'To qualify him for the Work he was going about, Mr Elliot learnt the Indian Language as barbarous as can come out of the Mouth of Man, as will be seen by these Instances:
'Nummatchekodtantamoonganunnonash, is in English, Our Lusts; a Word that the Reverend Mr Elliot must often have occasion to make Use of. As long as it is, we meet with a longer still:
'Kummogkodonattoottummoooctiteaongannunonash, meaning Our Question.
'Gannunonash' seems to be 'our,' because we find it in the End of the First Word, as well as the second, * * and this appears again in another Word:
'Noowomantammooonkanunnonash, 'Our Loves.'
'The longest of these Indian Words is to be measured by the Inch, and reaches to near half a Foot; and if Mr Elliot did put as many of these Words in a Sermon of his, as Mr Peters put English Words in one of his Sermons, everyone of them must have made a sizeable Book and have taken up three or four Hours in utterance.'
The Peters referred to was the celebrated Hugh Peters, Cromwell's chaplain. Our author vindicates this clergyman from certain scandalous charges, declaring that he had asked of his daughter, Miss Peters, if they were so, which she had utterly denied! Less credulous is he as regarded 'William Pen' (with whom he seems to have been on terms of great personal intimacy), since he hints very broadly in one passage, that he put no faith whatever in a certain assertion of 'Pen' as to his own (Penn's) good behavior when amiably smiled on by a belle sauvage, who, as the French would say, was not savage at all. 'Scandal, scandal all,' we doubt not. There are gossipers in every age, tattlers in every corner of history, and who escapes them? Cato did not, Washington could not, and 'Mr Pen' even must fill his place with the great maligned. Let us trust that our incautious dip from the old work may not, suggest to any novel maker 'Penn and the Princess,—a Tale of the Olden Time.'
The following poem, which we find in the Philadelphia Press, is among the best of the many sad lyrics which the war has inspired. The music of the refrain is remarkable: