T is astonishing what effect is produced by peculiarities of form or manner. It may be true that the writings of Thomas Carlyle owe much of their force and vigor to his disregard for grammatical rules and his peculiar arrangement of words and sentences; but one of the most surprising instances of this kind is in the fact that the “Essay on the Mule, by Josh Billings,” received no attention whatever, while the same contribution transformed into the “Essa on the Muel, bi Josh Billings,” was eagerly copied by almost every paper in the country. Josh Billings once said that “Chaucer was a great poit, but he couldn’t spel,” and apparently it was Mr. Shaw’s likeness, in this respect, to the author of “Canterbury Tales” which won him much of his fame.
He was the son of a member of the Massachusetts Legislature, born in 1818, and entered Hamilton College; but being captivated by stories of Western life and adventure, abandoned college to seek his fortune in the West. The fortune was slow in coming, and he worked as a laborer on steamboats on the Ohio, and as a farmer, and finally drifted back to Poughkeepsie, New York, as an auctioneer. Here he wrote his first contribution to a periodical, “The Essa on the Muel,” which has been above mentioned.
The popularity of the revised form of this classic of poor spelling induced him to publish “Josh Billings’ Farmers’ Allminax,” which continued for ten years, having during a part of the time a circulation of one hundred and twenty-seven thousand copies per annum. In 1863 Mr. Shaw entered the lecture-field. His lectures being a series of pithy sayings without care or order, delivered in an apparently awkward manner. The quaintness and drollery of his discourse won very great popularity. For twenty years he was a regular contributor of “The New York Weekly,” and it is said that the articles which appeared in “The Century Magazine,” under the signature of “Uncle Esek,” were his. His published books are “Josh Billings, His Sayings;” “Josh Billings on Ice;” “Everybody’s Friend;” “Josh Billings’ Complete Works,” and “Josh Billings’ Spice Box.”
Mr. Shaw died in Monterey, California, in 1885.
JOSH BILLING’S ADVERTISEMENT.
(FROM “JOSH BILLINGS, HIS WORKS.” 1876.)
KAN sell for eighteen hundred and thirty-nine dollars a pallas, a sweet and pensive retirement, lokated on the virgin banks ov the Hudson, kontaining eighty-five acres. The land is luxuriously divided by the hand of natur and art into pastor and tillage, into plain and deklivity, into stern abruptness, and the dallianse ov moss-tufted medder; streams ov sparkling gladness (thick with trout) danse through this wilderness ov buty tew the low musik ov the kricket and grasshopper. The evergreen sighs as the evening sephir flits through its shadowy buzzum, and the aspen trembles like the luv-smitten harte ov a damsell. Fruits ov the tropicks, in golden buty, melt on the bows, and the bees go heavy and sweet from the fields to their garnering hives. The manshun is ov Parian marble; the porch iz a single diamond, set with rubiz and the mother ov pearl; the floors are ov rosewood, and the ceilings are more butiful than the starry vault of heaven. Hot and cold water bubbles and quirts in evry apartment, and nothing is wanting that a poet could pra for, or art could portray. The stables are worthy of the steeds ov Nimrod or the studs ov Akilles, and its hennery waz bilt expressly for the birds of paradice; while sombre in the distance, like the cave ov a hermit, glimpses are caught ov the dorg-house. Here poets hav cum and warbled their laze—here skulptors hav cut, here painters hav robbed the scene ov dreamy landscapes, and here the philosopher diskovered the stun which made him the alkimist ov natur. Next, northward ov this thing ov buty, sleeps the residence and domain ov the Duke, John Smith, while southward, and nearer the spice-breathing tropicks, may be seen the barronial villy ov Earl Brown and the Duchess, Widder Betsy Stevens. Walls ov primitiff rock, laid in Roman cement, bound the estate, while upward and downward the eye catches the magesta and slow grander ov the Hudson. As the young moon hangs like a cutting ov silver from the blue brest ov the ski, an angel may be seen each night dansing with golden tiptoes on the green. (N. B.—This angel goes with the place.)