The Biglow Papers | Page 7

to leave port with a clipping breeze, and to carry, in nautical
phrase, a bone in her mouth. Nevertheless, I have chosen, as being
more equitable, to prepare some also sufficiently objurgatory, that
readers of every taste may find a dish to their palate. I have modelled
them upon actually existing specimens, preserved in my own cabinet of
natural curiosities. One, in particular, I had copied with tolerable
exactness from a notice of one of my own discourses, which, from its
superior tone and appearance of vast experience, I concluded to have
been written by a man at least three hundred years of age, though I
recollected no existing instance of such antediluvian longevity.
Nevertheless, I afterwards discovered the author to be a young
gentleman preparing for the ministry under the direction of one of my
brethren in a neighbouring town, and whom I had once instinctively
corrected in a Latin quantity. But this I have been forced to omit, from
its too great length.--H. W.]
* * * * *
From the Universal Littery Universe.
Full of passages which rivet the attention of the reader.... Under a rustic

garb, sentiments are conveyed which should be committed to the
memory and engraven on the heart of every moral and social being....
We consider this a unique performance.... We hope to see it soon
introduced into our common schools.... Mr. Wilbur has performed his
duties as editor with excellent taste and judgment.... This is a vein
which we hope to see successfully prosecuted.... We hail the
appearance of this work as a long stride toward the formation of a
purely aboriginal, indigenous, native, and American literature. We
rejoice to meet with an author national enough to break away from the
slavish deference, too common among us, to English grammar and
orthography.... Where all is so good, we are at a loss how to make
extracts.... On the whole, we may call it a volume which no library,
pretending to entire completeness, should fail to place upon its shelves.
* * * * *
From the Higginbottomopolis Snapping-turtle.
A collection of the merest balderdash and doggerel that it was ever our
bad fortune to lay eyes on. The author is a vulgar buffoon, and the
editor a talkative, tedious old fool. We use strong language, but should
any of our readers peruse the book, (from which calamity Heaven
preserve them,) they will find reasons for it thick as the leaves of
Vallumbrozer, or, to use a still more expressive comparison, as the
combined heads of author and editor. The work is wretchedly got up....
We should like to know how much British gold was pocketed by this
libeller of our country and her purest patriots.
* * * * *
From the Oldfogrumville Mentor.
We have not had time to do more than glance through this handsomely
printed volume, but the name of its respectable editor, the Rev. Mr.
Wilbur, of Jaalam, will afford a sufficient guaranty for the worth of its
contents.... The paper is white, the type clear, and the volume of a
convenient and attractive size.... In reading this elegantly executed
work, it has seemed to us that a passage or two might have been

retrenched with advantage, and that the general style of diction was
susceptible of a higher polish.... On the whole, we may safely leave the
ungrateful task of criticism to the reader. We will barely suggest, that in
volumes intended, as this is, for the illustration of a provincial dialect
and turns of expression, a dash of humour or satire might be thrown in
with advantage.... The work is admirably got up.... This work will form
an appropriate ornament to the centre-table. It is beautifully printed, on
paper of an excellent quality.
* * * * *
From the Dekay Bulwark.
We should be wanting in our duty as the conductor of that tremendous
engine, a public press, as an American, and as a man, did we allow
such an opportunity as is presented to us by "The Biglow Papers" to
pass by without entering our earnest protest against such attempts (now,
alas! too common) at demoralizing the public sentiment. Under a
wretched mask of stupid drollery, slavery, war, the social glass, and, in
short, all the valuable and time-honoured institutions justly dear to our
common humanity and especially to republicans, are made the butt of
coarse and senseless ribaldry by this low-minded scribbler. It is time
that the respectable and religious portion of our community should be
aroused to the alarming inroads of foreign Jacobinism, sansculottism,
and infidelity. It is a fearful proof of the wide-spread nature of this
contagion, that these secret stabs at religion and virtue are given from
under the cloak (credite, posteri!) of a clergyman. It is a mournful
spectacle indeed to