Demon’s Land.

Ye Devyle on Two Styx: (black letter).

Lamb’s Recollections of Suet.

Lamb on the Death of Wolfe.

Plurality of Livings: with Regard to the Common Cat.

Boyle on Steam.

Blaine on Equestrian Burglary; or the Breaking-in of Horses.

John Knox on Death’s Door.

Peel on Bell’s System.

Life of Jack Ketch, with Cuts of his own Execution.

Cursory Remarks upon Swearing.

Cook’s Specimens of the Sandwich Tongue.

Recollections of Banister. By Lord Stair.

On the Affinity of the Death-Watch and Sheep-Tick.

Malthus’ Attacks of Infantry.

McAdam’s Views of Rhodes.

The Life of Zimmermann. By Himself.

Pygmalion. By Lord Bacon.

Rules of Punctuation. By a Thoroughbred Pointer.

Chronological Account of the Date Tree.

Kosciusko on the Right of the Poles to Stick up for Themselves.

Prize Poems. In Blank Verse.

Shelley’s Conchology.

Chantry on the Sculpture of the Chipaway Indians.

The Scottish Boccaccio. By D. Cameron.

Hoyle on the Game Laws.

Johnson’s Contradictionary.

* * * * *

When Hood and his family were living at Ostend for economy’s sake, and with the same motive Mrs. Hood was doing her own work, as we phrase it, he wrote to a friend in England: “Jane is becoming an excellent cook and housemaid, and I intend to raise her wages. She had nothing a week before, and now I mean to double it.”

* * * * *

It has been estimated that of all possible or impossible ways of earning an honest livelihood, the most arduous, and at the same time the way which would secure the greatest good to the greatest number, would be to go around, cold nights, and get into bed for people! To this might be added, going around cold mornings and getting up for people; and, most useful and most onerous of all, going around among undecided people and making up their minds.

* * * * *

In these days of universal condensation--of condensed milk, condensed meats, condensed news--perhaps no achievement of that kind ought to surprise us; but it must be acknowledged that Thackeray’s condensing feat was the most extraordinary on record. To compress “The Sorrows of Werther”--that three volumed novel: a book of size--and tears, full of pathos and prettiness, of devotion and desperation--into four stanzas that tell the whole story, was a triumph of art which--which it is very possible GOETHE would admire less than we do.

Werther had a love for Charlotte Such as words can never utter. Would you know how first he met her? She was cutting bread and butter.

Charlotte was a married lady, And a moral man was Werther, And, for all the wealth of Indies, Would do nothing for to hurt her.

So he sighed, and pined, and ogled, And his passion boiled and bubbled, Till he blew his silly brains out, And no more was by it troubled.

Charlotte, when she saw his body Borne before her on a shutter, Like a well conducted person, Went on cutting bread and butter.

* * * * *

Theodore Hook was celebrated not more for his marvelous readiness in rhyming than for the quality of the rhymes themselves. In his hands the English language seemed to have no choice: plain prose appeared impossible. Motley was the only wear; fantastic verse the only method of expression. No less does he press into his service phrases from the languages, as in the curious verses which follow, in praise of

CLUBS.

If any man loves comfort and Has little cash to buy it, he Should get into a crowded club-- A most select society!

While solitude and mutton cutlets Serve _infelix uxor_, he May have his club (like Hercules), And revel there in luxury.

Here’s first the Athenæum club, So wise, there’s not a man of it That has not sense enough for six; (In fact, that is the plan of it).

The very waiters answer you With eloquence Socratical, And always lay the knives and forks In order mathematical.

The Union Club is quite superb; Its best apartment daily is The lounge of lawyers, doctors, beaux, Merchants, _cum multis aliis_.

The Travellers are in Pall Mall, And smoke cigars so cozily, And dream they climb the highest Alps, Or rove the plains of Moselai.

These are the stages which all men Propose to play their parts upon; For _clubs_ are what the Londoners Have clearly set their _hearts_ upon.

OTHER WORLDS.

_Mr. Mortimer Collins indulges in sundry very odd speculations concerning them._

Other worlds! Those planets evermore In their golden orbits swiftly glide on; From quick Hermes by the solar shore, To remote Poseidon.

Are they like this world? The glory shed From the ruddy dawn’s unfading portals? Does it fall on regions tenanted By a race of mortals?

Are there merry maidens, wicked-eyed, Peeping slyly through the cottage lattice? Have they vintage bearing countries wide? Have they oyster patties?

Does a mighty ocean roar and break On dark rocks and sandy shores fantastic? Have they any Darwins there, to make Theories elastic?

Does their weather change? November fog, Weeping April, March with many a raw gust? And do thunder and demented dog Come to them in August?

Nineteenth century science should unravel All these queries, but has somehow missed ’em. When will it be possible to travel Through the solar system?

STILTS.

Behold the mansion reared by dædal Jack, See the malt stored in many a plethoric sack, In the proud cirque of Ivan’s bivouac. Mark how the Rat’s felonious fangs invade The golden stores in John’s pavilion laid. Anon, with velvet foot and Tarquin strides, Subtle Grimalkin to his quarry glides-- Grimalkin grim, that slew the fierce _rodent_, Whose tooth insidious Johann’s sackcloth rent. Lo! now the deep mouthed canine foe’s assault, That vexed the avenger of the stolen malt, Stored in the hallowed precincts of the hall, That rose complete at Jack’s creative call. Here stalks the impetuous Cow with crumpled horn, Whereon the exacerbating hound was torn, Who bayed the feline slaughter beast that slew The Rat predacious, whose keen fangs ran through The textile fibres that involved the grain, That lay in Hans’ inviolate domain. Here walks forlorn the Damsel crowned with rue, Lactiferous spoils from vaccine dugs who drew, Of that corniculate beast whose tortuous horn Tossed to the clouds, in fierce, vindictive scorn, The harrying hound whose braggart bark and stir Arched the lithe spine and reared the indignant fur Of Puss, that with verminicidal claw, Struck the weird Rat, in whose insatiate maw Lay reeking malt, that erst in Ivan’s courts we saw. Robed in senescent garb that seems, in sooth, Too long a prey to Chronos’ iron tooth; Behold the man whose amorous lips incline, Full with young Eros’ osculative sign, To the lorn maiden, whose lac-albic hands Drew albu-lactic wealth from lacteal glands Of the immortal bovine, by whose horn Distort, to realm ethereal was borne The beast catulean, vexer of that sly Ulysses quadrupedal, who made die The old mordacious Rat, that dared devour Antecedaneous ale, in John’s domestic bower. Lo here, with hirsute honors doffed, succinct Of saponaceous lock, the Priest, who linked In Hymen’s golden bands the torn unthrift, Whose means exiguous stared from many a rift, Even as he kissed the virgin all forlorn, Who milked the cow with implicated horn, Who in fine wrath the canine torturer skied, That dared to vex the insidious muricide, Who let the auroral effluence through the pelt Of the sly Rat that robbed the palace Jack had built. The loud, cantankerous Shanghai comes at last, Whose shouts aroused the shorn ecclesiast, Who sealed the vows of Hymen’s sacrament, To him who robed in garments indigent, Exosculates the damsel lachrymose, The emulgator of that hornèd brute morose, That tossed the dog, that worried the cat, that _kilt_ The rat, that ate the malt, that lay in the house that Jack built.

* * * * *

The _Home Journal_ having published a set of rather finical rules for the conduct of equestrians in Central Park, a writer in _Vanity Fair_ supplemented and satirized them as follows:

ETIQUETTE OF EQUITATION.

When a gentleman is to accompany a lady on horseback,

1st. There must be two horses. (Pillions are out of fashion, except in some parts of Wales, Australia and New Jersey.)

2d. One horse must have a side saddle. The gentleman will not mount this horse. By bearing this rule in mind he will soon find no difficulty in recognizing his own steed.

3d. The gentleman will assist the lady to mount and adjust her foot in the stirrup. There being but one stirrup, he will learn upon which side to assist the lady after very little practice.

4th. He will then mount himself. As there are two stirrups to his saddle, he may mount on either side, but by no means on both; at least, not at the same time. The former is generally considered the most graceful method of mounting. If he has known Mr. Rarey he may mount without the aid of stirrups. If not, he may try, but will probably fail.

5th. The gentleman should always ride on the right side of the lady. According to some authorities, the right side is the left. According to others, the other is the right. If the gentleman is left handed, this will of course make a difference. Should he be ambidexter, it will be indifferent.

6th. If the gentleman and lady meet persons on the road, these will probably be strangers, that is if they are not acquaintances. In either case the gentleman and lady must govern themselves accordingly. Perhaps the latter is the evidence of highest breeding.

7th. If they be going in different directions, they will not be expected to ride in company, nor must these request those to turn and join the others; and _vice versa_. This is indecorous, and indicates a lack of _savoir faire_.

8th. If the gentleman’s horse throw him he must not expect him to pick him up, nor the lady; but otherwise the lady may. This is important to be borne in mind by both.

9th. On their return, the gentleman will dismount first and assist the lady from her horse, but he must not expect the same courtesy in return.

N. B.--These rules apply equally to every species of equitation, as pony riding, donkey riding, rocking horse riding, or “riding on a rail.” There will, of course, be modifications required, according to the form and style of the animal.

SONG OF THE RECENT REBELLION.

AIR: “_Lord Lovell_.”

Lord Lovell he sat in St. Charles’ Hotel, In St. Charles’ Hotel sat he; As fine a case of a rebel swell, As ever you’d wish to see, see, see, As ever you’d wish to see!

Lord Lovell the town had sworn to defend, A-waving his sword on high; He swore that the last ounce of powder he’d spend, And in the last ditch he would die, die, die, And in the last ditch he would die.

He swore by black and he swore by blue, He swore by the stars and bars, That never he’d fly from a Yankee crew While he was a son of Mars, Mars, Mars, While he was a son of Mars.

He had fifty thousand gal-li-ant men, Fifty thousand men had he, Who had all sworn with him they would never surren- Der to any tarnation Yankee, kee, kee, To any tarnation Yankee.

Sir Farragut came with a mighty fleet; With a mighty fleet came he; And Lord Lovell instanter began to retreat, Before the first boat he could see, see, see, Before the first boat he could see.

His “fifty thousand gal-li-ant men” Dwindled down to thousands six, Who heard a distant cannon, and then, Commenced a-cutting their sticks, sticks, sticks-- Commenced a-cutting their sticks.

“Oh, tarry, Lord Lovell!” Sir Farragut cried; “Oh, tarry, Lord Lovell!” cried he; “I rather think not,” Lord Lovell replied, “For I’m in a great hurree, ree, ree, For I’m in a great hurr_ee_!

“I like the drinks at St. Charles’ Hotel, But I never could bear strong Porter, Especially when it is served in a shell, Or mixed in an iron mortar!”

“I reckon you’re right,” Sir Farragut said, “I reckon you’re right,” said he; “For if my PORTER should fly to your head, A terrible crash there’d be, be, be, A terrible crash there’d be!”

Oh, a wonder it was to see them run! A wonderful thing to see-- And the Yankees sailed up without shooting a gun, And captured their great citee, tee, tee, And captured their great citee.

Lord Lovell kept running all day and all night, Lord Lovell a-running kept he, For he swore that he couldn’t abide the sight Of the gun of a live Yankee, kee, kee, Of the gun of a live Yankee.

When Lord Lovell’s life was brought to a close By a sharp-shooting Yankee gunner, From his head there sprouted a red, red--nose, From his feet a scarlet runner!

OTHER PARODIES.

“_Come into the garden, Maud!_”

Come out in the garden, Jane, For the black bear, night, has run, Come out in the garden, Jane, It’s time the party was done; And the chickens commence to cackle again, And the cocks crow, one by one.

For a breeze begins to blow, And the planet of Jupiter, he, Grows shaky and pale, as the dawn, you know, Comes striding over the sea; Grows pale, as the dawn keeps coming, you know, Grows paler and paler to be.

All night have the tulips shaked, At the noise of the fiddle and drum, All night has the trumpet-vine quivered and quaked, As the sounds of the dancing have come; Till the chickens and cocks in the hen-roost waked, And they stopped the fiddle and drum.

I said to the tulip, “It’s I,” says I, Whom she likes best of them all; “When will they let her alone?” says I, “She’s tired I know of the ball. Now part of the folks have said good-bye, And part are now in the hall; They’ll all be off directly,” says I, “And then I’m over the wall.”

I said to the pink, “Nigh over, I think, The dancing and glancing and fun: O young Lloyd Lever, your hopes will sink When you find the charmer is won! We’re one, we’re one,” I remarked to the pink, “In spirit already one.”

And the red of the pink went into my face, As I thought of your sweet “I will;” And long I stood in that slippery place, For I heard our waterfall spill, Spill over the rocks and run on in the race, The mill-race down by the mill, From the tree where I feebly stated my case, To the fence where you answered “I will.”

The drowsy buttercup went to bed Nor left a lock of her hair; The great sunflower he nodded his head And the poppy snored in his chair; But the pink wasn’t sleepy at all, she said, Wishing my pleasure to share, No tulip or pink of them cared for bed, They knew I expected you there.

Queen pink of the feminine pinks in there, Come out in the garden to me, In the velvet basque, silk-lined you wear, Queen pink and tulip you be: Bob out little face, running over with hair, And let the hollyhocks see.

Is that the marigold’s laugh I hear, Or the sound of her foot as ’t fell? She is coming, my duck, my dear; She is coming, my bird, my belle. The blood-pink cries; “She is near, she is near,” And the pale pink sobs: “Do tell!” The snap-dragon says: “D’you see her? D’you see her?” And the tulip, “Yes, there by the well!”

She is coming, my joy, my pet, Let her trip it, soft as she chose, My pulses would livelier get Were I dying there under the rose; My blood flow rapider yet Were I buried down under the rose, Would start and trickle out ruby and wet And bubble wherever she goes.

CLEON HATH A MILLION ACRES.

Brown has pockets running over, Ne’er a dime have I; Brown he has a wife and children, Bachelor am I; Brown he has a dozen servants, One of ’em am I; Yet the poorest of us couple ’s Brown; I’ll tell you why.

Brown, ’tis true, possesseth dollars, All creation I; And the income that it gives me Lieth in my eye.

Brown he is a sleepy fellow, Wide-awake am I; He in broad-cloth, I in tow-cloth, Handsomest am I.

Brown has had no education; Mine you couldn’t buy; He don’t know we call him “noodle,” I assert it, I; Brown, I tell you you’re a noodle, Noodle you will die; Who speaks first to change conditions? --I declare--it’s I!

“WHEN I THINK OF MY BELOVED.”

(_Algonquin Song, in “Hiawatha.”_)

When I think of him I love so, Oh lor! think of him I love so, When I am a-thinking of him-- Ouch! my sweetheart, my Bee-no-nee!

Oh lor! when we left each other He presented me a thimble-- As a pledge, a silver thimble, Ouch! my sweetheart, my Bee-no-nee!

“I’ll go ’long with you,” he whispered, Oh lor! to the place you come from; “Let me go along,” he whispered,-- Ouch! my sweetheart, my Bee-no-nee!

“It’s awful fur, full fur,” I answered, “Fur away it is,” I answered, “Oh lor! yes, the place I come from--” Ouch! my sweetheart, my Bee-no-nee!

