1828=1883.
Dr. Bagby was born in Buckingham County, Virginia, and educated at Edge Hill, New Jersey, and the University of Pennsylvania. He took his degree in the study of medicine, and made his residence in Richmond. He was correspondent for several papers, wrote some very witty letters under the pen-name of “Mozis Addums,” and made a reputation as a humorous lecturer. From 1859 to 1862 he was editor of the “Southern Literary Messenger,” ably succeeding John R. Thompson in that position: and from 1870 to 1878 he was State Librarian of Virginia.
His writings are not only witty but wise as well, and give many interesting aspects of Southern life and manners. A selection from them has been published by Mrs. Bagby, under the title “Writings of Dr. Bagby” (1884-6). Among them are: My Uncle Flatback’s Plantation, Meekins’s Twinses, Jud. Brownin’s Account of Rubinstein’s Playing, Bacon and Greens, or the True Virginian, What I Did with my Fifty Millions, “When he first sot down he ’peared to keer mighty little ’bout playin’, and wished he hadn’t come. He tweedle-leedled a little on the trible, and twoodle-oodle-oodled some on the bass—just foolin’ and boxin’ the thing’s jaws for bein’ in his way. And I says to a man settin’ next to me, s’I, ‘What sort of fool playin’ is that?’ And he says, ‘Heish!’ But presently his hands commenced chasin’ one ’nother up and down the keys, like a passel of rats scamperin’ through a garret very swift. Parts of it was sweet, though, and reminded me of a sugar squirrel turnin’ the wheel of a candy cage. ‘Now,’ I says to my neighbor, ‘he’s showing’ off. He thinks he’s a-doin’ of it; but he ain’t got no idee, no plan of nuthin’. If he’d play me up a tune of some kind or other, I’d’— “But my neighbor says, ‘Heish!’ very impatient. “I was just about to git up and go home, bein’ tired of that foolishness, when I heard a little bird wakin’ up away off in the woods, and callin’ sleepy-like to his mate, and I looked up and I see that Ruben was beginnin’ to take interest in his business, and I set down agin. It was the peep of day. The light come faint from the east, the breeze blowed gentle and fresh, some more birds waked up in the orchard, then some more in the trees near the house, and all begun singin’ together. People begun to stir, and the gal opened the shutters. Just then the first beam of the sun fell upon the blossoms; a leetle more and it techt the roses on the bushes, and the next thing it was broad day; the sun fairly blazed; the birds sang like they’d split their little throats; all the leaves was movin’, and flashin’ diamonds of dew, and the whole wide world was bright and happy as a king. Seemed to me like there was a good breakfast in every house in the land, and not a sick child or woman anywhere. It was a fine mornin’. “And I says to my neighbor, ‘that’s music, that is.’ “But he glared at me like he’d like to cut my throat. “Presently the wind turned; it begun to thicken up, and a kind of gray mist come over things; I got low-spirited d’rectly. Then a silver rain began to fall; I could see the drops touch the ground; some flashed up like long pearl ear-rings; and the rest rolled away like round rubies. It was pretty, but melancholy. Then the pearls gathered themselves into long strands and necklaces, and then they melted into thin silver streams running between golden gravels, and then the streams joined each other at the bottom of the hill, and made a brook that flowed silent except that you could kinder see the music specially when the bushes on the banks moved as the music went along down the valley. I could smell the flowers in the meadows. But the sun didn’t shine, nor the birds sing; it was a foggy day, but not cold. Then the sun went down, it got dark, the wind moaned and wept like a lost child for its dead mother, and I could a-got up then and there and preached a better sermon than any I ever listened to. There wasn’t a thing in the world left to live for, not a blame thing, and yet I didn’t want the music to stop one bit. It was happier to be miserable than to be happy without being miserable. I couldn’t understand it. . . . . . . Then, all of a sudden, old Ruben changed his tune. He ripped and he rar’d, he tipped and he tar’d, he pranced and he charged like the grand entry at a circus. ’Peared to me like all the gas in the house was turned on at once, things got so bright, and I hilt up my head, ready to look any man in the face, and not afeared of nothin’. It was a circus, and a brass band, and a big ball, all goin’ on at the same time. He lit into them keys like a thousand of brick, he gave ’em no rest, day nor night; he set every living joint in me agoin’, and not bein’ able to stand it no longer, I jumpt spang onto my seat, and jest hollered:JUD. BROWNIN’S ACCOUNT OF RUBINSTEIN’S PLAYING.