Newspaper Page Text
Th CarlsrsFille : Jgjja
CORNELIUS WILLINGHAM, Editor.
For the cause that needs assistance,
For the wrong that needs resistance,
For the future in the distance,
And the good that we ean do.
CARTERBVLLE~ : I GEORG laT
THK FA liMER'S n OOINO.
The daisies nodded In the art sc, the buttercup*
were deeping,
And juet across the rirer sang the farmer* at theli
reaping;
Upon the hill*, ao blue and far, the maple leave*
were showing
Their soft white beauty In the breeze that from the
sea waa blowing.
k little maid came through the lane, with aong and
rippling laughter;
The buttercup* mad* way for her, the daisiea nodded
alter.
▲ strong young farmer saw her pauae beside the
parting river;
■he drew a lily from its depth* with golden heart
a-qulver.
M Thou art more fair than llliea are,” said he with
head uplifted,
And threw a poppy, as th# stream toward the maiden
drifted.
Bhe the Cower* in her hair, the red and white to
gether;
A cloud grew black before th* son, and rainy was
the weather.
He came across th* river then, the farmer from hi*
mowing;
He minded not the water’* depth, he cared not for
its flowing.
“ O love I ” said he, “if gleaming sun and cloudless
skies o’erlean us,
The river’s barrlg width may sail unpassed, untried
between us;
But when loud thunder fills the air, and clouds and
rain come over,
I’ll crosa the ooean to your side, I am no fairday
lover! ”
An so one day the village bolls rang out across the
river;
Their music set the buttercups and daisies all
a-qulver,
While some one drew a from th# stream so
blithely flowing,
And plucked a blood-red poppy that amid the wheat
was growing;
The maiden set them in her hair, the red and white
together,
With many smile, a tear or two, and glances at the
weather.
They passed beneath the chapel’* shade, the farmer
and the maiden,
Where arche* crossed above their heads, with snowy
blossoms laden,
And in that place of holy calm the binding words
were spoken;
He In his heart bora out the truth, *he on her head
the token.
The year* went by, and some were bright and *ome
were clouded over,
But ever stood he at her aide—ho wa* no fair-day
lover.
JOHN'S WIFE,
Whatever possessed Brother John to
go up to the city and marry that yellow
haired, blue-eyed bit of a school girl,
when he could have had just his pick of
girls nearer home, was something I
could not understand. There was Lida
Handscombe, just dead in love with him,
as anybody oould see, and the best
bread-maker in the whole country, be
side taking prizes at the State Fair for
pickles and jellies, and ever so much
better looking, too, than Myra. No
yellow bangs over her eyes; she just
combed it back off her face and did it
up in a hard knot that staid. She sent
John a birthday cake, and knit him a
comforter, and everybody thought it
would be a match, but John said he
didn’t like her eyes ; they were hand
some eyes, to my idea, and could look
you through and through, they were
that clear and bright; but did you ever
know a man to take advice? “Marry
that ferret,” said John, “ and never have
any peace of my life; well, I guess
not! ” and with that off he goes to town
and telegraphs back, “Expect me and
my wife.” Dear ! such a shock as it
gave me, and our spring cleaning not
done, and the minister coming to board
with us while his wife went home on a
visit—it was a trial, you may be sure I
And when she did come, it was more
like having a wax doll in the way than
anything else, with her big wondering
eyes, and childish ways, and silly ques
tions, and hanging on John’s arm, and
leaning over John’s chair, with two lit
tle insignificant feet in the rungs at the
back, and her clothes I Such fallals,
just like a doll's rigging, and I just set
my foot down that if she was to live with
us, she must conform to our ways. I
hadn’t been forty years in this world for
nothing. If she wanted to wear fine
white laces and ruffled aprons, she had
to wash and iron them herself. I
wouldn’t be her slave. And such silly
questions as she asked, they just made
e sick : “ When did the cows shed
their horns ? Which oow gave the but.
bennilk ? Were there any dear little
fellow chicks ?”
