HAM AND STILTON.
For the Table Book.
The Poet’s Epistle of Thanks to a
Friend at Birmingham.
“Perlege Mæonio cantatas carmine ranas,
Et frontem nugi, solvere disce meis.”
Mary.
Dear Friend,—I feel constrain’d to say,
The present sent the other day
Claims my best thanks, and while design’d
To please the taste, it warm’d my mind.
Nor, wonder not it should inspire
Within my breast poetic fire!
The Cheese seem’d like some growing state,
Compos’d of little folks and great;
Though we denominate them mites,
They call each other Stiltonites.
And ’tis most fit, where’er we live,
The land our epithet should give:
Romans derive their name from Rome,
And Turks, you know, from Turkey come.
Gazing with “microscopic eye”
O’er Stilton land, I did espy
Such wonders, as would make those stare
Who never peep’d or travell’d there.
The country where this race reside
Abounds with crags on ev’ry side:
Its geographic situation
Is under constant variation;
Now hurried up, then down again—
No fix’d abode can it maintain:
And, like the Lilliputian clime,
We read about in olden time,
Huge giants compass it about,
Who dig within, and cut without,
And at a mouthful—direful fate!
A city oft depopulate!
And, then, in Stilton, you must know
There is a spot, call’d Rotten-row;
A soil more marshy than the rest,
Therefore by some esteem’d the best.
The natives here, whene’er they dine,
Drink nothing but the choicest wine;
Which through each street comes flowing down,
Like water in New Sarum’s town.
In such a quarter, you may guess,
The leading vice is drunkenness.
Come hither any hour of day,
And you shall see whole clusters lay
Reeling and floundering about,
As though it were a madman’s rout.
Those who dwell nearer the land’s end,
Where rarely the red show’rs descend,
Are in their turns corporeal
More sober and gymnastical
Meandering in kindred dust,
They gauge, and with the dry-rot burst,
For we may naturally think,
They live not long who cannot drink.
Alas! poor Stilton! where’s the muse
To sing thy downfall will refuse?
Melpomene, in mournful verse,
Thy dire destruction will rehearse:
Comus himself shall grieve and weep,
As notes of woe his gay lyre sweep;
For who among thy countless band
The fierce invaders can withstand?
Nor only foreign foes are thine—
Children thou hast, who undermine
Thy massive walls that ’girt thee round.
And ev’ry corner seems unsound.
A few more weeks, and we shall see
Stilton, the fam’d-will cease to be!
Before, however, I conclude,
I wish to add, that gratitude
Incites me to another theme
Beside coagulated cream.
’Tis not about the village Ham,
Nor yet the place call’d Petersham—
Nor more renowned Birmingham:
Nor is it fried or Friar Bacon,
The Muse commands me verse to make on.
Nor pigmies, (as the poet feigns,)
A people once devour’d by cranes,
Of these I speak not—my intention
Is something nearer home to mention;
Therefore, at once, for pig’s hind leg
Accept my warmest thanks, I beg.
The meat was of the finest sort,
And worthy of a dish at court.
Lastly, I gladly would express
The grateful feelings I possess
For such a boon—th’ attempt is vain,
And hence in wisdom I refrain
From saying more than what you see—
Farewell! sincerely yours,
B.C.
To E. T. Esq.
Jan. 1827.
LOVES OF THE NEGROES.
At New Paltz, United States.
Phillis Schoonmaker v. Cuff Hogeboon.
This was an action for a breach of the marriage promise, tried before ’squire De Witt, justice of the peace and quorum. The parties, as their names indicate, were black, or, as philanthropists would say, coloured folk. Counsellor Van Shaick appealed on behalf of the lady. He recapitulated the many verdicts which had been given of late in favour of injured innocence, much to the honour and gallantry of an American jury. It was time to put an end to these faithless professions, to these cold-hearted delusions; it was time to put a curb upon the false tongues and false hearts of pretended lovers, who, with honied accents, only woo’d to ruin, and only professed to deceive. The worthy counsellor trusted that no injurious impressions would be made on the minds of the jury by the colour of his client—
“’Tis not a set of features,
This tincture of the skin, that we admire.”
She was black, it was true; so was the honoured wife of Moses, the most illustrious and inspired of prophets. Othello, the celebrated Moor of Venice, and the victorious general of her armies, was black, yet the lovely Desdemona saw “Othello’s visage in his mind.” In modern times, we might quote his sable majesty of Hayti, or, since that country had become a republic, the gallant Boyer.—He could also refer to Rhio Rhio, king of the Sandwich Islands, his copper-coloured queen, and madame Poki, so hospitably received, and fed to death by their colleague the king of England—nay, the counsellor was well advised that the brave general Sucre, the hero of Ayacucho, was a dark mulatto. What, then, is colour in estimating the griefs of a forsaken and ill-treated female? She was poor, it was true, and in a humble sphere of life; but love levels all distinctions; the blind god was no judge, and no respecter of colours; his darts penetrated deep, not skin deep; his client, though black, was flesh and blood, and possessed affections, passions, resentments, and sensibilities; and in this case she confidently threw herself upon the generosity of a jury of freemen—of men of the north, as the friends of the northern president would say, of men who did not live in Missouri, and on sugar plantations; and from such his client expected just and liberal damages.
