A ginooine statesman should be on his guard,
Ef he must hev beliefs, nut to b'lieve 'em tu hard;
For, ez sure ez he doos, he'll be blartin' 'em out
'Thout regardin' the natur' o' man more 'n a spout,
Nor it don't ask much gumption to pick out a flaw
In a party whose leaders are loose in the jaw:
An' so in our own case I ventur' to hint
Thet we'd better nut air our perceedins in print,
Nor pass resserlootions ez long ez your arm
Thet may, ez things heppen to turn, do us harm;
For when you've done all your real meanin' to smother,
The darned things'll up an' mean sunthin' or 'nother.
Jeff'son prob'ly meant wal with his "born free an' ekle,"
But it's turned out a real crooked stick in the sekle;
It's taken full eighty-odd year—don't you see?—
From the pop'lar belief to root out thet idee,
An', arter all, sprouts on 't keep on buddin' forth
In the nat'lly onprincipled mind o' the North.
No, never say nothin' without you're compelled tu,
An' then don't say nothin' thet you can be held tu,
Nor don't leave no friction-idees layin' loose
For the ign'ant to put to incend'ary use.
You know I'm a feller thet keeps a skinned eye
On the leetle events thet go skurryin' by,
Coz it's of'ner by them than by gret ones you'll see
Wut the p'litickle weather is likely to be.
Now I don't think the South's more 'n begun to be licked,
But I du think, ez Jeff says, the wind-bag's gut pricked;
It'll blow for a spell an' keep puffin' an' wheezin',
The tighter our army an' navy keep squeezin',—
For they can't help spread-eaglein' long 'z ther's a mouth
To blow Enfield's Speaker thru lef' at the South.
But it's high time for us to be settin' our faces
Towards reconstructin' the national basis,
With an eye to beginnin' agin on the jolly ticks
We used to chalk up 'hind the back-door o' politics;
An' the fus' thing's to save wut of Slav'ry ther's lef'
Arter this (I mus' call it) imprudence o' Jeff:
For a real good Abuse, with its roots fur an' wide,
Is the kin' o' thing I like to hev on my side;
A Scriptur' name makes it ez sweet ez a rose,
An' it's tougher the older an' uglier it grows—
(I ain't speakin' now o' the righteousness of it,
But the p'litickle purchase it gives, an' the profit).
Things looks pooty squally, it must be allowed,
An' I don't see much signs of a bow in the cloud:
Ther' 's too many Decmocrats—leaders, wut's wuss—
Thet go for the Union 'thout carin' a cuss
Ef it helps ary party thet ever wuz heard on,
So our eagle ain't made a split Austrian bird on.
But ther' 's still some conservative signs to be found
Thet shows the gret heart o' the People is sound:
(Excuse me for usin' a stump-phrase agin,
But, once in the way on 't, they will stick like sin:)
There's Phillips, for instance, hez jes' ketched a Tartar
In the Law-'n'-Order Party of ole Cincinnater;
An' the Compromise System ain't gone out o' reach,
Long 'z you keep the right limits on freedom o' speech;
'T warn't none too late, neither, to put on the gag,
For he's dangerous now he goes in for the flag:
Nut thet I altogether approve o' bad eggs,
They're mos' gin'lly argymunt on its las' legs,—
An' their logic is ept to be tu indiscriminate,
Nor don't ollus wait the right objecs to 'liminate;
But there is a variety on 'em, you 'll find,
Jest ez usefie an' more, besides bein' refined,—
I mean o' the sort thet are laid by the dictionary,
Sech ez sophisms an' cant thet'll kerry conviction ary
Way thet you want to the right class o' men,
An' are staler than all't ever come from a hen:
"Disunion" done wal till our resh Soutlun friends
Took the savor all out on't for national ends;
But I guess "Abolition" 'll work a spell yit,
When the war's done, an' so will "Forgive-an'-forgit."
Times mus' be pooty thoroughly out o' all jint,
Ef we can't make a good constitootional pint;
An' the good time 'll come to be grindin' our exes,
When the war goes to seed in the nettle o' texes:
Ef Jon'than don't squirm, with sech helps to assist him,
I give up my faith in the free-suffrage system;
Democ'cy wun't be nut a mite interestin',
Nor p'litikle capital much wuth investin';
An' my notion is, to keep dark an' lay low
Till we see the right minute to put in our blow.—
But I've talked longer now 'n I hed any idee,
An' ther's others you want to hear more 'n you du me;
So I'll set down an' give thet 'ere bottle a skrimmage,
For I've spoke till I'm dry ez a real graven image.
REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.
Record of an Obscure Man. Tragedy of Errors, Parts I. and II. Boston: Ticknor and Fields. 1861, 1862.
Among the marked literary productions long to be associated with our present struggle—among them, yet not of them—are the volumes whose titles we have quoted. They differ from the recent electric messages of Holmes, Whittier, and Mrs. Howe, in not being obvious results of vivid events. "Bread and the Newspaper," "The Song of the Negro Boatmen," and "Our Orders" will reproduce for another generation the fervid feelings of to-day. But the pathetic warnings exquisitely breathed in the writings before us will then come to their place as a deep and tender prelude to the voices heard in this passing tragedy.
