The liquor can 't git into it ez 't used to in the true one;

So it saves drink; an' then, besides, a feller could n't beg

A gretter blessin' then to hev one ollers sober peg;

It's true a chap's in want o' two fer follerin' a drum,

But all the march I'm up to now is jest to Kingdom Come.

I've lost one eye, but thet 's a loss it's easy to supply

Out o' the glory thet' I 've gut, fer thet is all

my eye;

An' one is big enough, I guess, by diligently usin' it,

To see all I shall ever git by way o' pay fer losin' it;

20

Officers I notice, who git paid fer all our thumps an' kickins,

Du wal by keepin' single eyes arter the fattest pickins;

So, ez the eye's put fairly out, I'll larn to go without it,

An' not allow myself to be no gret put out about it.

Now, le' me see, thet is n't all; I used, 'fore leavin' Jaalam,

To count things on my finger-eends, but sutthin' seems to ail 'em: Ware's my left hand? Oh, darn it, yes, I recollect wut's come on 't;

I haint no left arm but my right, an' thet's gut jest a thumb on 't;

It aint so hendy ez it wuz to cal'late a sum on 't.

I've hed some ribs broke, — six (I b'lieve), -I haint kep' no account on 'em; 30 Wen pensions git to be the talk, I'll settle

Can be took off an' sot away wenever ther's a puddin'.

I spose you think I'm comin' back ez opperlunt ez thunder,

40

With shiploads o' gold images an' varus sorts o' plunder;

Wal, 'fore I vullinteered, I thought this country wuz a sort o'

Canaan, a reg'lar Promised Land flowin' with rum an' water,

Ware propaty growed up like time, without no cultivation,

An' gold wuz dug ez taters be among our Yankee nation,

Ware nateral advantages were pufficly amazin',

Ware every rock there wuz about with precious stuns wuz blazin',

Ware mill-sites filled the country up ez thick ez you could cram 'em,

An' desput rivers run about a beggin' folks to dam 'em;

Then there were meetinhouses, tu, chockful o' gold an' silver

50

Thet you could take, an' no one could n't hand ye in no bill fer;Thet's wut I thought afore I went, thet 's wut them fellers told us

Thet stayed to hum an' speechified an' to the buzzards sold us;

I thought thet gold-mines could be gut cheaper than Chiny asters,

An' see myself acomin' back like sixty Jacob Astors;

But sech idees soon melted down an' did n't leave a grease-spot;

I vow my holl sheer o' the spiles would n't come nigh a V spot;

Although, most anywares we've ben, you need n't break no locks,

Nor run no kin' o' risks, to fill your pocket full o' rocks.

I 'xpect I mentioned in my last some o' the nateral feeturs

60

O' this all-fiered buggy hole in th' way o' awfle creeturs,

But I fergut to name (new things to speak on so abounded)

How one day you'll most die o' thust, an' 'fore the next git drownded. The clymit seems to me jest like a teapot made o' pewter'

Our Preudence hed, thet would n't pour (all she could du) to suit her;

An' jest ez th' officers 'ould be a layin' heads together

Ez t' how they'd mix their drink at sech a milingtary deepot,

'T would pour ez though the lid wuz off the everlastin' teapot.

The cons'quence is, thet I shall take, wen
I'm allowed to leave here,
One piece o' propaty along, an' thet 's the
shakin' fever;

It's reggilar employment, though, an' thet aint thought to harm one,

Nor 't aint so tiresome ez it wuz with t' other leg an' arm on;

An' it's a consolation, tu, although it doos

One day a reg'lar shiver-de-freeze, an' next ez good ez bakin',

One day abrilin' in the sand, then smoth'rin' in the mashes,

Git up all sound, be put to bed a mess o' hacks an' smashes.

But then, thinks I, at any rate there's glory to be hed,

Thet 's an investment, arter all, thet may n't turn out so bad;

But somehow, wen we'd fit an' licked, I ollers found the thanks

Gut kin' o' lodged afore they come ez low down ez the ranks;

The Gin'rals gut the biggest sheer, the Cunnles next, an' so on,

We never gut a blasted mite o' glory ez I know on;

An' spose we hed, I wonder how you 're goin' to contrive its

You would n't git more 'n half enough to speak of on a grave-stun;

We git the licks, we're jest the grist thet's put into War's hoppers; Leftenants is the lowest grade thet helps pick up the coppers.

