The author of "An Essay on Puffing" (a topic which we should hardly have thought to have found under discussion at a period so much nearer the golden age than the present) remarks,—"Dubious and uncertain is the Source or Spring of Puffing in this Infant Country, it not being agreed upon whether Puffs were imported by the primitive Settlers of the Wilderness, (for the Puff is not enumerated in the aboriginal Catalogue,) or whether their Growth was spontaneous or accidental. However uncertain we are about the Introduction or first Cultivation of Puffs, it is easy to discover the Effects or Consequences of their Improvement in all Professions, Perswasions and Occupations."
Under the head which has assumed, in modern journalism, an extent and importance second only to the Puff, to wit, the "Horrible Accident Department," we find but a single item, but that one of a nature so unique and startling that it seems to deserve transcribing. "February 7 [1744]. We hear from Statten Island that a Man who had been married about 5 months, having a Design to get rid of his Wife, got some poisoned Herbs with which he advised her to stuff a Leg of Veal, and when it was done found an Excuse to be absent himself; but his Wife having eat of it found herself ill, and he coming Home soon after desired her to fry him some Sausages which she did, and having eat of them also found himself ill; upon which he asked his Wife what she fried them in, who answered, in the Sauce of the Veal; then, said he, I am a dead man: So they continued sick for some Days and then died, but he died the first." We hardly know which most to admire, the graphic and terrible simplicity of this narrative of villany, or the ignorance which it discovers of the modern art of penny-a-lining, an expert practitioner of which would have spread the shocking occurrence over as many columns as this bungling report comprises sentences.
The poetical contents of our Magazine consist mainly, as we have said, of excerpts from the popular productions of English authors, as they were found in the magazines of the mother country or in their published works, the diluted stanzas of their imitators, satirical verses, epigrams, and translations from the Latin poets. There are, however, occasional strains from the native Muse, and here and there a waif from sources now, perhaps, lost or forgotten. Before "he threw his Virgil by to wander with his dearer bow," Mr. Freneau's Indian seems to have determined to leave on record a proof of his classical attainments, for he is doubtless the author of "A Latin Ode written by an American Indian, a Junior Sophister at Cambridge, anno 1678, on the death of the Reverend and Learned Mr. Thacher,"—a translation of which is given at page 166, prefaced thus:—"As the Original of the following Piece is very curious, the publishing this may perhaps help you to some better Translation. Attempted from the Latin of an American Indian." The probability that any reader of the present paper would be disposed to help us to this "better Translation" seems too remote to warrant us in giving the Ode in extenso; nor do we think any would thank us for transcribing a cloudy effusion, a little farther on, entitled, "On the Notion of an abstract antecedent Fitness of Things." The following estrays are perhaps worth the capture; they profess to date back to the reign of Queen Mary, and are styled, "Some Forms of Prayer used by the vulgar Papists."
THE LITTLE CREED.
Little Creed can I need,
Kneel before our Lady's Knee,
Candle light, Candle burn,
Our Lady pray'd to her dear Son
That we might all to Heaven come;
Little Creed, Amen!
THE WHITE PATER NOSTER.
White Pater Noster, St. Peter's Brother,
What hast thou in one hand? White-Book Leaves.
What hast i'th' to'ther? Heaven Gate Keys.
Open Heaven Gates, and steike (shut) Hell Gates,
And let every crysom Child creep to its own mother:
White Pater Noster, Amen!
We do not think that the poets of the anti-shaving movement have as yet succeeded in producing anything worthy to be set off against a series of spirited stanzas under the heading of "The Razor, a Poem," which we commend to the immediate and careful attention of the "Razor-strop Man." The following are the concluding verses:—
"But, above all, thou grand Catholicon,
Or by what useful Name so'er thou'rt call'd,
Thou Sweet Composer of the tortur'd Mind!
When all the Wheels of Life are heavy clogg'd
With Cares or Pain, and nought but Horror dire
Before us stalks with dreadful Majesty,
Embittering all the Pleasures we enjoy;
To thee, distressed, we call; thy gentle Touch
Consigns to balmy Sleep our troubled Breasts."
Evidently the production of a philosopher and an economist of time: for who else would have thought of shaving before going to bed, instead of at the matutinal toilet?