Dear little yellow chicks, indeed!
They were dear enough before we raised
them and got their heads off and we had
them ready for market, and if that silly
child didn’t sit down and cry because
they were killed; said she had named
every one of them and watched them
prow up. And she waa our John’s
rife! bah !
Then she did the silliest thing of all—
rent and bought a book called “What
f Know About Farming,” and used to
lit out under a tree studying it by the
bonr; and one night, when she went
Sown to the bars to meet John, I heard
her ask: 1
“John, why don’t you get a washing
machine and a wringer, and save your
own flesh and blood. Look at the blis
ters on my hands 1”
And the next thing it was the talk of
the neighborhood that we Elliots, who
had set our faces against modern im
provements, had given out before that
little pale-faced thing, and not only got
a wringer and washer in our kitchen,
but several hundred dollars’ worth of
farm machinery at work. John said he
could afford it* but I spoke my mind,
and told her what I thought of it after
he went out to his work. She looked
kind of frightened, and pretended she
was going to cry, and than she spoke up
quick like and said:
“Sister Janet, it’s a triumph of mind
over matter. Ton can wash now, and
not be all tired out, and sick and nerv
ous, and—and—John can afford it.”
Perhaps if I had known that she had
paid for it all, and it hadn’t cost John a
cent, I might have been more forgiving,
but I just straightened up and said :
“ Mrs. Elliot, you may go on and ruin
jrour husband with your boarding-school
ideas, but, as for me, I’ll never touch
the things. I can work, thank good
ness, while I’ve got my health. I wasn’t
brought up in idleness.”
She never took it to heart a bit; the
next thing I knew she was at the little
parlor organ she had, singing and play
ing as if that was all there was in life.
And that silly old minister—men never
do have a bit of sense, but you expect
more of a preacher of the gospel—but
he just sat and talked to her as if she
was a companion for him, and they
walked about the fields and si ayed down
where John was working, ant] all around
'em souls a-perisliing for want of the
bread of life ; such a sinful waste of time
I never saw !
“Janet, do you love the hills?” she
asked, one day when I was scouring the
knives outside the door. She had of
fered to do them for me. but law ! her
white Hands were no"! fit for anything so
useful.
“Love the hills I Well, I’d like to
know what there is to love about them.
I guess if you climbed them a spell you
wouldn’t love ’em much.”
“They’re so high and grand,” she
said, looking up at them; “ they seem
so near the cool, far-off heaven ! I love
to climb to the top and drink in the
sweet, fresh air; it does me good here—
here.”
She laid her hand on her heart, and
stood looking off with a strange ex
pression on her face, and I thought
maybe she was homesick, and I told her
to go in and cut some carpet rags, and
sew ’em together, and, would you believe
it, she up and refused.
“No,” she said, “I cannot cut any
carpet rags. I hate them ! ”
I never saw her so excited before.
“A fine temper you have ! ” was all
the answer I made her, but I never felt
so insulted in all my life.
For a week or two I didn’t see much
of her; she was either out with John
“ sketching,” as she called it, dabbling
away at some bits of pasteboard with a
lead pencil, or up in her room where I
never went. She came down, singing
away, with a large package in her hand,
and soon John came up with Hie ponies,
and they drove off to town together,
laughing like two children. I hope none
of the neighbors noticed them. Any wayJJ
they never saw him conduct himself in
that way with me.
When they came home she was all
tired out, and they had a big roll of stuff
they dumped down in the entry.
“It’s something for you, Janet,” she
said, laughing hysterical-like. “It’s
carpet-rags. ”
I unrolled it, and there were twenty
yards of bright ingrain carpet!
“ Myra,” said I, “ this is wicked ex
travagance,” for I knew her money was
all paid out.
“But it isn’t,” she said, laughing ; “I
eafned it myself by drawing and paint
ing those bits of sketches. I sold them
all, and can sell all I can do. That was
my way of cutting carpet rags. ”
Well, we put the carpet down, and it
did look pretty—though I didn’t say so.