As I looked ’round for to see him, Where I left him for to see him, He was looking for to see me-- Ouch! my sweetheart, my Bee-no-nee!

On the log he was a-sitting, On the hollow log a-sitting, That was chopped down by somebody-- Ouch! my sweetheart, my Bee-no-nee!

When I think of him I love so, Oh lor! think of him I love so, When I am a-thinking of him-- Ouch! my sweetheart, my Bee-no-nee! (_From “Milkanwatha.”_)

“NEVER STOOPS THE SOARING VULTURE.”

(_Also from “Milkanwatha.”_)

Never jumps a sheep that’s frightened, Over any fence whatever, Over wall, or fence, or timber, But a second follows after, And a third, upon the second, And a fourth, and fifth, and so on, First a sheep, and then a dozen, Till they all, in quick succession, One by one have got clean over.

So misfortunes almost always, Follow after one another, Seem to watch each other always; When they see the tail uplifted, In the air the tail uplifted, As the sorrow leapeth over; Lo! they follow, thicker, faster, Till the air of earth seems darkened With the tails of sad misfortunes, Till our heart within us, weary, Cry out: “Are there more a-coming?”

THE FALLS OF LODORE.

“Rising and leaping, sinking and creeping, Striking and raging, as if a war waging, All around and around, with endless rebound, Confounding, astounding, Dizzying and deafening the ear with its sound!

“Recoiling, turmoiling, and toiling and boiling, And dashing, and flashing, and splashing and crashing, All at once, and all o’er, with a mighty uproar; And THIS way the water comes down at Lodore!”

A disappointed, “disillusioned,” tourist expresses below _his_ view of the subject, which slightly differs from Southey’s.

Do you want to be told how it is that the water Comes down at Lodore? Why then I’m the man Of all others, that can, Or, rather, the man of all others, that _ought_ to Be able to tell you, without any more Fuss; Thus!

Behind a small cavern, Suppose a dark cavern, Or ravine, more correctly, From whose summit directly As from a stone pitcher, Out of the which, a Volume of fluid Enough for a Druid To wade to his knees in, Pours out unceasin’- Gly down, and not up; Which would be a sup- Position so very To nature contrary, That it couldn’t be thought a Supposable case, For a cascade of water On any man’s place; Much more, at Lodore, Where the water has always come down, heretofore. Down deep precipices, And awful abysses, Ten feet, or fifteen, The water is seen To drip, skip, trip, slip, dip

A gill in a minute, in great agitation; Then goes it again, With a very perpen- Dicular smash, dash, splash, crash; A pint, at the least calculation! Making no bones Of wetting the stones, Which can’t get out, But wriggle about, A whole quart of the cascade has got ’em; And the way they go Down, isn’t slow; Rumble, and jumble, and tumble; Hip, hop, drop, whop, stop! A gallon has got to the bottom!

And the moral of that is, said the Duchess, that tourists shouldn’t see NIAGARA before they visit Lodore.

“TELL ME, YE WINGED WINDS.”

Tell me, my secret soul, Oh, tell me, Hope and Faith, Is there no resting-place From women, girls, and death? Is there no happy spot Where bachelors are blessed, Where females never go, And men escape that pest? Faith, Hope, and Love, best boon to mortals given, Waved their bright wings, and whispered, “Yes, in Heaven!”

SEEING IS BELIEVING: SEEING IS DECEIVING.

Here is a row of capital letters, and of figures, of ordinary size and shapes:

SSSSXXXXZZZZZ33338888

They are such as are made up of two parts, of similar form. Look carefully at these, and you will perceive that the upper halves of the characters are a very little smaller than the lower halves--so little that, at a mere glance, we should declare them to be of equal size. Now, turn the page upside down, and, without any careful looking, you will see that this difference in size is very much exaggerated--that the real top half of the letter is very much smaller than the other half. It will be seen by this that there is a tendency in the eye to enlarge the upper part of any object upon which it looks. Thus two circles of unequal size might be drawn and so placed that they would appear exactly alike.

FANTASTIC NAMES.

An Ohio lady told me that she knew three young ladies belonging to one family, named severally:

_Regina_, _Florida Geneva_, and _Missouri Iowa_. And that an ill-starred child, born about the time of the first Atlantic cable _furor_, was threatened with the name of _Atalanta Telegrapha Cabelletta_!

The cable collapsed, and the child escaped; but a young lady of Columbus, born January 1, 1863, was less fortunate. She was named by her parents in honor of the event of that day, _Emancipation Proclamation_, and is known by the pet name “Proklio.”

I knew a boy named _Chief Justice Marshall_; a young man, (greatness was thrust upon him,) named _Commodore Perry V----r_, and have been told of a little girl named by her novel-loving mother, _Lady Helen Mar_.

Mrs. C., of Western New York, was, in her girlhood, acquainted with a boy who by no means “rejoiced in the name” of _John Jerome Jeremiah Ansegus P. S. Brown McB----e_.

A colored woman in Dunkirk named her infant son in honor of two lawyers there: _Thomas P. Grosvenor William O. Stevens D----s_; and, at an Industrial school in Detroit, there was some years ago a colored boy named _Nicholas Evans Esquire Providence United States of America Jefferson Davis B----s_.

In Cazenovia there once lived a young lady named _Encyclopedia Britannica D----y_.

There, too, Messrs. _Hyde_ and _Coop_ lived side by side for several years. Then Mr. _Hyde_ moved out of town, and spoiled that little game.

It was noted as a coincidence when a Mr. _Conkrite_, of Tecumseh, Mich., sold his dwelling-house and lot to Mrs. _Cronkite_.

A farmer in Allegany county, N. Y., named his children _Wilhelmina Rosalinda_, _Sobriski Lowanda_, _Eugertha Emily_, _Hiram Orlaska_, _Monterey Maria_ and _Delwin Dacosti_. The following are also vouched for as genuine American names: _Direxa Polyxany Dodge_, _Hostalina Hypermnestra Meacham_, _Keren Habuch Moore_ and _Missouri Arkansas Ward_.

There lived in Greenfield, N. Y., a certain Captain _Parasol_; and, at Niagara Falls, for a time, a Methodist minister named _Alabaster_.

I have lately heard of a Mrs. _Achilles_, a Mr. and Mrs. _December_, a _John January_, and a Mr. _Greengrass_; and of an Indiana girl, at school in Cincinnati, named _Laura Eusebia Debutts Miranda M’Kinn Parron Isabella Isadora Virginia Lucretia A----p_.

In 1874 one of the young ladies at a certain convent school in West Virginia, was Miss _Claudia Deburnabue Bellinger Mary Joseph N----p_.

The following are names of stations on the “E. and N. A. Railway,” New Brunswick: _Quispamsis_, _Nanwigewank_, _Ossekeag_, _Passekeag_, _Apohaqui_, _Plumweseep_, _Penobsquis_, _Anagance_, _Petitcodiac_, _Shediac_, _Point du Chene_; and we should particularly like to hear a conductor sing them.

LADIES’ NAMES.

_Their Sound._

There is a strange deformity, Combined with countless graces, As often in the ladies’ names As in the ladies’ faces. Some names are fit for every age, Some only fit for youth; Some passing sweet and musical, Some horribly uncouth; Some fit for dames of loftiest grades, Some only fit for scullery maids.

Ann is too plain and common, And Nancy sounds but ill; Yet Anna is endurable, And Annie better still. There is a grace in Charlotte, In Eleanor a state, An elegance in Isabelle, A haughtiness in Kate: And Sara is sedate and neat, And Ellen innocent and sweet.

Matilda has a sickly sound, Fit for a nurse’s trade; Sophia is effeminate, And Esther sage and staid; Elizabeth’s a matchless name, Fit for a queen to wear-- In castle, cottage, hut or hall, A name beyond compare: And Bess and Bessie follow well, But Betsy is detestable.

Maria is too forward, And Gertrude is too gruff, Yet, coupled with a pretty face, Is pretty name enough: And Adelaide is fanciful, And Laura is too fine,

But Emily is beautiful, And Mary is divine; Maud only suits a high-born dame, And Fanny is a baby name.

Eliza is not very choice, Jane is too blunt and bold, And Martha somewhat sorrowful, And Lucy proud and cold. Amelia is too light and gay, Fit only for a flirt, And Caroline is vain and shy, And Flora smart and pert; Louisa is too soft and sleek-- But Alice, gentle, chaste and meek.

And Harriet is confiding, And Clara grave and mild, And Emma is affectionate, And Janet arch and wild; And Patience is expressive, And Grace is old and rare, And Hannah, kind and dutiful, And Margaret, frank and fair; And Faith, and Hope, and Charity Are heavenly names for sisters three.

LADIES’ NAMES.

THEIR SIGNIFICANCE.

Frances is frank and free; Bertha is purely bright; Clara is illustrious; Cecilia, dim of sight. Katharine is pure; Barbara, from afar; Mabel is lovable; Lucy is a morning star.

Wisdom is Sophia’s name; Happiness, Letitia’s; Adelaide a princess is; Beatrice, delicious.[2] Susan is a lily; Julia has soft hair; Sara is a lady; Rosalind, as roses fair.

Constance, firm and resolute; Grace is favor meet; Emily has energy; Melicent is honey-sweet. Elizabeth and Isabel To GOD are consecrate; Edith is happiness; Maud has courage great.

Mary or Maria, Star of the sea; Margaret, a pearl; Agnes, chastity. Agatha is truly kind; Eleanor is light; Esther is good fortune; Elvira’s soul is white.

Antoinette, Anne, Anna, Grace and favor rare; Geraldine and Bridget, Strong beyond compare. Noble is Eugenia; Flora, queen of flowers; Virginia is purity; Let her grace be ours!

GEOGRAPHICAL PROPRIETY.

The Brewers should to Malta go, The dullards all to Scilly, The Quakers to the Friendly Isles, The Furriers to Chili. Spinsters should to the Needles go; Wine-bibbers to Burgundy; Gourmands may lunch at Sandwich Isles, Wits sail to Bay of Fundy.

Cooks, from Spithead, should go to Greece; And, while the Miser waits His passage to the Guinea Coast, Spendthrifts are in the Straits. The Babies (bless their little hearts!) That break our nightly rest, Might be sent off to Babylon, To Lapland, or to Brest.

Musicians hasten to the Sound; Itinerants to Rome; And let the race of hypocrites At Canton find their home. Lovers should fly to Cape Good Hope, Or castles build in Spain; Debtors should go to Oh-I-Owe; Our Sailors to the Maine.

Bold Bachelors to the United States; Maids to the Isle of Man; The Gardener should to Botany go; And Shoeblacks to Japan. This all arranged, and misplaced men Would then no longer vex us; While any not provided for Could go, at once, to Texas!

THE CAPTURE.

When, in the tenth century, the Tartars, led by their ruthless chief, invaded Hungary, and drove its king from the disastrous battle-field, despair seized upon all the inhabitants of the land. Many had fallen in conflict, many more were butchered by the pitiless foe, some sought escape, others apathetically awaited their fate. Among the last was a nobleman who lived retired on his property, distant from every public road. He possessed fine herds, rich corn fields, and a well stocked house, built but recently for the reception of his wife, who now for two years had been its mistress.

Disheartening accounts of the general misfortune had reached his secluded shelter, and its peaceful lord was horror-stricken. He trembled at every sound, at every step; he found his meals less savory; his sleep was troubled; he often sighed, and seemed quite lost and wretched. Thus anxiously anticipating the troubles which menaced him, he sat, one day, at his well closed window, when suddenly a Tartar, mounted on a fiery steed, galloped into the court. The Hungarian sprang from his seat, ran to meet his guest, and said:

“Tartar, thou art my lord; I am thy servant; all thou seest is thine. Take what thou fanciest; I do not oppose thy power. Command; thy servant obeys.”

The Tartar immediately leaped from his horse, entered the house, and cast a careless glance on all the precious adornments it contained. His eyes rested upon the brilliant beauty of the lady of the house, who appeared, tastefully attired, to greet him there, no less graciously than her consort.

The Tartar seized her, with scarcely a moment’s hesitation, and, unheedful of her shrieks, swung himself upon the saddle, and spurred away, carrying off his lovely booty.

All this was but an instant’s work. The nobleman was thunderstruck, yet he recovered, and hastened to the gate. He could hardly distinguish, in the distance, the figures of the lady and her relentless captor. At length a deep sigh burst from his overcharged heart, and he exclaimed in the bitterness of his bereavement:

“Alas! poor Tartar!”

* * * * *

Matrimony has been defined An insane desire on the part of a young man to pay a young woman’s board. But it might be said, with equal justice, to be An insane desire on the part of a young woman, to secure--a master.

* * * * *

THE FIRST MARRIAGE.--And Adam said: “This is now bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother and cleave unto his wife. They shall be one flesh.”

No cards.

* * * * *

In a country church-yard is found this epitaph: “Here lie the bodies of James Robinson and Ruth his wife;” and, underneath, this text: “Their warfare is accomplished.”

* * * * *

A lady having died unmarried at the age of sixty-five, the following epitaph was engraved upon her tombstone:

“She was fearfully and wonderfully maid.”

* * * * *

“This animal,” said a menagerie-man, “is exceedingly timid and retired in its habits. It is seldom seen by the human eye--sometimes never!”

* * * * *

If it was Talleyrand who described language as a gift bestowed upon man in order to enable him to conceal his thoughts, he scarcely made that use of it, when, in reply to some friend who asked his opinion of a certain lady, he said: “She has but one fault--she is insufferable!”

* * * * *

“What do you want?” demanded an irate house-holder, called to the window at eleven o’clock, by the ringing of the door-bell:

“Want to stay here all night.”

“Stay there, then!” Window closed emphatically.

* * * * *

“I want to go to the Revere,” said a stranger in Boston to a citizen on the street.

“Well, you may go, if you’ll come back pretty soon,” was the satisfactory reply.

* * * * *

“I wish to take you apart for a few moments,” one gentleman said to another in a mixed company.

“Very well,” said the person addressed, rising and preparing to follow the first speaker; “but I shall insist on being put together again!”

* * * * *

Two gentlemen meeting at the door of a street-car in Toledo, and entering together, both faultlessly dressed for the evening, one of them, glancing at his companion’s attire, asked briskly: “Well! who is to be bored to-night?” “I don’t know,” said the other, _as_ briskly, “Where are you going?”

* * * * *

This is the way it sounded to the congregation:

“Wawkaw swaw daw aw waw, Thaw saw thaw Law ahwaw, Wawkaw taw thaw rahvawvaw braw Aw thaw rahjawsaw aw!”

this is what the choir undertook to sing:

“Welcome sweet day of rest, That saw the Lord arise! Welcome to this reviving breast, And these rejoicing eyes!”

* * * * *

Mary Wortley Montague was epigrammatic when she divided mankind into “three classes--men, women, and the Hervey family”; an English writer of the present century, when he summed up Harriet Martineau’s creed, in a travesty on the Mohammedan confession of faith, “There is no God, and Harriet is his prophet;” an English critic, who described Forster’s Life of Charles Dickens as a “Biography of John Forster, with Reminiscences of Dickens”; an American, who said of one of his own noted countrymen (and it is equally true of many others), “He is a self-made man, and he worships his Creator;” finally, President Grant, when he exclaimed: “Sumner does not believe the Bible! I am not surprised; he didn’t write it!”

