"Woodman, spare that Tree."
General Morris, who is associated with Mr. N. P. Willis as Editor, and publisher of the "Home Journal," in New York, was, as all the world knows—or at least, as the United States ought to know, for it is something to be proud of to be possessed of a real living poet in these days—was the author of the words of a charming ballad, entitled, "Woodman, spare that Tree," which was sung effectively by an illustrious scion of the house of Russell. The parentage of this lyric having been claimed by a respectable Boston paper, (The Sunday News), on behalf of a deceased literary gentleman named Woodward, who is said, in an unguarded moment, to have pawned his reputation upon the Woodman, to the gallant General, for a glass of grog; the General indignantly repudiates the whole statement; repeating that, "a slander well hoed grows like the devil;" and labours to establish the fact, that the American General Morris is not to be by posterity identified with the English Captain of the same name—as a song writer.
The Bawdrick or Baldrock. (Illustrated.)
The Rectory, Clyst St. George, Topsham,
Jan. 2, 1852.
Sir,—You are publishing, in your "Current Notes," some nice little cuts of interesting relics of antiquity, for which all who delight in such things must feel thankful to you.
May I ask you to put into your cutter's hands the rough sketch which I send with this; and will you allow it to be introduced to the notice of your readers, as an illustration of the Bawdrick, or Baldrock, which is the leather gear, with its appurtenances of the upper part of the clapper in old black-letter bells, and about which your readers may have seen a discussion, with extracts from old Churchwarden's accounts, in another valuable periodical of like character to your own, but in which at present no illustrations of any kind are admitted. You will oblige one of your subscribers.
H. T. E.
Mr. Willis.