It may suit folks thet go agin a body with a soul in't,

An' aint contented with a hide without a bagnet hole in't;

But glory is a kin' o' thing I sha'n't pursue no furder,

Coz thet 's the off'cers' parquisite,—yourn's on'y jest the murder.

Wal, arter I gin glory up, thinks I at least there's one

100

Thing in the bills we aint hed yit, an' thet 's the GLORIOUS FUN:

Ef once we git to Mexico, we fairly may persume we

All day an' night shall revel in the halls o' Montezumy.

I'll tell ye wut my revels wuz, an' see how you would like 'em;

We never gut inside the hall: the nighest ever I come

Wuz stan'in' sentry in the sun (an', fact, it seemed a cent'ry)

A ketchin' smells o' biled an' roast thet come out thru the entry,

An' hearin' ez I sweltered thru my passes

Division so 's to give a piece to twenty thousand privits;

Ef you should multiply by ten the portion o' the brav'st one,

fer my

more fish-skin than folks think to take the rile clean out on 't;

At any rate I'm so used up I can't do no

more fightin',

There's one thing I'm in doubt about; in order to be Presidunt,

160

It's absolutely ne'ssary to be a Southern residunt;

The Constitution settles thet, an' also thet a feller

Must own a nigger o' some sort, jet black, or brown, or yeller.

Now I haint no objections agin particklar climes,

Nor agin ownin' anythin' (except the truth sometimes),

But, ez I haint no capital, up there among ye, maybe,

You might raise funds enough fer me to buy a low-priced baby,

An' then to suit the No'thern folks, who feel obleeged to say

They hate an' cus the very thing they vote fer every day,

Say you 're assured I go full but fer Libbaty's diffusion

170

An' made the purchis on'y jest to spite the Institootion;

But, golly! there's the currier's hoss upon the pavement pawin'!

I'll be more 'xplicit in my next.

Yourn, BIRDOFREDUM SAWIN. July 6, 1848.

Reader walk up at once (it will soon be too late), and buy at a perfectly ruinous rate

A FABLE FOR CRITICS:

OR, BETTER,

(I LIKE, AS A THING THAT THE READER'S FIRST FANCY MAY STRIKE, AN OLD-FASHIONED TITLEPAGE, SUCH AS PRESENTS A TABULAR VIEW OF THE VOLUME'S CONTENTS),

A GLANCE AT A FEW OF OUR LITERARY PROGENIES

(MRS. MALAPROP'S WORD) FROM THE TUB OF DIOGENES;

A VOCAL AND MUSICAL MEDLEY, THAT IS,

A SERIES OF JOKES

Bp A Wonderful Quiz,

WHO ACCOMPANIES HIMSELF WITH A RUB-ADUB-DUB, FULL OF SPIRIT AND GRACE, on the TOP OF THE TUB.

Set forth in October, the 31st day, In the year '48, G. P. Putnam, Broadway.

1 This jeu d'esprit was extemporized, I may fairly say, so rapidly was it written, purely for my own amusement and with no thought of publication. I sent daily instalments of it to a friend in New York, the late Charles F. Briggs. He urged me to let it be printed, and I at last consented to its anonymous publication. The secret was kept till after several persons had laid claim to its authorship. (LowELL.)

On the writing of the Fable,' its progress from week to week, and Lowell's presentation of the copyright to his friend Briggs, see Scudder's Life of Lowell, vol. i, pp. 238-255.

Holmes said of it: It is capital- crammed full and rammed down hard powder (lots of it) shot slugs -bullets very little wadding, and that is gun-cotton -all crowded into a rusty looking sort of a blunderbuss barrel as it were- - capped with a percussion preface and cocked with a title-page as apropos as a wink to a joke.' (Morse's Life of Holmes, vol. ii, p. 107.)

The original title-page is given above.