* * * * *

Charles Francis Adams, in his eloquent eulogy on W. H. Seward, lapses into a mixed metaphor which is, perhaps, all things considered, one of the most remarkable on record. “One single hour,” he says, “of the will displayed by General Jackson, at the time when Mr. Calhoun--the most powerful leader secession ever had--was abetting active measures, would have _stifled the fire in its cradle_.”

This is scarcely excelled even by Sir Roche Boyle’s celebrated trope: “I smell a rat. I see him floating in the air. But, mark me, I shall nip him in the bud!”

* * * * *

M. B. was planning plank walks from the front doors of his Ellicottville cottage to the gate, wishing to combine greatest convenience with least possible encroachment upon the verdure of the modest lawn. “Friends in council,” assisting at his deliberations, took diverse views of the case. One would have the walks meet obliquely in the form of a Y. Another insisted that whatever angles there were, should be right angles, etc. Finally, M. B. remarked: “Well! we don’t seem to agree. No two of us agree. I think I’ll plank the yard all over, and, where I _want_ the grass to grow BORE HOLES!”

* * * * *

Readers who admire the elliptical and suggestive style, and who, therefore, adore Mrs. R. H. D. and Mrs. A. D. T. W., ought to be pleased with the instructions given by a Philadelphian million-heiress to her agent, in this wise, (_audivi_):

“Where the men are at work, they will throw stones and earth and timbers against that tree, and there is no use in it. By a little care they could avoid it, but they won’t _be_ careful. So I’d like you, as soon as possible, to put a protection around it--_because it isn’t necessary_.”

... “No, you needn’t drive her out of the grounds. Cows are not allowed to run in the street, and the owner is liable for trespass if they do. Shut her up in the yard, and if the owner don’t come for her to-morrow--Pound her--_because there is a law against it_.”

* * * * *

“Aha!” said a Hibernian gentleman, surprised at his neighbor’s unusual promptness; “Aha! So you’re first, at last! you were always behind before!”

Another Emerald Islander, speaking at his breakfast table of the difference between travel by steam and the old mode, thus illustrated the point: “Afore the rail-road was built, if ye left Elmira at noon, and drove purty fast, ye might likely get to Corning to tea. But to-day, if ye were to start from Elmira at noon on an Express train for Corning, why, ye’re there _Now_!”

* * * * *

Caledonian shrewdness and the Caledonian dialect, alike speak for themselves, in a “bonny Scot’s” definition of metaphysics: “When the mon wha is listenin’, dinna ken what the ither is talkin’ aboot, and the mon wha is talkin’ dinna ken it himsel’, that is metapheesicks.”

* * * * *

“Be what you would seem to be,” said the Duchess, in Lewis Carroll’s delightfully droll story of “Alice’s Adventures,”--“or, if you like it put more simply: Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others, that what you were or might have been, was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise.”

That is slightly metapheesickal, perhaps; and the same objection might be urged against Dr. Hunter’s favorite motto: “It is pretty impossible, and, therefore, extremely difficult for us to convey unto others those ideas whereof we are not possessed of ourselves.”

It was Dr. Hunter, who, some years before the war, returned from Florida, where he had spent the winter in a vain quest of health, and exhibited to one of his friends a thermometer he had procured there, marked from 120° only down to zero.

“It was manufactured at the South, I suppose?” she said.

“Oh, no!” was his reply: “It was made in Boston. It’s a Northern thermometer, with Southern principles.”

* * * * *

Colonel Bingham, of brave and witty memory, had resigned his commission in the Union army, and come home to die. During his lingering illness, the family received a visit from a distant relative, a Carolina lady, with strong secession proclivities, but with sufficient tact not to express them freely before her Northern friends. However, she could not altogether conceal them, but would often express her sympathy for “the soldiers, on both sides”--wish she could distribute the fruit of the peach-orchard among them, “on both sides,” &c.

One day when the Colonel was suffering, with his usual fortitude, one of his severest paroxysms of pain, the lady looked in at the door of his room, and, after watching him a few moments with an expression of the keenest commiseration, she turned away. Just as soon as he could breathe again, he gasped out:

“Cousin--Sallie--looked--as if--she was--sorry for me--on both sides!”

* * * * *

A young lady who had married and come north to live, visited, after the lapse of a year or two, her southern home. It was in the palmy days of the peculiar institution, and she was as warmly welcomed by the colored as by the white members of the household. Just before her arrival, a bottle of medicine with a strong odor of Bourbon had been uncorked, and, afterward, set away. After the first greetings were over, she exclaimed:

“I smell spirits. What have you been doing?”

Old Aunt Chloe, who had lingered in the room so as to be near the beloved new-comer, turned with an air of triumph to her mistress, who had often rebuked her belief in ghosts, and burst out with:

“Dar, Missus! Didn’t I allus tole yo dere was sperits in dis yere house? Sometimes I see ’em, sometimes I hear ’em, an’ yo wood’n b’lieve me; but now, Miss Lizzie’s done gone SMELL ’em!”

* * * * *

The first chapter of a Western novel is said to contain the following striking passage:

All of a sudden the fair girl continued to sit on the sands, gazing upon the briny deep, upon whose bosom the tall ships went merrily by, freighted, ah! who can tell with how much joy and sorrow, and pine lumber, and emigrants, and hopes and salt fish!

* * * * *

“The story,” said our host, with his inexhaustible humor and irresistible brogue, “is of a man who died, and forthwith presented himself at Heaven’s gate, requesting admittance.

‘Have ye bin to Purgatory, my mon?’ says St. Peter.

‘No, yer Riverence.’

‘Thin it’s no good. Ye’ll have to wait awhile.’

While the unlucky ‘Peri’ was slowly withdrawing, another candidate approached, and the same question was asked him.

‘No, yer Riverence, but I’ve been married.’

‘Well, that’s all the same,’ says St. Peter; ‘Come in!’

At this, the first arrival taking heart of grace, advanced again, and says he:

‘Plaze yer Riverence, I’ve been married twice!’

‘Away wid ye! Away wid ye!’ says St. Peter: ‘Heaven is no place for fools!’”

* * * * *

When, some years since, a coalition was talked of between the New York _World_, the _Times_, and the _Herald_, the _Tribune_ remarked that, after all, it would be nothing new; it was only the old story of “the world, the flesh, and the devil.”

* * * * *

In 1871, when the French President was undecided and inactive, in the face of all the frightful dangers that threatened the nation, some wit quoted at him the well known verse from Tennyson:

“Thiers! Idle Thiers! We know not what you mean!”

* * * * *

In ’73 a print was widely circulated in Germany, representing Bismarck pulling away at a rope which was fastened to the massive pillars of a Cathedral. At his side stood His Satanic Majesty, who thus questioned him:

“Well, my friend, what are you doing?”

“Trying to pull down the Church.”

“Trying to pull down the Church? And how long do you think it will take you?”

“Oh, perhaps three or four years.”

“Very good, my friend, very good! I have been trying that for the last eighteen hundred years; and, if you succeed in three or four, I’ll resign in your favor!”

* * * * *

When a certain United States Senator disappointed his Ohio constituents by voting on what they thought the wrong side of a question, some one (who must have enjoyed his opportunity) hit him with the following quotation: “He’s Ben Wade, and found wanting.”

* * * * *

“John P. Hale is an old goose!” exclaimed General Cass. Some friend was kind enough to repeat this saying to the Senator; who replied with a smile, (and, surely this was the “retort courteous,”) “Tell General Cass that he’s a Michi-gander!”

* * * * *

At a public dinner in Boston, nearly twenty years ago, Judge Story proposed as a toast: “The Orator of the Day: Fame follows merit wherEVER IT goes!” To which Mr. Everett responded: “The President of the Day: To whatever height the fabric of jurisprudence may aspire in this country, it can never rise above one Story!”

* * * * *

A newspaper wit announces the discovery of a buried city in the following pathetic terms: Another lost city has been found on the coast of Siberia. Now let the man who lost it make his appearance, pay for this advertisement, and take his old ruins away.

* * * * *

It has been said that the faculty of generalization belongs equally to childhood and to genius. Was she a genius, clad in sable robes, and bewailing the recent loss of her husband--she was certainly not a child--who observed in conversation, with most impressive pathos: “For we are all liable to become a widow!”

CHARACTERISTIC SAYINGS OF AMERICANS.

Franklin said many things that have passed into maxims, but nothing that is better known and remembered than “He paid dear, very dear, for his whistle.”

Washington made but very few epigrammatic speeches. Here is one: “To be prepared for war is the most effectual means of preserving peace.”

Did you ever hear of old John Dickinson? Well, he wrote of Americans in 1768: “By uniting we stand, by dividing we fall.”

Patrick Henry, as every school-boy knows, gave us, “Give me liberty, or give me death,” and “If this be treason, make the most of it.”

Thomas Paine had many quotable epigrammatic sentences: “Rose like a rocket; fell like a stick;” “Times that try men’s souls;” “One step from the sublime to the ridiculous,” etc., etc.

Jefferson’s writings are so besprinkled that it is difficult to select. In despair we jump at “Few die and none resign,” certainly as applicable to office-holders now as in Jefferson’s time.

Henry Lee gave Washington his immortal title, “First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.”

Charles Cotesworth Pinckney declared in favor of “Millions for defence, but not one cent for tribute.”

“Peaceably if we can; forcibly if we must,” is from Josiah Quincy, 1841.

John Adams did not say, “Live or die, survive or perish, I am for the constitution,” but Daniel Webster said it for him.

The revolutionary age alone would give us our article, had we time to gather pearls. Coming down, we pass greater, but not more famous men.

Davy Crockett was the illustrious author of “Be sure you are right, and then go ahead.”

Andrew Jackson gave us “The Union--it must be preserved.”

Benton almost lost his original identity in “Old Bullion,” from his “hard money” doctrines.

Governor Throop, of New York, was called “Small Light Troop” for years, from a phrase in a thanksgiving proclamation.

Scott’s “hasty plate of soup” lasted his lifetime.

Taylor’s battle order, “A little more grape, Captain Bragg,” will be quoted after he is forgotten by “all the world and the rest of mankind.”

Seward is known for the “irrepressible conflict,” wherever the English language is spoken.

To Washington Irving we owe “The Almighty Dollar.”

Rufas Choate gave us “glittering generalities.”

Tom Corwin’s “welcome with bloody hands to hospitable graves,” gave him more unenviable criticism than any other saying in his life.

Calhoun gave us “state rights” as a most pernicious and absurd equivalent for national supremacy under the constitution.

Douglas applied “squatter sovereignty,” though it is probable that Cass invented it and Calhoun named it.

Stringfellow was the original “Border Ruffian.”

War times gave us no end of epigrammatic utterances. Those of Lincoln alone would fill a volume--chief of these, is that noble sentiment: “With charity to all, and malice toward none.”

McClellan’s “All quiet along the Potomac” was repeated so often that its echo will “ring down through the ages.”

To Gen. Butler the country was indebted for the phrase “Contraband of War,” as applied to fugitive negroes found within our lines.

Grant gave us “Fight it out on this line,” “Unconditional surrender,” “I propose to move immediately upon your works,” “Bottled up,” and a hundred others. It seems to have escaped notice that Grant is responsible for more of these characterizing, elementary crystallizations of thought, than any other military leader of modern times.

One odd example occurs, in his response to Gen. Sheridan’s telegram: “If things are pushed, Lee will surrender.” “Push things!” was the reply, and that has passed into a proverb.

DIALECTICAL.

The peculiarities of the Yankee dialect are most amusingly exemplified by James Russell Lowell, in the Biglow Papers, especially in the First Series, from which the following extract is taken:

I ’spose you wonder where I be; I can’t tell fur the soul o’ me Exactly where I be myself, meanin’ by thet, the hull o’ me. When I left hum, I hed two legs, an’ they wa’n’t bad ones neither; The scaliest trick they ever played, wuz bringin’ on me hither-- Now one on ’em’s I dunno where, they thought I was a-dyin’, An’ cut it off, because they said ’twas kind of mortifyin’; I’m willin to believe it wuz, and yet I can’t see, nuther, Why one should take to feelin’ cheap a minute sooner ’n t’other, Sence both wuz equilly to blame--but things is ez they be; It took on so they took it off, an’ thet’s enough for me. Where’s my left hand? Oh, darn it! now I recollect wut’s come on’t. I haint no left hand but my right, and thet’s got jest a thumb on’t, It aint so handy as it wuz to calkylate a sum on’t. I’ve lost one eye, but then, I guess, by diligently usin’ it, The other’ll see all I shall git by way of pay fer losin’ it. I’ve hed some ribs broke, six I b’lieve, I haint kep’ no account of ’em; When time to talk of pensions comes, we’ll settle the amount of ’em. An’ talkin’ about broken ribs, it kinder brings to mind One that I couldn’t never break--the one I left behind! Ef you should see her, jest clean out the spout o’ your invention, And pour the longest sweetnin’ in about a annooal pension; And kinder hint, in case, you know, the critter should refuse to be Consoled, I aint so expensive now to keep, as wut I used to be:-- There’s one eye less, ditto one arm, an’ then the leg that’s wooden, Can be took off, an’ sot away, whenever there’s a pudden!

(Letter from Birdofreedom Sawin, a Mexican volunteer, to a friend at home.)

* * * * *

The Dundreary “dialect” is admirably illustrated in

A LONDON EXQUISITE’S OPINION OF “UNCLE TOM’S CABIN.”

Aw must wead “Uncle Tom,”--a wawk Which aw’m afwaid’s extwemely slow: People one meets begin to talk Of Mrs. Hawiet Beechah Stowe.

’Tis not as if aw saw haw name To walls and windahs still confined; All that is meawly vulgah fame: Aw don’t wespect the common mind.

But Staffa’d House has made haw quite Anothah kind of pawson look; A countess would pawsist last night, In asking me about haw book.

She wished to know if aw admiawd Eva, which quite confounded me; And then haw ladyship inquiawed Whethaw aw didn’t hate Legwee.

Bai Jove! Aw was completely flawed; Aw wished myself, or haw, in Fwance; And that’s the way a fellah’s bawed By evewy gahl he asks to dance!

Aw felt myself a greataw fool Than aw had evaw felt befaw; Aw’ll study at some wagged school The tale of that old blackamaw!

It must be this same kind of Englishman, of whom the following story is told: He was traveling on some American railroad, when a tremendous explosion took place; the cars, at the same time, coming to a sudden halt. The passengers sprang up in terror, and rushed out to acquaint themselves with the cause and extent of the mischief, all but His Serene Highness, who continued reading his newspaper. In a moment some one rushed back, and informed him that the boiler had burst. “Awe!” grunted the Englishman.

“Yes, and sixteen people have been killed!”

“Awe!” he muttered again.

“And--and,” said his interlocutor, with an effort, “your own man--your servant--has been blown into a hundred pieces!”

“Awe! Bring me the piece that has the key of my portmanteau!”

THE LEGAL “DIALECT.”

ODE TO SPRING.

WRITTEN IN A LAWYER’S OFFICE.

Whereas, on sundry boughs and sprays Now divers birds are heard to sing, And sundry flowers their heads upraise, Hail to the coming on of spring!

The birds aforesaid, happy pairs! Love ’midst the aforesaid boughs enshrines, In household nests, themselves, their heirs, Administrators and assigns.

The songs of the said birds arouse The memory of our youthful hours, As young and green as the said boughs, As fresh and fair as the said flowers.