Phillis then advanced to the bar, to give her testimony. She was, as her counsel represented, truly made up of flesh and blood, being what is called a strapping wench, as black as the ace of spades. She was dressed in the low Dutch fashion, which has not varied for a century, linsey-woolsey petticoats, very short, blue worsted stockings, leather shoes, with a massive pair of silver buckles, bead ear-rings, her woolly hair combed, and face sleek and greasy. There was no “dejected ’haviour of visage”—no broken heart visible in her face—she looked fat and comfortable, as if she had sustained no damage by the perfidy of her swain. Before she was sworn, the court called the defendant, who came from among the crowd, and stood respectfully before the bench. Cuff was a good-looking young fellow, with a tolerably smartish dress, and appeared as if he had been in the metropolis taking lessons of perfidious lovers—he cast one or two cutting looks at Phillis, accompanied by a significant turn up of the nose, and now and then a contemptuous ejaculation of Eh!—Umph!—Ough!—which did not disconcert the fair one in the least, she returning the compliment by placing her arms a-kimbo, and surveying her lover from head to foot. The court inquired of Cuff whether he had counsel? “No, massa, (he replied) I tell my own ’tory—you see massa ’Squire, I know de gentlemen of de jury berry vell—dere is massa Teerpenning, of Little ’Sophus, know him berry vell—I plough for him;—den dere is massa Traphagan, of our town—how he do massa?—ah, dere massa Topper, vat prints de paper at Big ’Sophus—know him too;—dere is massa Peet Steenberg—know him too—he owe me little money:—I know ’em all massa ’Squire;—I did go to get massa Lucas to plead for me, but he gone to the Court of Error, at Albany;—Massa Sam Freer and massa Cockburn said they come to gib me good character, but I no see ’em here.”
Cuff was ordered to stand aside, and Phillis was sworn.
Plaintiff said she did not know how old she was; believed she was sixteen; she looked nearer twenty-six; she lived with Hons Schoonmaker; was brought up in the family. She told her case as pathetically as possible:—
“Massa ’Squire,” said she, “I was gone up to massa Schoonmaker’s lot, on Shaungum mountain, to pile brush; den Cuff, he vat stands dare, cum by vid de teem, he top his horses and say, ‘How de do, Phillis?’ or, as she gave it, probably in Dutch, ‘How gaud it mit you’ ‘Hail goot,’ said I; den massa he look at me berry hard, and say, Phillis, pose you meet me in the nite, ven de moon is up, near de barn, I got sumting to say—den I say, berry bell, Cuff, I vill—he vent up de mountain, and I vent home; ven I eat my supper and milk de cows, I say to myself, Phillis, pose you go down to de barn, and hear vat Cuff has to say. Well, massa ’Squire, I go, dare was Cuff sure enough, he told heaps of tings all about love; call’d me Wenus and Jewpeter, and other tings vat he got out of de playhouse ven he vent down in the slope to New York, and he ax’d me if I’d marry him before de Dominie, Osterhaut, he vat preached in Milton, down ’pon Marlbro’. I say, Cuff, you make fun on me; he say no, ‘By mine zeal, I vil marry you, Phillis;’ den he gib me dis here as earnest.”—Phillis here drew from her huge pocket an immense pair of scissars, a jack knife, and a wooden pipe curiously carved, which she offered as a testimony of the promise, and which was sworn to as the property of Cuff, who subsequently had refused to fulfil the contract.
Cuff admitted that he had made her a kind of promise, but it was conditional. “I told her, massa ’Squire, that she was a slave and a nigger, and she must wait till the year 27, then all would be free, cording to the new constitution; den she said, berry vell, I bill wait.”
Phillis utterly denied the period of probation; it was, she said, to take place “ben he got de new corduroy breeches from Cripplely Coon, de tailor; he owe three and sixpence, and massa Coon won’t let him hab ’em vidout de money: den Cuff he run away to Varsing; I send Coon Crook, de constable, and he find um at Shaudakin, and he bring him before you, massa.”
The testimony here closed.
The court charged the jury, that although the testimony was not conclusive, nor the injury very apparent, yet the court was not warranted in taking the case out of the hands of the jury. A promise had evidently been made, and had been broken; some differences existed as to the period when the matrimonial contract was to have been fulfilled, and it was equally true and honourable, as the court observed, that in 1827 slavery was to cease in the state, and that fact might have warranted the defendant in the postponement; but of this there was no positive proof, and as the parties could neither read nor write, the presents might be construed into a marriage promise. The court could see no reason why these humble Africans should not, in imitation of their betters, in such cases, appeal to a jury for damages; but it was advisable not to make those damages more enormous than circumstances warranted, yet sufficient to act as a lesson to those coloured gentry, in their attempts to imitate fashionable infidelity.
The jury brought in a verdict of “Ten dollars, and costs, for the plaintiff.”
The defendant not being able to pay, was committed to Kingston jail, a martyr to his own folly, and an example to all others in like cases offending.