It isn’t my .way to spoil anybody with
flattery, and I saw John’s wife was get
ting the upper hand too fast. The neigh
bors were beginning to notice her, and
that foolish old minister, when his wife
came back, had been over there; and
she led the singing in church and pre
tended she had got religion, and all the
time she never scrubbed a floor, or
washed a dish, or put her hands to the
churn.
“ John can afford to hire help,” she
said to me one day, “ and I’m not very
strong, and my mother died of consump
tion.” Then she began to cry like a
baby, and John came in and looked at
me as if it was my doing.
I must say she could succeed in doing
all sorts of useless things—raising flow
ers in every nook and corner, making
pets of all the animals, and painting, or
playing on the organ. She was real orna
mental, and I suppose some folks
thought she was pretty. John did for
one. I don’t know that she made me
much work eithei. She did her own
washing as long as John would let her,
and kept her room neat enough, though
it was mostly littered up with flowers
and birds and her sketches, and at
first she sang from morning till night,
and she did have a real lovelv voice.
rn aiiow mat, but atier a while she
didn’t sing and didn’t talk much, and
then John began taking her meals up
to her. The first time I saw him getting
a tray ready, I said :
“ It’s a good tiling yon were brought
up to be handy, John, seeing you’ve got
an invalid wife.”
He didn’t say anything then, but a
few days after he came to me and said
“ Janet, get a girl as soon as you can,
and let Aunt Betsy come over and stay
with Myra; she is nervous and low
spirited, and needs company. ”
“Well, I suppose you’ve guessed the
upghot of it all; a little daughter was
born to John, and it seemed to me that
s miracle was worked in the house. Per
haps I had never really loved John’s
wife—she was so different in her ways
from me—but when I heard that baby
cry, I felt thrilled to my very soul, and
I just threw my work-apron over my
head and cried for the first time in
years.
Myra didn’t get strong, and the days
went on and still she didn’t get up, and
I felt it was my duty to go and tell her
that she mustn’t favor herself that way,
that she couldn’t lie abed and let stran
gers take care of her child, and that
she’d never get strong till she’d got out,
but I made up my mind to speak in a
gentler sort of way. I had been think
ing it over and about concluded to let
Myra live her own way and not try to
make her over, especially since John
seemed so well satisfied with her, and I
went up-stairs and opened the door
softly and stepped inside. John was
standing at one window looking out at
the sunset—it was all red and gold, and
the room was in a flame. He turned as
I came in, and the tears were rolling
down his cheeks, I never saw John
ory before since he was a grown man!
“ What is it ?” I whispered, going up
close to him.
He made a motion with the back of
his head in the direction of the bed. I
went over there. Aunt Betsy was in a
rocker by the side of it, reading the
Bible. Myra was looking at the sunset,
then at her baby’s sleeping face. I’m
not dull to see things, and I saw there
what made my heart turn cold—it was
the valley of the shadow of death!
That all happened these three years
ago. There is a simple rustic cross up
in the graveyard with “Myra” carved
on it, and little Myra and I go up there
every Sunday and carry flowers to deco
rate it, and the dear child sits in my lap
and puts her blessed little arms about
my neck and whispers : “Auntie, talk
about my mamma in heaven,” and I
tell how patient and gentle she was, and
how she sang and played, and how she
shall do the very same thing some day
—for I know, now, that flowers are as
necessary to God’s creation as the wood
and grain, and the least little thing that
makes sunshine in the world is of great
value in the dark places, and I feel sure,
when I look up to the hills she loved,
that Myra has reached far-off heaven
before me. Perhaps—perhaps, she will
intercede for me there.
There was anew oompositor in the
office this morning. He was a wander
ing “snb.” After wrestling a few min
utes with a “take” of manuscript, he
put down his “ stick,” remarked “ I’m
sick,” slipped on his coat and walked
out. A proof of his was soon taken
with the following result: “I can’t
read Chinese. The man who wrote this
is evidently laboring under a fit of alco
holism. Before I would try to * yank ’
antimony from this manuscript I would
steal a jaok-knife and make shoe-pegs at
2 cents a quart. The foregoing confes
sion I make in a moment of despair,
after having turned this copy upside
down, t’other side up, and every other
way. One way it is Greek, another
some antediluvian dialect or Egyptian
hieroglyphics from Cleopatra’s needle.