Oh, busiest term of Cupid’s court! Where tender plaintiffs actions bring; Seasons of frolic and of sport, Hail, as aforesaid, coming spring!

* * * * *

“Broad Wiltshire” is sampled below, in a psalm given out by the Clerk of Bradford Parish Church during an Episcopal visitation:

Let us zing to the praayze an’ glawry ’o God, dree verses of the hundred an’ vourteenth zaam,--a version specially ’dapted to the ’casion, by myself:

Why hop ye zo, ye little hills, And what var do’ee skip? Is it acoz you’m proud to zee His grace, the Lard Bish_ip_?

Why skip ye zo ye little hills, And what var do’ee hop? Is it acoz to preach to we, Is comed the Lard Bish_op_?

Ees--he has comed to preach to we,-- Then let us aal strick up, An’ zing a glawrious zong of praayze, An’ bless the Lard Bish_up_!

* * * * *

Persons fond of economizing words, sometimes use figures (are they figures of speech?) and letters, in their stead. Thus, the fate of all earthly things is presented by the consonants DK--a view of the case entirely consonant with our own observation.

The following is a printer’s short-hand method of expressing his emotions:

2 KT J.

An SA now I mean 2 write 2 U, sweet KT J, The girl without a ||, The belle of UTK.

I 1der if U got the 1 I wrote 2 U, B4 I sailed in the RKDA, And sent by LN Moore?

My MT head will scarce contain A calm IDA bright, But, 8T miles from U, I must M { this chance to write.

And first, should NE NV U, B EZ, mind it not; Should NE friendship show, B true; They should not be forgot.

But friends and foes alike DK, As U may plainly C, In every funeral RA, And every LEG.

From virtU never DV8; Her influence B9 Alike induces 10dernS, And 40tude divine.

This SA until U I C, I pray U 2 to XQQ; And not to burn in FIG My young and 10der muse.

Now fare U well, DR KT J, I trust that U R true; When this U C, then U can say An SA IOU.

AN AFFECTING STORY.

IIAR BB loved a maid, He loved her to XS, And XRSIId his NRGG 2 C her and confS.

Says he, “A meeting I’ll proQR, B4 the day is past; In spite of all my NMEE, She shall B mine at last.”

Now UUULe, MLE Was 10dR and B9, FMN8 and gentL 2, Some th0 she was Divine,

But poor IIAR made her X, She said he was a calf-- SPCLE ODS; 0 spoke in his B½.

She said, “Should you go on UR nEE, And melt awA in TRR, Or WR at 10tions 4 The futR 50 years.

“U still would 0 B 2 me, UR not 2 my mind, So prA B YYR, sir, and go Some betR maid 2 find.

“DR MLE, my love’s XS, PrithE X10U8, XQQ--4give--and love me, or I’ll take an OP8.”

And so he did. Alas! poor man! Kind readR shed a TR, He took the OPM so strong, It laid him on his BR!

GEORGE AND HIS POPPAR.

FEB. 22, A.D. 1738.

There livèd once a plan-ti-er With his son, his only love, To whom, upon his birth-day, A brand new ax he guv.

This farmer had a gar-di-ing, All filled with apple trees, Which, for the city mar-ki-et, He trièd for to reeze.

The son he takes the hatch-i-et, Quite jolly and jocund, And, going to the apple trees, He chops them to the grund.

The farmer called his serv-i-ents, And ranged them in a row; “Now, who has chopped my apple trees, And killed them, root and bo’?”

The servants stand ama-zi-ed, All drawn up in a line; Then comes a running up to him, His young and hopeful sci’n.

“I cannot tell a lie, poppar,” This truthful boy began; “’Twas I who chopped your apple trees, ’Twas I, your little san.”

Now, who’d you s’pose this buffer was? And who his filial kin? It was the immortal Bushrod, And the late G. Washingtin!

Feb. 22, 1875. MORAL.

Now, whoso takes a hatch-i-et, And apple trees cuts down, Will be, if he lives long enough, A great and pious moun.

* * * * *

The preceding poem, while it places in a new light the immortal history of the hatchet, also illustrates the wonderful adaptability of the English language to the purposes of the poet. Thus, in the last stanza, a rhyme is required for “down,” while the sense demands the word “man” at the end of the corresponding line. Instantly the ingenious author perceives the remedy, and changes “man” to “moun,” which doesn’t mean anything to interfere with the sense, and rhymes with “down” in the most satisfactory manner.

Other fine illustrations of this kind are found in that learned translation of a part of the Eneid, published a few years since at Winsted, Connecticut. Thus:

“The hair stood endwise on his powdered wig, Like quills upon the fretful porcupig; He wants to go, and then again he doesn’t; The situation is indeed unpluzzent.”

The temptation is strong to quote just here several parallel passages from Davidson’s very literal translation and from this Winsted version. We will give one, for the sake of the contrast.

“Returning Aurora now illuminates the earth with the lamp of Phœbus, and has chased away the dewy shades from the sky, when Dido, half-frenzied, thus addressed her sympathizing sister:

Sister Anna, what dreams terrify and distract my mind! What think you of this wondrous guest who has come to our abode? In mien how graceful he appears! In manly fortitude and warlike deeds how great! I am fully persuaded, (nor is my belief groundless,) that he is the offspring of the gods. Had I not been fixed and steadfast in my resolution never to join myself to any in the bonds of wedlock, since my first love by death mocked and disappointed me, I might, perhaps, give way. Anna, since the death of my unhappy spouse Sichæus, since the household gods were stained with his blood, shed by a brother, this stranger alone has warped my inclinations, and interested my wavering mind. I recognize the symptoms of my former flame. But he who first linked me to himself, hath borne away my affection. May he possess it still, and retain it in the grave. (_Liber Quartus. Ibid._)

Next day the sun rose at the proper time, And much improved the Carthaginian clime, When thus her sister Anna she addressed: “Sister, my nights are full of wild unrest: This nice young man that’s now a-stopping here To my affections is a-growing dear; Celestial is his origin I _know_,-- Such fearless souls don’t emanate below. My grief! what savage fights that man has fit, And how genteel he can get up and git! ’F I hadn’t vowed not to unite again, I’m not quite certain but I should cave in. Since poor dear Sic was slew by brother Pyg, For no live man I’ve ever cared a fig, Till unto Carthage this brave hero came-- But now--I swan--I feel the ancient flame. Yet, while Sichæus keeps his coffined state, My heart lies with his ashes--that’s my gait.”

* * * * *

Prizes having been offered for rhymes corresponding to “Ipecacuanha,” and “Timbuctoo,” it is to be hoped that the ingenious authors of the following verses gained them:

As I was walking in the grove With my Julianna, Some oranges I gave my love, Pine-apple and banana; And then, her headache to remove, Some ipecacuanha.

* * * * *

If I were a cassowary On the plains of Timbuctoo, I would eat a missionary, Flesh and bones, and hymn-book, too.

“And the moral of that is,” as the Duchess observed:

That step can find no place In rhyme, is not the case: ’Tis quite absurd: To find a rhyme for “step,” You only have to sep- Arate a word.

Also: (“month” having been declared unrhymable;)

They seized a soldier in Broadway, December was the month; He saw his pistols thrown away, He also saw his gun th- rown away!

* * * * *

In W. G. Clarke’s youth he was requested by a young lady in the millinery line to contribute a poem to her album. Her “Album” was an account book diverted from its original purpose, and he responded as follows:

_To Miss Lucretia Sophonisba Matilda Jerusha Catling_:

Thus, my dear maid, I send to you The balance of my meter due; Please scrutinize the above amount, And set it down to my account.

“FRAGMENTS OF AN ORIGINAL LOVE STORY.”

J. G. STAUNTON, AND A SOUTH CAROLINA LADY.

After a “lovers’ quarrel,” when the party of the first part ----Meekly approached and knelt down at her feet, Praying loud as before he had ranted, That she would forgive him, and try to be sweet, And said “Can’t you?” the dear girl re-canted.

Then softly he whispered “How could you do so? I certainly thought I was jilted; But come now with me; to the parson we’ll go! Say, wilt thou, my dear?” and she wilted.

Then gaily he took her to see his new home; A cottage by no means enchanted; “Ah! here we can live without longing to roam,” He said, “Sha’n’t we, my love?” and they shantied,

And gently beamed o’er them love’s rose-colored ray; (The bridegroom and bride of this ballad;) He said “Let us walk at the close of the day, My own lovely Sall,” and they sallied.

He plucked her the sweetest and loveliest flowers That scented the path where they wandered; And when she exclaimed “Let us turn from these bowers, To roam near the pond!” then they pondered.

Old time softly paused o’er the home of this pair, Nor grief nor perplexity haunted; And when the meek husband asked “What shall I wear?” “Plaid pants,” she replied, and he panted.

She, like a good wife, made his wardrobe her care; (Neglecting it seemed to her wicked;) So, when she brought linen, all shining and fair, Saying “Wear this, dear Dick!” then he dickied.

And when a bright bud of divinity came, To gladden the home where it tarried, They put it to vote that the young stranger’s name Sweet CARRIE should be, and _’twas carried_.

* * * * *

But perhaps the most “pronounced” example of adaptability, as referred to above, is found in a poem recently contributed to a Rochester paper.

Spring, sprang, beautiful sprung! The wild-winged warblers are wanging a wung, And the soft southern breezes are brazing a broze, That thaws up the ice with remarkable thoze.

O betterest time of all moments of tome, I’ll rhyme thee a rhimelet in tenderest rhome, And tell thee how oft in my longing, I’ve lung To welcome thy coming, O beautiful sprung!

Symbolical season! exquisitest soze! All nature uprising in gleefulest gloze, Wide opens its larynx to sing and to shout, Exuberant pleasure and gratefulest grout.

The blithe little rivulets run to the seas,-- The little buds start on the hemlocks and trees; The wild geese are screaming their vigorest scream, And the frogs that were dreaming no longer will dream.

Of course there is sadness in thinking the thought That there’ll be no more skating for skaters who skaught; But the Erie Canal, with its _de_crease in tolls, Will cause us to smile a succession of smoles.

* * * * *

If “the exigencies of rhyme” need not be considered in constructing English verse, neither need the exigencies of rhythm, as shown by the following highly artistic couplets:

The wind blew down our well-sweep, And father and I put it up again ---- sheep.

* * * * *

Wasn’t Pharaoh a Rascal Because he wouldn’t let the children of Israel go three days’ journey into the wilderness, to celebrate the Paschal?

* * * * *

In ’73, a modest volume of poems was published by an Hon. and Rev. gentleman of Central New York,[3] in which occur the following rather surprising verses: (not consecutively, but here and there.)

O bright shining morn of the year, I cannot foretell thy events; Trusting in God, why should I fear, Though having so many relents!

* * * * *

I looked on his form; ’twas like mine; Transparent his body did seem; His vigor could never repine; With glory his features all gleam.

* * * * *

Oh, that the great ocean of love, Where all the inhabitants bathe, Ere they go to the bright realms above, In His sight to whom they have clave.

* * * * *

We saw there as beacons of light God’s temples of worship, so fair; We saw there, enlisted in fight, The wicked who cursed God with dare.

* * * * *

O then they all sang as before, And the prophets they came rushing down; And skipping, they came to that shore Where saints shall forever be crowned!

* * * * *

To find the “concealed sense” (concealed _non_sense!) of the verses that follow, the first and third, second and fourth lines, are read consecutively:

That man must lead a happy life, Who’s free from matrimonial chains; Who is directed by a wife, Is sure to suffer for his pains.

Adam could find no solid peace, When Eve was given for a mate; Till he beheld a woman’s face, Adam was in a happy state.

In all the female race appear Hypocrisy, deceit, and pride, The tokens of a heart sincere, In woman never did reside.

What tongue is able to unfold The failings that in woman dwell? The merits in her we behold, Are almost imperceptible.

Confusion take the man, I say, Who makes a woman his delight! Who will no court to women pay, Keeps always reason in his sight.

This is nonsense, too; though, certainly, women are the faultiest of human beings--except men.

Be that as it may, few women have ever been more severely, or, perhaps, more justly, cauterized, than poor Job’s poor wife, in Coleridge’s celebrated _Epigram_:

Sly Beelzebub took all occasions To try Job’s constancy and patience. He took his honor, took his health, He took his children, took his wealth, His servants, horses, oxen, cows-- But cunning Satan did _not_ take his spouse.

But Heaven, that brings out good from evil, And loves to disappoint the Devil, Had predetermined to restore Twofold all Job had lost before: His servants, horses, oxen, cows. Short-sighted Satan! NOT to take his spouse?

SECRET CORRESPONDENCE.

A young lady, newly married, being obliged to show her husband all the letters she wrote, sent the following to an intimate friend:

I cannot be satisfied, my dearest friend, blest as I am in the matrimonial state, until I confide to your most friendly keeping trusting to your interest in what interests me, the various deep sensations which swell with the liveliest feelings of satisfaction my almost bursting heart. I tell you, my dear husband is one of the most amiable of men. I have been married nearly seven weeks, and have never found the least possible reason to repent the day that joined us. My husband is in person and manners far from resembling those ugly, cross, old, disagreeable and jealous monsters, who think by confining to secure a wife, it is his maxim to treat as a bosom friend and confidant and not as a plaything or menial slave the woman chosen to be his companion. Neither party he frequently says, ought to obey implicitly, but each yield to the other in turn. I know my husband loves nothing more than he does me; he flatters me more than the glass, and his intoxication (for I must so call the excess of his love,) often makes me blush for the unworthiness of its object, and wish I could be more deserving of the man whose name I bear. To say all in one word, my dearest friend, and to crown the whole, my former gallant lover is now my indulgent husband. My fondness is returned, and I might have married a prince, without the felicity I find with him! Adieu! May you be blest as I am unable to wish that I could be more happy.

(The key to the above letter is to omit every alternate line: reading the first, third, fifth, &c., consecutively.)

* * * * *

It is said that among ancient Christian devices the figure of a fish occurs very frequently, with the inscription _anthropou_ (in Greek letters), signifying _of man_. The following explanation has been given: The Greek word for _fish_ is _ichthus_, and each of the five letters composing the Greek word, (ch and th being each represented by only one letter,) is the initial of a significant word, as follows:

iesus--Jesus, christos--Christ, theou--of God, uios--Son, soter--Saviour.

The whole, followed by anthropou, (the word inscribed upon the figure of the fish,) forms a profession of Christian faith:

JESUS CHRIST, SON OF GOD, SAVIOUR OF MEN.

* * * * *

Pilate’s question addressed to our Lord, “What is truth?” “Quid est Veritas?” contains in itself, by a perfect anagram, its own answer: “Est vir qui adest:” “_It is the Man who stands before you._”

When “I cry that I sin” is transposed, it is clear My resource, “Christianity,” soon will appear.

* * * * *

The following very curious sentence, “_Sator arepo teret opera rotas_,” is not first-class Latin, but may be freely translated: “I cease from my work; the mower will wear his wheels.” It is, in fact, something like a nonsensical verse, but has these peculiarities: 1st. It spells backward and forward the same. 2d. Then, the first letter of each word spells the first word. 3d. Then, all the second letters of each word spell the second word. 4th. Then, all the third, and so on through, the fourth and fifth. 5th. Then, commencing with the last word, the last letter of each word spells the first word. 6th. Then, the next to the last, and so on, through.