The "Record of an Obscure Man" is the modest introduction to a dramatic poem of singular pathos and beauty. A New-Englander of culture and sensibility, naturalized at the South, is supposed to communicate the results of his study and observation of that outcast race which has been the easy contempt of ignorance in both sections of the country. Our instructor has not only a clear judgment Of the value of different testimonies, and the scholarly instinct of arrangement and classification, but also that divine gift of sympathy, which alone, in this world given for our observation, can tell us what to observe. The illustrations of the negro's character, and the answers to vulgar depreciation of his tendencies and capacities, are given with the simple directness of real comprehension. It is the privilege of one acquainted in no common degree with languages and their history to expose that dreary joke of the dialect of the oppressed, which superficial people have so long found funny or contemptible. The simplicity and earnestness which give dignity to any phraseology come from the humanity behind it. We are well reminded that divergences from the common use of language, never held to degrade the meaning in Milton or Shakespeare, need not render thought despicable when the negro uses identical forms. If he calls a leopard a "libbard," he only imitates the most sublime of English poets; and the first word of his petition, "Gib us this day our daily bread," is pronounced as it rose from the lips of Luther. The highest truths the faith of man may reach are symbolized more definitely, and often more picturesquely, by the warm imagination of the African than by the cultivated genius of the Caucasian. Also it is shown how the laziness and ferocity with which the negro is sometimes charged may be more than matched in the history of his assumed superior. Yet, while acknowledging how well-considered is the matter of this introductory volume, we regret what seems to be an imperfection in the form in which it is presented. There is too much story, or too little,—too little to command the assistance of fiction, too much to prevent a feeling of disappointment that romance is attempted at all. The concluding autobiography of the friend of Colvil is hardly consistent with his character as previously suggested; it seems unnecessary to the author's purpose, and is not drawn with the minuteness or power which might justify its introduction. We notice this circumstance as explaining why this Introduction may possibly fail of a popularity more extended than that which its tenderness of thought and style at once claimed from the best readers.
The "Tragedy of Errors" presents, with the vivid idealization of art, some of the results of American Slavery. Travellers, novelists, ethnologists have spoken with various ability of the laborers of the South; and now the poet breaks through the hard monotony of their external lives, and lends the plasticity of a cultivated mind to take impress of feeling to which the gift of utterance is denied. And it is often only through the imagination of another that the human bosom can be delivered "of that perilous stuff which weighs upon the heart." For it is a very common error to estimate mental activity by a command of the arts of expression; whereas, at its best estate, speech is an imperfect sign of perception, and one which without special cultivation must be wholly inadequate. Thus it will be seen that an employment of the dialect and limited vocabulary of the negro would be obviously unsuitable to the purpose of the poem; and these have been wisely discarded. In doing this, however, the common license of dramatists is not exceeded; and the critical censure we have read about "the extravagant idealization of the negro" merely amounts to saying that the writer has been bold enough to stem the current of traditional opinion, and find a poetic view of humanity at the present time and in its most despised portion. The end of dramatic writing is not to reproduce Nature, but to idealize it; a literal copying of the same, as everybody knows, is the merit of the photographer, not of the artist. Again, it should be remembered that the highly wrought characters among the slaves are whites, or whites slightly tinged with African blood. With the commonest allowance for the exigencies of poetic presentation, we find no individual character unnatural or improbable; though the particular grouping of these characters is necessarily improbable. For grace of position and arrangement every dramatist must claim. If the poet will but take observations from real persons, however widely scattered, discretion may be exercised in the conjunction of those persons, and in the sequence of incidents by which they are affected. An aesthetic invention may be as natural as a mechanical one, although the materials for each are collected from a wide surface, and placed in new relations. Thus much we say as expressing dissent from objections which have been hastily made to this poem.
Of the plot of the "Tragedy of Errors" we have only space to say that the writer has cut a channel for very delicate verses through the heart of a Southern plantation. Here, at length, seems to be one of those thoroughly national subjects for which critics have long been clamorous. The deepest passion is expressed without touching the tawdry properties of the "intense" school of poetry. The language passes from the ease of perfect simplicity to the conciseness of power, while the relation of emotion to character is admirably preserved. The moral—which, let us observe in passing, is decently covered with artistic beauty—relates, not to the most obvious, but to the most dangerous mischiefs of Slavery. Indeed, the story is only saved from being too painful by a fine appreciation of the medicinal quality of all wretchedness that the writer everywhere displays. In the First Part, the nice intelligence shown in the rough contrast between Hermann and Stanley, and in the finished contrast between Alice and Helen, will claim the reader's attention. The sketches of American life and tendencies, both Northern and Southern, are given with discrimination and truth. The dying scene, which closes the First Part, seems to us nobly wrought. The "death-bed hymn" of the slaves sounds a pathetic wail over an abortive life shivering on the brink of the Unknown. In the Second Part we find less of the color and music of a poem, and more of the rapid movement of a drama. The doom of Slavery upon the master now comes into full relief. The characters of Herbert and his father are favorable specimens of well-meaning, even honorable, Southern gentlemen,—only not endowed with such exceptional moral heroism as to offer the pride of life to be crushed before hideous laws. The connection between lyric and tragic power is shown in the "Tragedy of Errors." The songs and chants of the slaves mingle with the higher dialogue like the chorus of the Greek stage; they mediate with gentle authority between the worlds of natural feeling and barbarous usage. Let us also say that the sentiment throughout this drama is sound and sweet; for it is that mature sentiment, born again of discipline, which is the pledge of fidelity to the highest business of life.