If you are after reputation, for humani
ty’s sake stop where you are. I go, I
know not where. ” —New Haven Reg in
ter,
A BIG TOT FACTORY.
The largest toy factory in the world is
in New York, where playthings in tin
are manufactured literally by the million.
It stands five stories high, and turns out
1,607 distinct varieties of tin toys. No.
1 is a tin horse, No. 1,607 a tin menag
erie. The out-put of circular tin whis
tles is 12,000,000 per annum. Every
thing is made in the establishment ex
cepting wheels, which are ordered in
lots of thirty tons at a time from a foun
dry in the East. Two hundred men,
women and boys are constantly employed
in toy-making. To make a tin horse
twelve inches long, dies have to be cast,
costing S6OO. Toys are exported from
New York to all parts of the world. The
children of ilifferent countries have dif
ferent tastes. The passion of the young
Brazilian is for a toy water-cart, while
in the States the rage of the American
boy is for tin horns and putty-blowers.
Tin swords are wanted all over the
world, the military instinct being as
universal in the nurseries as in the
courts and cabinets of the world.
Perpetual motion is perhaps impos
sible to obtain, but you can approximate
it by putting a boy on a chair at a funeral
and telling him to be still. Boston
Post.
THE TREATMENT OF WOMEN .
It fell in the way of Maithtis In his
celebrated work on population to search
in the accounts of travelers for those
oauses which operate, in different coun
trie of the world, to check the progress
and to limit the numbers of mankind.
Foremost among these is vice, and fere
most among the vices is that most un
natural one, of the cruel treatment of
women. “In every part of the world,”
says Malthus, “ one of the most general
characteristics of the savage is to de
spise and degrade the female sex.
Among most of the tribes in America
their condition is so peculiarly grievous
that servitude is a name too mild to de
scribe their wretched state. A wife is
no better than a beast of burden. While
the man passes his days in idleness and
amusement, the woman is condemned to
incessant toil. Tasks are imposed upon
her without meroy, and services are re
ceived without complacence or grati
tude. There are some districts in Amer
ica where this state of degradation has
been so severely felt that mothers have
destroyed their female infants, to de
liver them at once from a life in which
they were doomed to such a miserable
slavery.” It is impossible to find for
this most vicious tendency any place
among the unities of nature. There is
nothing like it among the beasts. With
them the equality of the sexes, as re
gards all the enjoyments as well as all
the work of life, is the universal rule.
And among those of them in which
social instincts have been specially im
planted, and whose systems of polity
are like the most civilized polities of
men, the females of the race are treated
with a strange mixture of love, of loyal
ty, and of devotion. If, indeed, we con
sider the necessary and inevitable re
sults of the habit prevalent among sav
age men to maltreat and degrade their
women—it effects upon the constitu
tion, and character, and endurance of
children—we cannot fail to see how
grossly unnatural it is, how it must tend
to the greater and greater degradation
of the raoe, and how recovery from this
downward path must become more and
more difficult or impossible. But, vi
cious, destructive, unnatural as this
habit is, it is not the only one o c the
worst of similar character which prevail
among savage men. A horrid catalogue
comes to our remembrance when we
think of them—polyandry, infanticide,
cannibalism, deliberate cruelty, syste
matic slaughter connected with warlike
passions or with religious customs.
Nor are these vices, or the evils result
ing from them, peculiar to the savage
state. Some of them, indeed, more or
less changed and modified in form, at
tain a rank luxuriance in civilized com
munities, corrupt the very bones and
marrow ef sooiety, and have brought
powerful nations to decay and death.—
Duke of Argyll , in Contemporary Re
view.
O’CONNELL OVERTHROWN.