* * * * *

The lines which constitute the Pyramid below, may be read from the base upward, or from the apex downward, indifferently.

There For aye To stay, Commanding, ’Tis standing, With God-like air, Sublimely fair. Its form declaring, Its height admiring, Looks on it from afar Lo! every smiling star. To raise the pile to heaven These beauteous stones are given, Each prayer for truth-inspiring light, Each manly struggle for the right, Each kindly word to cheer the lowly, Each aspiration for the holy, Each strong temptation overcome, Each clamorous passion held in silence dumb. As it arises slowly toward the upper heaven Stone after stone until the mass is given. Its base upon the earth, its apex in the skies, The good man’s character, a pyramid doth rise.

* * * * *

“Revolution” is transposed “to love ruin,” and “French Revolution,” “Violence run forth.”

One of the prettiest of modern anagrams is “Florence Nightingale,” “Flit on, cheering angel.”

* * * * *

If the name Napoleon be successively “beheaded” till only two letters are left, each remainder forms a significant word; and these words, combined in a certain manner, form a concise sketch of Napoleon the First. Thus:

Napoleon, Apoleon, Poleon, Oleon, destroying, cities, destructive, Leon, Eon, On, lion, going about, being.

Napoleon, on, oleon, leon, eon, apoleon, poleon.

Napoleon being a destructive lion, going about destroying cities.

* * * * *

The following sentence of only thirty-four letters contains all the letters of the alphabet:

John quickly extemporized five tow bags.

HISTORY.

Sir Walter Raleigh, in his prison, was composing the second volume of his “History of the World.” Leaning on the sill of his window, he meditated on the duties of the historian to mankind, when suddenly his attention was attracted by a disturbance in the court yard before his cell. He saw one man strike another whom he supposed by his dress to be an officer; the latter at once drew his sword, and ran the former through the body. The wounded man felled his adversary with a stick, and then sank upon the pavement. At this juncture the guard came up, and carried off the officer insensible, and then the corpse of the man who had been run through.

Next day Raleigh was visited by an intimate friend, to whom he related the circumstances of the quarrel, and its issue. To his astonishment, his friend unhesitatingly declared that the prisoner had mistaken the whole series of incidents which had passed before his eyes.

The supposed officer was not an officer at all, but the servant of a foreign ambassador; it was he who had dealt the first blow; he had not drawn his sword, but the other had snatched it from his side, and had run _him_ through the body before any one could interfere; whereupon a stranger, from among the crowd, knocked the murderer down with his stick; and some of the foreigners belonging to the ambassador’s retinue carried off the corpse.

Raleigh’s friend added that the Government had ordered the arrest and immediate trial of the murderer, as the man assassinated was one of the principal servants of the Spanish ambassador.

“Excuse me,” said Raleigh, “but I cannot have been deceived as you suppose, for I was eye-witness to the events, which took place under my own window; and the man fell there on that spot where you see a paving stone standing up above the rest.”

“My dear Sir Walter,” replied his friend, “I was sitting on that stone when the fray took place, and I received this slight scratch on my cheek in snatching the sword from the murderer. Upon my word of honor, you were deceived in every particular.”

Sir Walter, when alone, took up the second volume of his history, which was in manuscript, and, contemplating it, thought: “If two men see the same thing so differently--nay, if I cannot believe my own eyes, how can I be assured of the truth of a tithe of the events which happened ages before I was born?” and he flung the manuscript into the fire.

Charles Dudley Warner, travelling in Nubia and Egypt, asserts that “The Arabian Nights’ Entertainment” is the best history ever written. In the light of the above facts, perhaps it is.

ST. ANTHONY’S FISH-SERMON.

From a German versification of a passage from the works of Abraham à Santa Clara, a Jesuit preacher of the Seventeenth Century.

St. Anthony, _one_ day Found the Church empty, Sunday: So he goes to the river, A discourse to deliver: They’re ready to listen-- Their tails flop and glisten.

The carps, those old scorners, Come out of their corners; Their carping suspended, Their jaws wide extended, (Ears wanting--) to swallow Remarks that might follow.

The pouts, cross-grained pouters-- Those well-known come-outers,-- For this once go-_inners_, Confessed themselves sinners. The pouts said they never Heard a sermon so clever.

Crabs and mud-turtles also, That usually crawl so, And in dirt their heads bury, Came up in a hurry. Crabs and turtles had never Heard sermon so clever.

Eels and sturgeons, best livers Of all in the rivers-- Forsaking their dinners Bewailed themselves sinners. Eels and sturgeons had never Heard sermon so clever.

And lastly, those odd fish We mortals call codfish-- Their glass eyes distended-- Devoutly attended, Like rational creatures, This greatest of preachers.

And dog-fish and cat-fish, And flounders and flat-fish, And, finally, all fish, Both great fish and small fish, Came swimming and squirming In shoals to the sermon; And all said they never Had heard one so clever.

But when it was ended, To their business all wended; The pikes to their thieving, The eels to good living; The crab still went crooked, The codfish was stupid: Yet none of them ever Heard sermon so clever!

* * * * *

A susceptible youth addressed the following highly classical letter to a young lady whose poetical effusions, dated “Pine Woods,” had won his heart:

Permittere me dicere, carissima puella, ego habeo visus vestris dulces funes in papyrus. Ego lignum simile videre te plurimo. Ego nosco nos lignum autumnus in amore cum unus alter. Tuus versus spectaculum genius et tener cors. Ego lignum calcitro tuum durum cordatum patrem ex portis, et ego possum duo, si ille erat non complacens et omnis rectus. Volo ad vistare te, sed non nosco ubi Pinus Sylva sit. Prendam Erie maledictum-viam? Ubi est id? Ero membrum legis, proximo vero, et tun, cum pocket libro pleno stamporum, cano in manu, silko castore super capito, ego non curo pro omnibus tauricanibus in Pino-silva, nam meum canum est fors, et decutiam sua capita--sed sufficit.

Omnium pro te, Unus qui amat.

FELIS ET MURES.

BY GREENE KENDRICK.

Felis sedit by a hole; Intenta she, cum omne soul, Prendere rats; Mice cucurrerunt over the floor, In numero, duo, tres, or more, Obliti cats.

Felis saw them oculis; “I’ll have them,” inquit she, “I guess, Dum ludunt;” Tunc illa crept toward the group,-- “Habeam,” dixit, “good rat soup; Pingues sunt!”

Mice continued all ludere; Intenti they in ludum vere, Gaudenter: Tunc rushed the felis into them, Et tore them omnes, limb from limb, Violenter.

MORAL.

Mures, omnes, now beware! Of hungry felis have a care Nox et die; Si hoc facis “verbum sat;” Avoid a huge and hungry cat, Studiose!

* * * * *

Ego nunquam audivi such terrible news, As at this present tempus my senses confuse; I am drawn for a miles, I must go cum Marte, Et, communis ense, engage Bonapar-te; But soon we will show to this Corsican vaunter, That, though _times_ may change, BRITONS _never_ mutantur.

_Dr. Porson._

* * * * *

Tres fratres stolidi Took a boat for Philippi; Stormum surgebat Et boatum overturnebat; Omnes drownerunt Qui swimmere non potuerunt

THE RHINE.

Oh the Rhine, the Rhine, the Rhine! Comme c’est beau! wie schön! che bello! He who quaffs thy Lust and Wein, Morbleu! is a lucky fellow.

How I love thy rushing streams, Groves of ash and birch and hazel, From Schaffhausen’s rainbow beams, Jusqu ’à l’echo d’ Oberwesel!

Oh, que j’aime the Brüchen, when The crammed Dampschiff gayly passes! Love the bronzed pipes of thy men, And the bronzed cheeks of thy lasses!

Oh, que j’aime the “oui,” the “bah,” From the motley crowd that flow, With the universal “ja,” And the Allgemeine “So!”

LATIN POEM.

FOR THE LEARNED.

Hei didulum, didulum, atque iterum didulum, Felisque, Fidisque! Vacca super Lunæ cornua prosiluit Nescio qua catulus risit dulcedine ludi, Abstunt et turpi lanx cochleare fuga!

FRENCH SONG.

Chantons une chanson à six sous, La poche pleine de blé; Vingt-quatre oiseaux noirs Cuits dans un pâté! Quand le pâté s’ouvrit, Les oiseaux levaient leurs voix; N’était-ce pas un joli plat, Mettre devant le Roi?

ICH BIN DEIN.

ENGLISH, LATIN, GREEK, FRENCH AND GERMAN “MACARONI.”

In tempus old a hero lived Qui loved puellas deux, He ne pouvait pas quite to say Which one amabat mieux.

Dit-il lui-même, un beau matin, “Non possum both avoir; Sed si address Amanda Anne, Then Kate and I have war!”

Amanda habet argent coin Sed Kate has aureas curls Et both sunt very agathæ Et quite formosæ girls.

Enfin, the youthful anthropos Philoun the duo maids, Resolved proponere ad Kate Avant cet evening’s shades.

Procedens then to Kate’s domo, Il trouve Amanda there, Kai quite forgot his late resolves Both sunt so goodly fair.

Sed, smiling on the new tapis, Between puellas twain, Cœpit to tell his vœux to Kate Dans un poëtique strain.

Mais, glancing ever and anon At fair Amanda’s eyes, Illæ non possunt dicere Pro which he meant his sighs.

Each virgo heard his demi vow With cheeks as rouge as wine, And, offering each a milk-white hand, Both whispered “Ich bin dein.”

MACARONIC ADVERTISEMENT.

An inn-keeper in Germany sets forth the accommodations of his house in the following lines, inscribed upon one of its windows:

In questa casa trovarete Toutes les choses que vous souhaitez; Vinum bonum, costas, carnes, Neat post-chaise, and horse and harness.

ANN HATHAWAY.

(PROBABLY NOT SHAKESPEARE’S.)

Would ye be taught, ye feathered throng, With love’s sweet notes to grace your song, To charm the heart in thrilling lay, Listen to Ann Hathaway. She hath a way to sing so clear, Phœbus might, listening, stoop and hear: To melt the sad, make blithe the gay, And nature charm, Ann hath a way. She hath a way, Ann Hathaway.

When Envy’s tongue and Rancor’s tooth Do soil and bite fair worth and truth, And merit to distress betray, To soothe the soul, Ann hath a way. She hath a way to chase despair; To heal all grief, to cure all care, Turn foulest night to fairest day, Thou knowest, fond heart, Ann hath a way, She hath a way, Ann Hathaway.

Tell not of gems the Orient list; The diamond, topaz, amethyst, The emerald mild, the ruby gay; Talk of my gem Ann Hathaway. She hath a way with her bright eye, Their various lustre to defy; The jewel she, and the foil they, So sweet to look Ann hath a way. She hath a way, Ann Hathaway.

But to my fancy were it given To rate her charms, I’d call it heaven; For, though a mortal made of clay, Angels might love Ann Hathaway. She hath a way so to control And rapture the imprisoned soul, And love and truth so to display That to be heaven Ann hath a way. She hath a way, Ann Hathaway.

INSTRUCTIVE FABLES.

THE DOG AND THE SPARE RIB.--A mastiff crossing a bridge and bearing in his mouth a piece of meat, suddenly swallowed the meat. He immediately observed that the shadow of the aforesaid in the water had disappeared.

_Moral_: We learn from this fable that life is but a shadow.

THE ASS AND THE LOCOMOTIVE.--A donkey one day was quietly munching thistles when he heard the screaming whistle of a locomotive. Pricking up his ears, he started into a gallop and raced across lots, with his tail high in the air.

_Moral_: This fable teaches what an ass he was.

THE MOUSE AND THE CAT.--A mouse once peeped from his hole and saw a cat. The cat was looking the other way, and happened not to see the mouse.

Nobody killed.

_Moral_: This little fable doesn’t teach anything.

PRONUNCIATION.

The difficulty of applying rules to the pronunciation of our language may be illustrated in two lines, wherein the combination of the letters _ough_ is pronounced in no less than seven different ways, viz: as _o_, _uf_, _off_, _up_, _ow_, _oo_, and _ock_.

Though the tough cough and hiccough plough me through, O’er life’s dark lough my course I still pursue.

And in the subjoined couplets, which should be read rhymingly:

Peasant Arcadian, guiding the plough, Loam on your garments, your aspect is rough.

Peasant imprudent, I hear you’ve a cough: Do you feel sure you’re clad warm enough?

Home to your cottage, and bend o’er the trough, Kneading the loaves of digestible dough.

Though the bread’s heavy, unsweetened and tough, Well sharpened teeth can go easily through.

And the opposite difficulty, which sometimes occurs, of determining the sense of a word from its pronunciation, is shown in the following verses:

Write, we know, is written right, When we see it written w-r-i-t-e; But when we see it written r-i-g-h-t, We know it is not written right. For write, to have it written right, Must not be written r-i-g-h-t, or r-i-t-e, Nor yet must it be written w-r-i-g-h-t, But w-r-i-t-e, for so ’tis written right.

* * * * *

Some one asks: “If W-o-r-c-e-s-t-e-r is pronounced Wooster, wouldn’t r-o-r-c-e-s-t-e-r be an excellent way to spell rooster?”

That is “the English of it,” and, on the same principle--whatever it is--C-h-o-l-m-o-n-d-e-l-e-y is pronounced Chumley; M-i-c-h-i-l-i-m-a-c-i-n-a-c, Mackinaw; M-a-r-j-o-r-i-b-a-n-k-s, Marchbank; L-e-i-c-e-s-t-e-r, Lester; N-o-r-w-i-c-h, Norrij, and C-o-l-o-n-e-l, Curnel.

The ways of English pronunciation are, indeed, past finding out.

So are the secret motives of those who, having once adopted a false pronunciation, adhere to it in the face of all precept and example; who persist in calling Garibaldi, Gar-i-bawld-i; guipure, gim-pure; alpaca, al-a-pac-a; and a polonaise, a polo-nay. Of this class was the young person of Boston--she _couldn’t_ have been a young person of BOSTON!--who, passing out of an Art Gallery with a friend not long since, read aloud the inscription beneath a statuette of Psyche, and pronounced it Pi-sish. Her friend mildly suggesting the true pronunciation, the young person rejoined: “I know it. Some folks call it Si-kee, and some Pi-sish. I like Pi-sish the best.”

THE QUESTION.

It is said that when a young lady enters society in one of our leading Eastern cities, the question invariably asked about her, by those who have not met her, is, in New York, “How much is she worth?” in Baltimore, “How does she look?” in Boston, “What does she know?” in Philadelphia, “_Who_ is she?”

ALLITERATION.

The best specimen of alliteration in the English language is, perhaps,

THE SIEGE OF BELGRADE.