This trifle, begun to please only myself and my own private fancy, was laid on the shelf. But some friends, who had seen it, induced me, by dint of saying they liked it, to put it in print. That is, having come to that very conclusion, I asked their advice when 't would make no confusion. For though (in the gentlest of ways) they had hinted it was scarce worth the while, I should doubtless have printed it.

I began it, intending a Fable, a frail, slender thing, rhyme-ywinged, with a sting in its tail. But, by addings and alterings not previously planned, digressions chancehatched, like birds' eggs in the sand, and dawdlings to suit every whimsey's demand (always freeing the bird which I held in my hand, for the two perched, perhaps out of reach, in the tree), it grew by degrees to the size which you see. I was like the old woman that carried the calf, and my neighbors, like hers, no doubt, wonder and laugh; and when, my strained arms with their grown burthen full, I call it my Fable, they call it a bull.

Having scrawled at full gallop (as far as that goes) in a style that is neither good verse nor bad prose, and being a person whom nobody knows, some people will say I am rather more free with my readers than it is becoming to be, that I seem to expect them to wait on my leisure in following wherever I wander at pleasure, that, in short, I take more than a young author's lawful ease, and laugh in a queer way so like Mephistopheles, that the Public will doubt, as they grope through my rhythm, if in truth I am making fun of them or with them.

So the excellent Public is hereby assured that the sale of my book is already secured. For there is not a poet throughout the whole land but will purchase a copy or two out of hand, in the fond expectation of being amused in it, by seeing his betters cut up and abused in it. Now, I find, by a pretty exact calculation, there are some

thing like ten thousand bards in the nation, of that special variety whom the Review and Magazine critics call lofty and true, and about thirty thousand (this tribe is increasing) of the kinds who are termed full of promise and pleasing. The Public will see by a glance at this schedule, that they cannot expect me to be over-sedulous about courting them, since it seems I have got enough fuel made sure of for boiling my pot.

As for such of our poets as find not their names mentioned once in my pages, with praises or blames, let them SEND IN THEIR CARDS, without further DELAY, to my friend G. P. PUTNAM, Esquire, in Broadway, where a LIST will be kept with the strictest regard to the day and the hour of receiving the card. Then, taking them up as I chance to have time (that is, if their names can be twisted in rhyme), I will honestly give each his PROPER POSITION, at the rate of ONE AUTHOR to each NEW EDITION. Thus a PREMIUM is offered sufficiently HIGH (as the magazines say when they tell their best lie) to induce bards to CLUB their resources and buy the balance of every edition, until they have all of them fairly been run through the mill.

One word to such readers (judicious and wise) as read books with something behind the mere eyes, of whom in the country, perhaps, there are two, including myself, gentle reader, and you. All the characters sketched in this slight jeu d'esprit, though, it may be, they seem, here and there, rather free, and drawn from a somewhat too cynical standpoint, are meant to be faithful, for that is the grand point, and none but an owl would feel sore at a rub from a jester who tells you, without any subterfuge, that he sits in Diogenes' tub.

PHOEBUS, sitting one day in a laurel-tree's shade,

Was reminded of Daphne, of whom it was

He somehow or other had never forgiven her;

Her memory he nursed as a kind of a tonic, Something bitter to chew when he'd play the Byronic,

ΤΟ

And I can't count the obstinate nymphs that he brought over

By a strange kind of smile he put on when he thought of her.

'My case is like Dido's,' he sometimes remarked;

"When I last saw my love, she was fairly embarked

In a laurel, as she thought - but (ah, how Fate mocks!)

She has found it by this time a very bad box; Let hunters from me take this saw when they need it,

You're not always sure of your game when you 've treed it.

who can

Just conceive such a change taking place in one's mistress! What romance would be left ? flatter or kiss trees? And, for mercy's sake, how could one keep up a dialogue

20

With a dull wooden thing that will live and will die a log,

Not to say that the thought would forever intrude

That you've less chance to win her the more she is wood?

Ah! it went to my heart, and the memory still grieves,

To see those loved graces all taking their leaves;

Those charms beyond speech, so enchanting

but now,