(Like essence-peddlers *) thet 'll make folks long to be without 'em, Jest heavy 'nough to turn a scale thet 's doubtfle the wrong way, An' make their natʼral arsenal o' bein' nasty pay, Long 'z them things last, (an' I don't see no gret signs of improvin',) I sha'n't up stakes, not hardly yit, nor 't would n't pay for movin'; For, 'fore see. you lick us, it'll be the long'st day ever you Yourn, (ez I 'xpec' to be nex' spring,) B., MARKISS o' BIG BOOSY. * A rustic euphemism for the American variety of the Mephitis. H. W. No. IV. A MESSAGE OF JEFF DAVIS IN SECRET SESSION. Conjecturally reported by H. BIGLOW. TO THE EDITORS OF THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. JAALAM, 10th March, 1862. GENTLEMEN,My leisure has been so entirely occupied with the hitherto fruitless endeavour to decypher the Runick inscription whose fortunate discovery I mentioned in my last communication, that I have not found time to discuss, as I had intended, the great problem of what we are to do with slavery, a topick on which the publick mind in this place is at present more than ever agitated. What my wishes and hopes are I need not say, but for safe conclusions I do not conceive that we are yet in possession of facts enough on which to bottom them with certainty. Acknowledging the hand of Providence, as I do, in all events, I am sometimes inclined to think that they are wiser than we, and am willing to wait till we have made this continent once more a place where freemen can live in security and honour, before assuming any further responsibility. This is the view taken by my neighbour Habakkuk Sloansure, Esq., the president of our bank, whose opinion in the practical affairs of life has great weight with me, as I have generally found it to be justified by the event, and whose counsel, had I followed it, would have saved me from an unfortunate investment of a considerable part of the painful economies of half a century in the Northwest-Passage Tunnel. After a somewhat animated discussion with this gentleman, a few days since, I expanded, on the audi alteram partem principle, something which he happened to say by way of illustration, into the following fable. FESTINA LENTE. ONCE on a time there was a pool Hedged round the unassailed seclusion, The watering-place of summer frog, Now in this Abbey of Theleme, To a call a meeting there and then. "Some kind of steps," they said, "are needed; They don't come on so fast as we did: Let's dock their tails; if that don't make 'em That boy, that came the other day Old croakers, deacons of the mire, That led the deep batrachian choir, Uk! Uk! Caronk! with bass that might Have left Lablache's out of sight, Shook nobby heads, and said, "No go! You'd better let 'em try to grow: H Old Doctor Time is slow, but still But vain was all their hoarsest bass, "Lord knows," protest the polliwogs, But we must have the things to steer with." "No," piped the party of reform, "All great results are ta'en by storm; Fate holds her best gifts till we show We 've strength to make her let them go; |