An Austrian army, awfully arrayed, Boldly, by battery, besieged Belgrade. Cossack commanders cannonading come, Dealing destruction’s devastating doom; Every endeavor engineers essay, For fame, for fortune, fighting, furious fray! Generals ’gainst generals grapple--Gracious God! How honors Heaven heroic hardihood! Infuriate, indiscriminate, in ill, Kinsmen kill kindred--kindred kinsmen kill. Labor low levels longest, loftiest lines,-- Men march ’mid mounds, ’mid moles, ’mid murderous mines. Now noisy, noxious, numbers notice naught Of outward obstacles opposing ought; Poor patriots! partly purchased, partly pressed, Quite quaking, quickly “Quarter! Quarter!” quest. Reason returns; religious right redounds, Suwarrow stops such sanguinary sounds. Truce to thee, Turkey! triumph to thy train, Unjust, unwise, unmerciful, Ukraine! Vanish, vain victory! Vanish, victory vain! Why wish we warfare! Wherefore welcome were Xerxes, Ximenes, Xanthus, Xavier! Yield, yield, ye youths; ye yeomen yield your yell! Zeno’s, Zarpater’s, Zoroaster’s zeal, Attracting all, arms against arms appeal.

A droll example of French alliteration is the following inquiry as to the efficacy of a certain remedy:

“Ton thé, a-t-il oté ta toux?”

One of the neatest of ACROSTICS was written by Desmond Ryan, for the _London Musical World_:

Art and Genius burn within her, Dearest fondling of the Graces! Every charm is centered in her; Like a poet’s page her face is! In her voice the lark is thrilling-- Now to weep the heart is willing-- And now with joy and hope ’tis filling!

Praised, admired, two worlds all hail her-- Artless, pure, no tongues assail her! Trust, love, triumph, never fail her! Tell me, sooth, whose praise all that is? I say, ADELINA PATTI’S!

But apropos of ingenuity, the author of the following exquisite poem seems, without half trying, to have distanced all competitors.

Many years ago, twenty-five or thirty, perhaps, two Cincinnati editors engaged in a newspaper controversy, which was, for a long time, conducted with all candor and courtesy. At length, however, one of them so far forgot himself as to become first personal, then scurrilous, then virulent; and the other, at an early stage of this radical change, quietly withdrew from the contest. Editor No. One thereupon indulged in loud pæans of victory: he had spiked his adversary’s guns, put him to rout, utterly demolished him. While he was in this complacent frame of mind, he received from an anonymous contributor a seasonable poem on SPRING, which he published with a eulogium on its beauty, and a warmly-expressed wish that he might often hear from its gifted author:

SPRING.

The genial Spring once more with chaplets crowned, Has showered her choicest blessings all around. Each silent valley, and each verdant lawn, Enriched with flowers, looks smiling as the dawn; Demure and modest here the violet grows, In yonder garden blooms the blushing rose: To these the lilac adds her fragrant dower Of perfume cherished by the sun and shower: Reviving Flora walks the world, a queen Of kingdoms peerless as a fairy scene. Far o’er the hills, in many a graceful line, The rainbow blossoms of the orchard shine. How softly mingled all their tints unite, Embalm the air, and bless the grateful sight! Sweet voices now are heard on every tree, The breeze, the bird, the murmur of the bee; And down the cliff, where rocks oppose in vain, Runs the clear stream in music to the plain. In noisy groups, far from their southern home, Now ’round the lofty spire the swallows roam; The fearless robin builds, with glossy leaves, Her fragile nest beneath the farmer’s eaves; Embowered in woods the partridge makes her bed With silken moss o’er tender osiers spread: Each happy bird expands his dappled wings, Soars with his gentle mate and sweetly sings. The sounds of early husbandry arise, In pleasing murmurs, to the pale blue skies; Shrill floats the ploughman’s whistle, while he speeds Along the yielding earth his patient steeds. Joyous the life which tills the pregnant soil, And sweet the profits of the farmer’s toil: Content, as smiling as an angel’s face, Keeps peaceful vigil ’round his dwelling-place; And gentle Hope, and Love, forever bright, Smiling like seraphs in their bowers of light, Salute his mornings, and embalm each night.

A few days passed, and this self-complacent gentleman had the satisfaction of reading in a Boston paper that the editor of _The Star in the West_ had fully justified the acrostic contained in a late beautiful poem on SPRING, by publishing and praising it in his paper.

EXTEMPORE SPEAKING.

It is no small thing to be called suddenly to address a public meeting of any sort, and to find all your wits gone wool-gathering, when you most require their services. Such being the case, and standing admitted, the following speech of a compulsory order, at the opening of a free hospital, is recommended as a model:

Gentlemen--ahem! I--I--I rise to say--that is, I wish to propose a toast--wish to propose a toast. Gentlemen, I think that you’ll all say--ahem--I think, at least, that this toast is, as you’ll all say, the toast of the evening--toast of the evening. Gentlemen, I belong to a good many of these things--and I say, gentlemen, that this hospital requires no patronage--at least, you don’t want any recommendation. You’ve only got to be ill--got to be ill. Another thing--they are all locked up--I mean they are all shut up separate--that is, they have all got separate beds--separate beds. Now, gentlemen, I find by the report (turning over the leaves in a fidgety manner), I find, gentlemen, that from the year seventeen--no, eighteen--no, ah, yes, I’m right,--eighteen hundred and fifty--no, it’s a three, thirty-six--eighteen hundred and thirty-six, no--less than one hundred and ninety-three millions--no--ah? (to a committee-man at his side), what? thank you!--thank you, yes--one hundred and ninety-three thousand, two hundred and thirty-one! Gentlemen, I beg to propose:

Success to this Institution!

* * * * *

If no selections from the writings of our modern humorists, Artemus Ward, P. V. Nasby, Mark Twain, and others, grace these pages, the omission arises partly from the difficulty of selecting and partly from the fact that these writings are only too well known for our purpose. While the compiler has, doubtless, brought her readers face to face with many of their old acquaintances, she naturally prefers not to introduce those whom they are certain to meet every day at their own tables. “There must be a line drawn somewhere.”

But there is a word to be said about K. N. Pepper, whose irresistibly droll papers were contributed to the _Knickerbocker Magazine_, early in the ’50’s. He was, in fact, pioneer in that region of illiterature, in which so many others, since he withdrew, have apparently settled for life. Artemus Ward learned from him (and never hesitated to give him credit for the original idea,) the trick of bad spelling, and caught many of his fantastic ways of thought. His Betsey Jane was Pepper’s Hannah Gane amplified,--but the twins, and the son who read the _Clipper_, and the daughter who delighted in the _Ledger_, were original Wards. (And what a guardian they had, in their hi-minded father!)

K. N. Pepper describes in the _Knickerbocker_, his first visit to New York. He arrived there on the twenty-fifth of November, and that anniversary suggested many solemn reflections. “I thinc,” he pensively remarks, “that I see the British evacuating of the sitty. I thinc I se them gathering up their goods and things. I thinc I hear them cuss, and then I thinc I doant.”

Very suddenly he retired from the field, leaving his laurels to be picked up and won by others, and presently disappeared from public view. But it is possible that Mr. James W. Morris, of Onondaga County, N. Y., could, if he chose, furnish some information concerning him.[4]

The Widow Bedott, too, was precursor and prototype of Miss Slimmins, Josiah Allen’s wife, and all of that ilk; and, among her imitators, has, thus far, had no equal. Her prose was a model of absurdity; but there are no words to characterize her poetry.

Listen, as she condoles with a widower, on his recent bereavement:

Sickness and afflictions is trials sent By the will of a wise creation, And always ought to be underwent With fortitude and resignation. Then mourn not for your pardner’s death, But to forgit endevver, For, sposen she hadn’t a died so soon, She couldn’t a lived forever.

And when, at last, she secured a widower of her own, the Rev. Shadrack Sniffles, how jubilant her muse became:

The heart that was scornful and cold as a stun, Has surrendered at last to the fortinit one. Farewell to the miseries and griefs I have had! I’ll never desert thee, O Shadrack, my Shad.

The wonderful puns and repartees of Charles Lamb and Sydney Smith, prince and king of wits! are open to the same objection as those alluded to above: they are only too familiar, already. But as that is equivalent to saying that they have charmed only too many people; turned too many sorrowful or wearied minds out of their ordinary channels; excited too much healthful and delightful laughter; we are, after all, not disposed to complain. Rather let us, Sancho-Panza-like, invoke a benison, first on Cervantes himself; then on the English Hood and Hook, and Moore and Sheridan and Lamb, on the three Smiths, Sydney and James and Horace; on Dickens, Thackeray and Jerrold, and Edmund Lear; on our own Irving, Derby, Whicher, Morris, Brown, the Clarkes; our Lowell, Saxe, Holmes, Strong; our Warner, Cozzens, Dodgson, Gilbert, Locke, Bret Harte; our Grail Hamilton, and our Phebe Carey; and on all the named and unnamed, known and unknown writers, through whom have come to us the exquisite sense of fun, the blessing of irrepressible mirth, and of hearty, wholesome, innocent, delicious laughter!

And if, despite our struggles, we are accused, as we shall be, and justly, of having told some more than twice-told tales, of quoting already hackneyed quotations charity will urge in our behalf (and, let us trust, not vainly), Burns’ pathetic plea, reminding the critics, that while

“What’s done they” easily “compute. They know not what’s resisted.”

“SOUND AND” UNSOUND, “SIGNIFYING NOTHING.”

A young gentleman of Rochester, suspecting that the poetical enthusiasm of certain of his young lady acquaintances was not genuine; that they appreciated the musical jingle of verses, without in the least regarding the sentiment, laid a wager with one of his friends, that he could write a set of stanzas, which should not contain one grain of sense, and yet would be just as warmly applauded by those young ladies as the most eloquent poetry.

He won the wager. (But this occurred many years ago. There are no such young ladies in Rochester now).

See! the fragrant twilight whispers O’er the orient western sky, While Aurora’s verdant vespers Tell her evening reign is nigh.

Now a louder ray of darkness, Carols o’er the effulgent scene, And the lurid light falls markless On the horizon’s scattered screen.

Night is near, with all his horrors, Sweetly swerving in his breast, And the ear of fancy borrows Morning mists to lull the west.

Ere he comes in all his splendor, Hark! the milky way is seen, Sighing like a maiden tender In her bower of ruby green.

Such a scene, ah! who can list to, And not saddened, silent, seek To unveil the burning vista Of Diana’s raven cheek?

Thus tremulous, and ever dear, Robed in repellant rapture; Our hours shall stay, swift as the year, Illumed by Cupid’s capture!

And when hyenal joys are ours, And memory soars above us, Hope shall retrace for future years The love of all who love us.

Something of the same character is the subjoined:

EVENING SONG.

Brightly blue the stars shine o’er us, While the sinking sun ascends To the wide spread waves before us, And a pleasing softness lends.

Homeward now the aged plough-boys Wing their way o’er hill and dale, And the laughter-loving cow goes Tripping lightly down the vale.

Gentle zephyrs’ ink-stained fingers Point the hour-hand of the clock, There the warbling sheep-fold lingers-- Save it from the cruel hawk!

Thus excoriate the hours, Till the red volcano’s powers Kindle on the hearth its fires: Poets! dissipate your lyres!

* * * * *

In the following musical poem, the letter e does duty so well for all the other vowels, as to suggest the idea that our ordinary lavish use of them is a piece of extravagance!

When the September eves were new, When fresh the western breezes blew, When meek Selene, gem-besprent, The dew her crested jewels lent; We met, Belle, where the beeches grew, When the September eves were new.

When the September eves were new, Endless, meseemed, the sweets we knew! Sweet fell the dew; sweet swept the breeze; Sweet were the templed beechen trees; The spell yet sweeter, tenderer grew, When the September eves were new!

When the September eves were eld, The templed beechen trees were felled; Keen-edged the western breezes blew; Crestless the meek Selene grew; The fettered dew her jewels held, When the September eves were eld.

When the September eves were eld, Fled were the scenes we erst beheld-- Reft were the tender scenes we knew;-- The desert, where the beeches grew! Yet, Belle, we sweeter secrets held, Ere the September eves were eld!

* * * * *

The construction of the following verses, from which the letter s is omitted, shows that our language is not of necessity a succession of sibilant sounds, as it is generally supposed to be:

Oh! come to-night, for naught can charm The weary time when thou’rt away. Oh, come! the gentle moon hath thrown O’er bower and hall her quivering ray. The heather bell hath mildly flung From off her fairy leaf the bright And diamond dew-drop that had hung Upon that leaf a gem of light. Then come, love, come!

To-night the liquid wave hath not, (Illumined by the moonlit beam Playing upon the lake beneath, Like frolic in a fairy dream--) The liquid wave hath not, to-night, In all her moonlit pride, a fair Gift-like to them that, on thy lip, Do breathe and laugh and home it there. Then come, love, come!

To-night, to-night, my gentle one, The flower-bearing Amra tree Doth long, with fragrant moan, to meet The love-lip of the honey-bee. But not the Amra tree can long To greet the bee, at evening light, With half the deep, fond love _I_ long To meet my Nama here to-night. Then come, love, come!

What a boon would a volume of poems, modeled on the above principle of architecture, be to perthonth troubled with a lithp; whose reading at present (through the perverseness of the English language), sounds thus:

Thweetly murmurth the breethe from the thea, Thoothing my thoul to thlumberth, Fond memorieth bearing to me, Of the patht, in endleth numberth. I thigh ath I think how yearth have thped, How joy hath left me to thorrow; My heart now thleepeth the thleep of the dead; Will it waken to gladneth to-morrow?

THE NIMBLE BANK-NOTE.

“And he rose with a sigh, And he said, ‘Can this be?’”

(_Motto chosen chiefly for its inappropriateness._)

One evening at the house of a friend of mine, while we were seated at the table, Mr. Baker, my friend’s husband, absently feeling in his vest pocket, found a five dollar note which he had no recollection of putting there.

“Hallo!” he exclaimed, “that is no place for you. I should have put you in my pocketbook. Here, wife, don’t you want some ready money?” and he threw the note across the table to her.

“Many thanks,” she replied; “money is always acceptable, although I have no present need of it.” She folded the note and put it under the edge of the tea-tray, and then proceeded to pour out the tea and attend to the wants of her guests.

At her right sat Mrs. Easton, or Aunt Susan, whom we all knew as an acquaintance who, from time to time, spent a week with Mrs. Baker. Her visit was just at an end, and she was to return home that evening.

As Mrs. Baker was pouring her tea, it occurred to her that she was in her aunt’s debt for certain small matters, and when she had the opportunity, she pushed the note under her plate, saying:

“Here, auntie, take this five dollars in part payment of my debt.”

“Very well,” she replied, “but the money does not belong to me. I owe you fifteen dollars, my dear Grace, which you lent me last Saturday. I had to pay the taxes on my little home, and had not the ready money, and Grace lent it to me,” explained Aunt Susan.

Grace, an orphan, was a cousin of Mrs. Baker. She and her brother Frank boarded with her, and made a very pleasant addition to the family circle. She was studying music, and her brother was a clerk in a mercantile establishment.

As soon as Aunt Susan received the note, she handed it to Grace, saying:

“I will give you this now on account, and the rest as soon as I get it.”

“All right,” answered Grace, laughing, “and since we all seem in the humor of paying our debts, I will follow suit. Frank, I owe you something for music you bought me; here is part of it,” and she threw the bank-note across the table to her brother, who sat opposite.

We were all highly amused to see how the note wandered around the table.

“This is a wonderful note,” said Mr. Baker; “I only wish somebody owed me something, and I owed somebody something, so that I might come into the ring.”

“You can,” said Frank. “I owe Mrs. Baker--or you, it’s all the same--for my board; I herewith pay you part of it.”

Amid general laughter, Mr. Baker took the note and playfully threw it to his wife again, saying:

“It’s yours again, Lucy, because what belongs to me belongs to you. It has completed the round, and we have all had the benefit of it.”

