And starves beneath shady trees.
His wing is the fan of a lady.
His foot’s an invisible thing,
And his arrow is tipp’d with a jewel
And shot from a silver string.
Seba Smith, among the first to break away from English traditions, wrote over the pen name of Major Jack Downing. He was a pioneer in the matter of dialect writing and the first to poke fun at New England speech and manners.
Follows a part of his skit called
MY FIRST VISIT TO PORTLAND
After I had walked about three or four hours, I come along towards the upper end of the town, where I found there were stores and shops of all sorts and sizes. And I met a feller, and says I,—
“What place is this?”