“And now it must go around again,” replied she gayly. “I like to see money circulate; it should never lie idle. Aunt Susan you take it. Now I have paid you ten dollars.”

“Dear Grace, here is another five dollars on my account,” said Aunt Susan, handing it to Grace.

“And you Frank, have paid ten dollars for the music you bought me,” said Grace, handing it to her brother.

“And I pay you ten dollars for my board,” he continued, and the note once more rested in Mr. Baker’s hands.

The exchanges were quick as thought, and we were convulsed with laughter.

“Was there ever so wonderful an exchange?” exclaimed Grace.

“It’s all nonsense!” exclaimed Mr. Baker.

“Not in the least,” answered his wife. “It’s all quite right.”

“Certainly,” said Frank; “when the money belonged to you, you could dispose of it as you would; I have the same right; it is a fair kind of exchange, though very uncommon.”

“It shows the use of money,” said Aunt Susan. “It makes the circuit of the world and brings its value to every one who touches it.”

“And this note has not finished its work yet, as I will show you, my dear, if you will give it to me again, said Mrs. Baker to her husband.

“I present you with this five dollar note,” said Mr. Baker.

“And I give it to you, Aunt Susan--I owed you fifteen dollars, and I have paid my debt.”

“You have, my dear friend, without doubt; and now, my dear Grace, I pay you my indebtedness, with many thanks for your assistance.”

“I take it with thanks, Aunt Susan,” replied Grace; “and now the time has come when this wonder-working, this inexhaustibly rich bank-note must be divided, because I do not owe Frank five dollars more. How much have I to pay you?”

“Two dollars and sixty-two cents,” replied Frank.

“Can you change it?”

“Let me see; sixty-two, thirty-eight, yes, there is the change; the spell is broken, Grace, and you and I divide the spoils.”

“This bank-note beats all I ever saw. How much has it paid? Let us count up,” said Grace. “Mrs. Baker gave Aunt Susan fifteen dollars, which Aunt Susan gave me; I gave Frank twelve dollars and sixty-two cents; Frank gave Mr. Baker ten dollars--altogether fifty-two dollars and sixty-two cents.”

“It’s all nonsense, I tell you,” cried Mr. Baker, again; “you all owe each other what you owed before.”

“You are deceived, my dear, by the rapid, unbroken race this little sum has made; to me it is as clear as daylight,” replied Mrs. Baker.

“If it is all nonsense, how could the note which you gave Mrs. Baker, if nothing to me or to you, be divided between us two?” asked Grace.

Mr. Baker did not seem to see it very clearly, but the others did, and they often relate this little history for the amusement of their friends.

THE RATIONALISTIC CHICKEN.

(_Inspecting its shell._)

BY J. S. STONE.

Most strange! Most queer,--although most excellent a change! Shades of the prison-house, ye disappear! My fettered thoughts have won a wider range, And, like my legs, are free; No longer huddled up so pitiably: Free now to pry and probe, and peep and peer, And make these mysteries out. Shall a free-thinking chicken live in doubt? For now in doubt undoubtedly I am: This Problem’s very heavy on my mind, And I’m not one either to shirk or sham: I won’t be blinded, and I won’t be blind.

Now, let me see: First, I would know how did I get in _there_? Then, where was I of yore? Besides, why didn’t I get out before? Dear me! Here are three puzzles (out of plenty more) Enough to give me pip upon the brain! But let me think again. How do I know I ever _was_ inside? Now I reflect, it is, I do maintain, Less than my reason, and beneath my pride, To think that I could dwell In such a paltry miserable cell As that old shell. Of course I couldn’t! How could _I_ have lain, Body and beak and feathers, legs and wings, And my deep heart’s sublime imaginings, In there?

I meet the notion with profound disdain; It’s quite incredible; since I declare (And I’m a chicken that you can’t deceive) _What I can’t understand I won’t believe._ Where _did_ I come from, then? Ah! where, indeed? This is a riddle monstrous hard to read. I have it! Why, of course, All things are moulded by some plastic force, Out of some atoms somewhere up in space, Fortuitously concurrent anyhow;-- There, now! That’s plain as is the beak upon my face.

What’s that I hear? My mother cackling at me! Just her way, So prejudiced and ignorant _I_ say; So far behind the wisdom of the day. What’s old I _can’t_ revere. Hark at her. “You’re a silly chick, my dear, That’s quite as plain, alack! As is the piece of shell upon your back!” How bigoted! upon my back, indeed! I don’t believe it’s there, For I can’t _see_ it: and I do declare, For all her fond deceivin’, _What I can’t see I never will believe in!_

A MEDLEY.

I only know she came and went, [Lowell. Like troutlets in a pool; [Hood. She was a phantom of delight, [Wordsworth. And I was like a fool. [Eastman. One kiss, dear maid, I said, and sighed, [Coleridge. Out of those lips unshorn! [Longfellow. She shook her ringlets round her head, [Stoddard. And laughed in merry scorn. [Tennyson. Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky, [Tennyson. You hear them, Oh, my heart, [Alice Cary. ’Tis twelve at night by the castle clock-- [Coleridge. Beloved, we must part. [Alice Cary. Come back, come back, she cried in grief, [Campbell. My eyes are dim with tears; [B. Taylor. How shall I live through all the days, [Mrs. Osgood. All through a hundred years? [J. J. Perry. ’Twas in the prime of summer time, [Hood. She blessed me with her hand; [Hoyt. We strayed together deeply blest, [Mrs. Edwards. Into the dreaming land. [Cornwall. The laughing bridal roses blew, [Patmore. To deck her dark brown hair, [B. Taylor. No maiden may with her compare, [Brailsford. Most beautiful, most rare! [Read. I clasped it on her sweet cold hand, [Browning. The precious golden link; [Smith. I calmed her fears, and she was calm-- [Coleridge. Drink, pretty creature, drink! [Wordsworth. And so I won my Genevieve, [Coleridge. And walked in Paradise; [Hervey. The fairest thing that ever grew [Wordsworth. Atween me and the skies! [Tennyson.

ANOTHER MEDLEY.

(WHO ARE THE AUTHORS?)

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, In every clime, from Lapland to Japan; To fix one spark of beauty’s heavenly ray, The proper study of mankind is man.

Tell, for you can, what is it to be wise, Sweet Auburn, loveliest village of the plain! “The man of Ross,” each lisping babe replies, And drags, at each remove a length’ning chain.

Ah, who can tell how hard it is to climb Far as the solar walk, or milky way? Procrastination is the thief of time, Let Hercules himself do what he may.

’Tis education forms the common mind, The feast of reason and the flow of soul; I must be cruel only to be kind, And waft a sigh from Indus to the pole.

Syphax! I joy to meet thee thus alone, Where’er I roam, whatever lands I see; A youth to fortune and to fame unknown, In maiden meditation, fancy free.

Farewell! and wheresoe’er thy voice be tried, Why to yon mountain turns the gazing eye? With spectacles on nose, and pouch on side, That teach the rustic moralist to die.

Pity the sorrows of a poor old man, Whose beard descending, swept his aged breast; Laugh where we must, be candid where we can, Man never is, but always to be blest.

AND ANOTHER MEDLEY.

The moon was shining silver bright, All bloodless lay the untrodden snow, When freedom from her mountain height, Exclaimed, “Now don’t be foolish, Joe!”

An hour passed by; the Turk awoke, Ten days and nights with sleepless eye, To hover in the sulphur smoke, And spread its pall upon the sky.

His echoing axe the settlers swung, He was a lad of high degree; And deep the pearly caves among, Sweet Mary, weep no more for me.

Loud roars the wild, inconstant blast, And cloudless sets the sun at even; When twilight dews are falling fast, And rolls the thunder-drum of heaven.

Oh, ever thus, from childhood’s hour, By torch and trumpet fast arrayed, Beneath yon ivy-mantled tower, They lingered in the forest shade.

My love is like the red, red rose; He bought a ring with posy true; Deep terror then my vitals froze; And, Saxon, I am Rhoderick Dhu!

LIFE.

Why all this toil for triumph of an hour? [Young. Life’s a short summer--man is but a flower; [Dr. Johnson. By turns we catch the fatal breath and die-- [Pope. The cradle and the tomb, alas! so nigh. [Prior. To be is better far than not to be, [Sewell. Though all man’s life may seem a tragedy: [Spencer. But light cares speak when mighty griefs are dumb-- [Daniel. The bottom is but shallow whence they come. [Sir Walter Raleigh. Your fate is but the common fate of all; [Longfellow. Unmingled joys may here no man befall; [Southwell. Nature to each allots his proper sphere, [Congreve. Fortune makes folly her peculiar care; [Churchill. Custom does often reason overrule, [Rochester. And throw a cruel sunshine on a fool. [Armstrong. Live well--how long or short permit to heaven; [Milton. They who forgive most shall be most forgiven, [Bailey. Sin may be clasped so close we cannot see its face-- [French. Vile intercourse where virtue has no place, [Sommerville. Then keep each passion down, however dear. [Thompson. Thou pendulum betwixt a smile and tear; [Byron. Her sensual snares let faithless Pleasure lay, [Smollet. With craft and skill to ruin and betray, [Crabbe. Soar not too high to fall, but stoop to rise, [Massinger. We masters grow of all that we despise. [Cowley. Oh, then, renounce that impious self-esteem; [Beattie. Riches have wings; and grandeur is a dream. [Cowper. Think not ambition wise because ’tis brave, [Sir Walter Davenant. The paths of glory lead but to the grave, [Gray. What is ambition? ’Tis a glorious cheat. [Willis. Only destructive to the brave and great. [Addison. What’s all the gaudy glitter of a crown? [Dryden. The way to bliss lies not on beds of down. [Francis Quarles. How long we live, not years but actions tell; [Watkins. That man lives twice who lives the first life well. [Herrick. Make then, while yet you may, your God your friend. [William Mason. Whom Christians worship, yet not comprehend. [Hill. The trust that’s given guard, and to yourself be just; [Dana. For live we how we may, yet die we must. [Shakespeare.

THE KEY.

ANSWERS TO PUZZLES.

1. Cobweb. _M. A. R._

2. Thanks.

3. Of course I can! (Of Corsican.)

4. Maid of Orleans.

5. Because they have studded the heavens for centuries.

6. The winds blue, and the waves rose.

7. In violet.

8. They _leave out_ their summer dress.

9. Because I am the querist.

10. Penmanship. _English Paper._

11. Heather: weather. _Hearth and Home._

12. Nothing.

13. It contains all the letters of the alphabet.

14. A lawsuit.

15. His father was Enoch, who did not die.

16. Yes: he was the Daughter-of-Pharaoh’s son.

17. When Autumn is turning the leaves.

18. Bud-dhism.

19. Starch. (Star, sac, scar, tar, trash, act, arc, arch, art, ash, rat, rash, chart, cart, cat, car, chat, cash, cast, crash, hart, hat.)

20. Ague. (Hague; league; plague.)

21. Lettuce, alone. (Let us alone!)

22. The moon.

23. A human being. _The Sphinx Riddle._

24. Noah.

25. Macaulay. _Rural New Yorker._

26. N R G.

27. M T.

28. O B C T.

29. X L N C.

30. L E G.

31. Dutch S.

32. French L.

33. K.

34. In the days of no A (Noah,) before U and I were born.

35. T.

36. Q.

37. It’s laudin’ ’em.

38. No man has three feet; a man has two feet more than no man: therefore, a man has five feet.

39. A branch. _M. L. C._

40. Love Me Little: Love Me Long.

41. Ma mère. _E. P._

42. Amiable (Am I able?)

43. Conundrum.

44. Purcell. _M. D._

45. You sigh for a cipher, but I sigh for thee; Oh, sigh for no cipher, but, oh, sigh for me; And O, let my sigh for no cipher go, But give sigh for sigh, for I sigh for you so!

46. Because they _axed_ him whether he would or no. (Horrid!)

47. He was out at midnight, _on a bust_.

48. 99⁹⁄₉.

49. The season is backward for potatoes.

50. One “wouldn’t do:” one “would do.”

51. When he owed (Oh’d) “for a lodge in some vast wilderness.”

52. The reindeer (The rain, dear!)

53. Red Wing. _M. A. R._

54. Insert a semicolon after “peacock,” after “comet,” after “cloud,” &c.; finally, after “sun.”

55. Semicolon after “talked.”

56. Absence of body!

57. The year before was 1870; the year following was 1870, too.

58. Because they’d _fall out_, if they didn’t.

59. Io died (iodide) of potassium.

60. He named it Robinson for Robinson crew so!

61. They’ve been to sea.

62. By the _Sound_.

63. He wears his collar and _pants_.

64. Veil; vile or evil; Levi, live.

65. A pair of spurs.

66. The letter A.

67. Translate the fourth and fifth “_suis_,” _follow_. “Suis” comes from _suivre_, as well as from _être_.

68. A mouse ran, full _but_, Against my big _to_.

69. Mind your _I_!

70. Campbell’s Poems.

71. Thou tea-chest!

72. J’aime en silence (_six lances_.)

73. Who raw for (the) read, white, and blew!

74. G a. (G, grand; a, petit.)

75. Toad (to _ad_.)

76. Noon.

77. Insatiate (in sat I ate.)

78. Follow the English pronunciation of the syllables, allowing for the cockneyish displacement of the letter h.

Thus: TONY’S ADDRESS TO MARY.

O Mary! Heave a sigh for me, For me, your Tony true; I am become as a man dumb,-- Oh, let Hymen prompt you! etc.

The eighth line is “Or eat a bit of pie.”

79. _____ _____ | | | | |___|___|___| | | |___|

80. _________ | _|_ | |_|_|_|_| | |_| |___|

81. XIII. (X, ^VIII.)

82. For convenience let us call the eight-gallon measure, a; the five-gallon, b; and the three-gallon, c.

From a fill c, and empty into b. Fill c again; and, from it, fill b. Then empty b into a, and c, (which has in it one gallon,) into b. Fill c again, and empty into b, which now contains four gallons; while a, also, contains four.

83. One bushel and one-ninth.

84. Nescio. Ik weet niet. Je ne sais pas. No sà. Non so. Ich weiss nicht. Ninis cume. I dinna ken. I DON’T KNOW!

Professor Robinson in his Algebra attempts it, but not satisfactorily, so long as letters may be made to represent any number, or any other number, at discretion. Let us call it in this particular phase--(unfortunately it has others),--the Matrimonial Equation: “For, these two are one.”

85. The stranger had eaten eight-thirds of a loaf: seven-thirds belonging to one of the Arabs, and only one-third to the other.

86. He lost four dollars and the actual cost of the boots.

87. 5 herring @ 2_d._ = 10_d._ 1 “ @ ½ = ½ 6 “ @ ¼ = 1½ -- ----------- 12 “ 12_d._

88. Endless.

89. Cares: caress.

90. Onion.

91. Advice.

92. When he has grounds for complaint.

93. For divers reasons.

94. For sundry purposes.

95. “The quality of Mercy (Mersey) is not strained.” _H. B. S._

96. “If the grate be empty, put coal on. If the grate be full, stop putting coal on.” So said one, but another replied “How can I put coal on, when there is such a high fender?”

97. Because he is no better.

98. When it becomes a lady.

99. The letters of the alphabet.

100. _One_ was _going_ to St. Ives’: he met the others.

101. A little too long to wait! (A _little_ 2, _long_ 2, 8.) _E. S. D._

102. The Image that Michal put in David’s bed. I Samuel, ch. xix. Douay version, xix ch. I Kings.

103. His sister. The blind beggar was a woman.

104. The man who thanked Heaven was the lady’s father.

105. “That man” was the rhymer’s son.

106. Hirsute.

107. The letter s.

108. Because it is always _Snowdon_.

109. They should go to Fall River and Salem.

110. Novice.

111. Burns. _Hearth and Home._

112. Crabbe. “ “ “

113. Bryant. “ “ “

114. Gray. “ “ “

115. Beecher. “ “ “

116. Homer.

117. Hood.

118. Southey.

119. Coleridge.

120. Goldsmith.

121. Humboldt.

122. Mulock.

123. Lowell.

124. Virgil.

125. Akenside.

126. Wordsworth.

127. Steele.

128. Shakespeare.

129. Cowper.

130. WILLis.

131. Barry Cornwall.

132. Landon.

133. Landor.

134. Leigh Hunt.

135. Walpole.

136. Palmerston.

137. Russell.

138. Lytton.

139. Carlyle.

140. Seward.

141. W(h)ittier.

142. Chatter(t)on.

143. Because he has tenants.

144. It is a step fa(r)ther.

145. A draft.

146. A pack of cards.

147. A cord of wood.

148. Taking leave of things as they go.

149. His reaper.

150. It was Hamlet’s Uncle, who “did murder most foul.”

151. The Human Body.--^1 The chest; ^2 the eye-_lids_; ^3 the knee-_caps_; ^4 the ear-_drums_; ^5 the nails; ^6 the _soles_ of the feet; ^7 the muscles; ^8 the _palms_ of the hands; ^9 the limbs; ^10 two lips; ^11 the hips; ^12 the calves; ^13 hairs; ^14 the heart; ^15 the eye-_lashes_; ^16 the temples; ^17 arms; ^18 veins; ^19 insteps; ^20 eyes and nose; ^21 pupils; ^22 tendons.

^a The palate; ^b the _roof_ (of the mouth;) ^c the _bridge_ (of the nose;) ^d the shoulder-_blades_; ^e the iris (of each eye;) ^f the skull; ^g the spinal _column_; ^h the tongue; ^i the eye-_balls_, &c., ^jjj the stirrup, anvil and hammer (bones of the ear,) ^k locks (of hair).

152. Truant.

153. Scarecrow.

154. Intimate.

155. Codicil.

156. The hair.

157. Sixteen (those who were blind of both eyes, were also blind of one eye, &c.)

158. Because we have a W(h)ittier.

159. Because that was his name!

160. Because the other forty are Lent.

161. Now here, nowhere.

162. Ah no! (Arno.)

163. Unquestionably.

164. The road.

165. Columbus.

166. Met-a-physician.

167. Sackcloth.

168. The one who attends “patien_ts_ on a monument.”

169. Rather he killed the gorilla.

170. She is a musing, b coming, d lighting, n chanting.

171. She is _Sad you see_.

172. She is _Fair I see_.

173. “The judicious Hooker.”

174. Yesterday.

175. Sunday; all the rest are _week_ days.

176. Campbell. _W. M. Praed._

177. Seldom, (cell-dumb.)

178. His equal.

179. Just ice.

180. The King’s Highway.

181. Postage.

182. Baking--_a king_, _b king_, _a kin_.

183. Strawberry.

184. A Mushroom.

185. Fault.

186. A ditch.

187. When they chatter.

188. Short.

189. A pillow.

190. _Ad_vice.

191. Heat; you can _catch_ cold.

192. Sausage. _Rural New Yorker._

193. Hemlock.

194. Heroine; hero; her; he.

195. A blush.

196. He took his cup and saucer.

197. The cat’ll eat it.

198. B natural.

199. B sharp.

200. If the stairs were a way, I would go down stairs.

201. Nameless.

202. He “cut it too little”; that is, he did not cut it enough.

203. TOBACCO.

204. Because of the sandwiches (sand which is) there.

205. How did the sandwiches get there? Ans. There Ham dwelt, and there his descendants were bred and mustered (bread and mustard.)

206. Was there any butter on the sandwiches? Ans. No; Ham took only his wife; he took none of his family BUT _her_.

207. His was made _of_ Gophir wood, and they are made _to_ go for wood.

208. “Noah went _forth_.”

209. (M) _a jest_ (y).

210. “Dreaming often;” dreaming of _ten_.

211. Yes; “perhaps” _is_ most like maybe, or a bee in May.

212. The third gave it her ring, which Puss _couldn’t_ eat.

213. On the other side.

214. Eusebius, (You see by us.)

215. Inch; chin.

216. Envy; (N. V.)

217. Pardon.

218. Cape, caper.

219. Ten, tenor.

220. Foe, four.

221. Oak, ochre.

222. Sow, soar.

223. Fee, fear.

224. Roe, roar.

225. Sue, sewer.

226. Be, beer.

227. Lie, lyre.

228. Beau, bore.

229. Stowe, store.

230. Sea, seer.

231. Cough, coffer.

232. Loaf, loafer.

233. Port, porter.

234. Pie, pyre.

235. Bat, batter.

236. Dee, deer.

237. Tart, Tartar.

238. Tea, tier.

239. Ye, year, yeast.

240. Bow, boar, boast.

241. Fee, fear, feast.

242. Pay, pear, paste.

243. Lea, Lear, least.

244. Bow, rower, roast.

245. Bee, bier, beast.

246. E, ear, east.

247. Co., core, coast.

248. Poe, pour, post.

249. Go, gore, ghost.

250. Weigh, weigher, waste.

251. “Dear Nephew; See, my coal on. Uncle John.” “Dear Uncle; Coal on! James.”

252. He is above doing a bad action.

253. Because a hen lays only one egg a day, and a ship _lays to_.

254. Because you can.

255. ^1 corn, ^2 needles, ^3 pins, ^4 buckles, ^5 canals, ^6 combs, ^7 rivers, ^8 roses, ^9 clocks, ^10 potatoes, ^11 stars, ^12 shoes. _Hearth and Home._

256. The whale that swallowed Jonah.

257. Bunyan--a bunion.

258. A girl is a lass, and alas is an interjection.

259. Learning to go alone.

260. The door-bell.

261. White kids.

262. He would want muzzlin’.

263. When it lies in a well.

264. Three: Sirius and the two pointers.

265. _Hailing_ omnibuses.

266. All the rest are in audible.

267. Because he is not a(p)parent.

268. A river.

269. Neither: both burn shorter.

270. Because it keeps its hands before its face; and, though full of good works, it is wholly unconscious of them, and always running itself down.

271. Manslaughter; man’s laughter.

272. _Mo_nosyllable.

273. A bed.

274. (P)shaw!

275. The sons raise meat there. (The sun’s rays meet there.)

276. Innocence Abroad, by Mark Twain (In no sense, a broad).

277. Facetiously.

278. Philip the Great.

279. Bug-bear.

280. Wat Tyler Will Rufus.

281. Bloomer (err; her; Herr).

282. Clio.

283. Cheat; heat; eat; at; chat; ache.

284. One; none.

285. Arrow-head.

286. A man of deceit Can best counter_feit_; So, as everything goes, He can best count ’er toes.

287. Balaam’s Ass.

288. A kiss.

289. The _five_ vowels.

290. Dotage.

291. Seaward.

292. Mimic.

293. Disgraceful.

294. The first made musical instruments; the second was a baggage-man; the third was employed in a gas-factory; and the fourth made candles.

295. Cod.

296. The postman.

297. Cowslip.

298. Love.

299. The axle-tree.

300. Because it is farthest from the bark.

301. Because his business makes him sell-fish.

302. Pearlash.

303. If he was a _won_der, she was a _Tu_dor.

304. LION INTO OTTO NOON.

305. A cock.

306. Enigma.

307. Crabbe, Shelley, Moore.

308. Goldsmith, Locke.

309. Campbell, Knight, Day, Foote.

310. His face.

311. BLIND.

312. Young, Gay, Hood, Lamb, Field, Gray, Fox, Hunt, Horne, Lingard, Wordsworth, Steele.

313. Marvell, Hilarius, Akenside, Manley, Hyde, Pope.

314. Aërial.

315. Bass, perch, roast pig, turkey, fillet, celery, gooseberry pudding, dates, Hamburg grapes.

316. Fire-fly.

317. The nose.

318. _Wal_nut.

319. Pea-nut.

320. Butternut.

321. _Beech_nut.

322. Chestnut.

323. Cocoanut.

324. The morning glory.

325. Snow drops.

326. Spinach.

327. The passion flower.

328. The spruce tree.

329. Because he has Adam’s Needle, Jacob’s Ladder, and Solomon’s Seal.

330. Catnip and Henbane.

331. Heart-ache.

332. Cashmere.

333. Season.

334. A drum.

335. Chain, china, chin.

336. Charge, charger.

337. Scamp, scamper.

338. Lad, ladder.

339. Tell, teller.

340. Barb, barber.

341. Din, dinner.

342. I, ire.

343. Yew, ewer.

344. Owe, oar.

345. Crescent, (cress-scent.)

346. The 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 12th, 16th, 18th, 19th, 22nd, 23rd, 24th, 26th, 27th, 30th, in the circle, were Jews.

347. Honesty is the best policy. (On ST, etc.)

348. [Illustration: (‡ A square enclosing a second square. The second square is set at a 45 degree angle compared to the first square.)]

349. The Tongue.

350. Bothwell. _St. Nicholas._

351. A little more than _kin_ and less than _kind_.

352. Clink, link, ink, chair, hair, air.

353. (1) D-ranged; (2) C-girt; (3) D-lighted; (4) N-hammered; (5) D-tested; (6) R-gone-out: (7) G-owed; (8) K-dense; (9) O-void; (10) S-pied; (11) B-held; (12) C-bored; (13) X-pensive; (14) D-famed. _St. Nicholas._

354. Wake robin.

355. Fill blanks with: straining, training, raining; dashing, plashing, marching, arching.

356. Lily.

357. Ivanhoe. _St. Nicholas._

358. Aries,--_we_aries. The enigma refers to the period when Taurus (the name of whose principal star Aldebaran signifies “He went before, or led the way,”) was First Constellation. Next, Aries, always First Sign, was also First Constellation; and now the Constellation Pisces “leads the year.”

359. Tissue.

360. Because it is written with great E’s.

361. Because it is written with two great E’s--(_too_ great ease.)

362. Trace a five-pointed star, and plant a tree at each extreme point, and at each point of intersection.

363. In naught extenuate, and set _down_ naught in malice. _E. S. D._

364. That boy lied.

365. Fill the blanks with heart, story, art, tory.

366. Fill the blanks with plover, lover, over, ver; glowing, lowing, owing, wing.

367. “For thou art as deaf as a p-o-s-t.”

368. April: (ape, rill).

369. He mispronounced the word “full.” “You’re a fool, Moon,” said he.

370. The pronoun “it,” which may stand for anything on earth, or under or above the earth, seems to be the only possible solution. In the first line it stands, perhaps, for the utmost limit of space; in the second, for the centre of the earth, etc.

371. Dogmatic.

372. Cambyses.

373. About 117.7 feet. (Find the radius of a circle whose area is 43,560 square feet.).--_Prof. Eaton, of Packer Institute._

374. Informal.

375. A DINNER PARTY--THE GUESTS.

1. Robert Bruce. 2. Sir Walter Scott. 3. Cleopatra. 4. Leonidas. 5. Napoleon. 6. John Milton. 7. Louis XVI. 8. Artemisia. 9. Michael Angelo. 10. Gustavus of Sweden. 11. Warwick. 12. Anne of Warwick. 13. Christopher Wren. 14. Cardinal Mezzofanti. 15. Nelson. 16. Robert Burns. 17. The Chevalier Bayard. 18. Cromwell. 19. Sir Robert Walpole. 20. Sopor, King of Persia. 21. Death. 22. Schwartz, or Roger Bacon. 23. Alfred the Great. 24. Captain Cook. 25. Johannes Gutenberg. 26. Marshal Ney. 27. Galileo. 28. Blucher. 29. Sir Isaac Newton. 30. Julius Cæsar. 31. Sir Humphrey Davy. 32. Sir Walter Raleigh. 33. Sir James Ross. 34. Alfred Tennyson. 35. William Wordsworth. 36. Geoffrey Chaucer. 37. Charles XII of Sweden. 38. The Black Prince. 39. Sir Francis Drake. 40. Talleyrand. 41. Herodotus.

DISHES, ETC.

1. Oysters. 2. Soles. 3. Herring. 4. Crabs. 5. Venison. 6. Turkey. 7. Bacon. 8. Lamb. 9. Goose. 10. Hare. 11. Duck. 12. Woodcock. 13. Partridge. 14. Tongue. 15. Terrapin. 16. Potatoes. 17. Pease. 18. Parsnips. 19. Tomatoes. 20. Beets. 21. Spinach(e). 22. Cabbage. 23. Cauliflower. 24. Salad _in_. 25. Jelly. 26. Celery. 27. Artichokes. 28. Capers. 29. Cucumbers. 30. Salt. 31. Hominy. 32. Bread. 33. A _floating_ island. 34. Whips. 35. Currants. 36. Gooseberries. 37. Pears. 38. Oranges. 39. Pine apples. 40. Apricots. 41. Medlars. 42. Figs. 43. Grapes (gray apes.) 44. Comfits. 45. Nuts.

_Note._--“A headless man had a letter,” etc., page 78. Was “the letter” the letter O--equivalent to a cipher, to nought, or nothing? If this is the solution, then the headless man had “nothing” to write; “nothing” was read by the blind man; the dumb repeated and the deaf heard “nothing.”

Footnotes

[1] Reminichia--overhanging the water--the Indian name of a bluff at the entrance of a certain Minnesota city.

[2] Full of delights: blessed.

[3] The book was written in good faith, and was published for the benefit of the Syracuse University.

[4] Emerson, in his “Parnassus,” and the _Atlantic Monthly_ for April, 1875, accredit “A Colusion between A Water-Snaik and A Aligater,” to G. H. Derby (“John Phenix”). It was contributed by “K. N. Pepper” to the _Knickerbocker Magazine_, in 1854.

Transcriber’s Notes

Inconsistent word hyphenation and spelling have been regularized.

Apparent typographical errors have been corrected.

Depending on the device, software and font used to read this text, not all elements may display as intended.

Italics are indicated as _italics_.

Bold words are indicated as =bold=.

Very large type is indicated as ++large++.

Small capitals were changed to all capitals.

Superscripts are preceded by a caret character: ^superscript, and subscripts are preceded by a tilde character: ~subscript.

In puzzle 347, superscript (^) and subscript (~) marks affect only the next letter displayed.

The symbol ‘‡’ indicates that the description in parentheses has been added to an illustration tag. Visual elements in puzzles 72, 351, 363 and in answer 348 have been described in this way.

Puzzles 79 and 80 and their answers are represented as text art.

In the printer’s short-hand poem on page 119, the “{” character was originally depicted facing upwards.

The illusion “Seeing is Believing: Seeing is Deceiving” on Page 97 may not work with every font.

The word pyramid on Page 132 may not make the expected shape with every font.