It is not strange that no one sympa
thizes with 2 lawyer when he is over
thrown by a witness whom he is cross
examining. So many have suffered from
lawyers’ sharp questions that they enjoy
seeing one of them fall. Daniel O’Con
nell once received a witty reply that
turned the laugh against him, from a
witness whom he was cross-examining.
It was a case of riot committed by a mob
cf beggars, and the witness for the pros
ecution had represented the affair as
very serious :
“Pooh, pooh!” said O’Connell,
“ now Just tell the court how many there
were.”
“Indeed, I never stopped to count
them, your Honor, but there was a whole
tribe of them.”
“A whole tribe of them! Will you
tell us to what tribe they belonged ? ”
“Indeed, your Honor, that’s more
than I can do at all; but I think it must
have been the tribe of Dan ! ”
“ You may go down, sir,” cried O’Con
nell, in a rage, while bench, bar and
spectators laughed
CHINESE WITTICISMS.
The awful dignity of the Chinese
gentleman will not allow him to manu
facture his own witticisms. He appre
ciates wit, and is fond of tea; but he
w ould as soon grow his own tea as make
his own jokes. When he goes into socie
ty, he carries in liis pocket a package of
witticisms and repartees, which he pur
chases at the nearest joke-shop. When
conversation flags, and he perceives an
opportunity for doing something brill
iant, he draws a humorous remark from
the top of his package and gravely hands
it to his neighbor. The latter asgravely
reads it, and, selecting from his bundle of
repartee the one which is appropriate,
returns it with a bow to the original
joker. The two then solemnly smile in
a courteous and undemonstrative way
and resume their conversation, satisfied
as to their having acquitted themselves
with conspicuous brilliancy. This pro
ceeding has one marked advantage—
the witticisms are generally very good,
“They tell me,” said the reformer,
“that you have quit smoking. lam
glad to hear it. Now, tell me, why did
you quit?” Reformed smoker, feeling
for a match, “’Cause my cigar went
out.”
THE LIME-KILN CLWB.
“Let me warn ye, 5 ’ began the old
man, as Pickles Smith hung up the wa
ter dipper and sat down with a heavy
jar, “ let me warn ye dat de man who
has de mos’ ininlies am de man who flat
ters hisself on his bluntness, truthful
ness an’ common sense. De grandest
motto on airth am de one which says:
‘ Spoke de truf at all times, ’ but it ain t
the wisest one to foller. I has foun dat
exaggerashun pleases whar’ truf hurts,
an’ dat flattery amuses wkar’ truf engen
ders anger. Spoke de truf of your nay
burs, an’ one of ye will have to move
inside of a y’ar. Spoke de truf of your
friends, and you will be confronted by a
legion of inimies. You may know in
yer own mind dat dis man am a rogue,
dat one a rascal an’ de odder one right
up an’ down wicked, but you musn’t talk
what ye know. One blunt word will
upsot a whole nayburhood. One truful
statement will raise up a host of howlin’
inimies. De pusson who won’t flat
ter and cajole am avoided and sus
pected. De biggest inimies I have in
all’dis world am people who have had
my honest opinyun, an’ to whom I have
spoken de plain truf. Only one man
out of fifty axes yer honest opinyun wid
any ideah of ’ceptin’ it if it differs from
his. Not one in 100 axes yer advice wid
any ideah of follerin’ it onless it jibes
wid his plans.
“ Darfore, I say to you, be blunt only
when you have no keer for friendship.
Be truful only when you am ready to
make inimies. Condemn only when yon
am all packed up and ready to become a
hermit. Tell a lie about a man an’ he’ll
grin ober it. Hit him wid de truf an’
he will foller you until he has seoured
revenge. In walkin’ aroun’ for half a
day I can make a score of men friends by
praisin’ de looks of a hat, de set of a
coat, de grace of a step or de fit of anew
p’ar of butes. Months and months ago
I dropped a word of praise fur a cur dog
which was trottin’ ’longbehind a citizen.
De odder day dat same man walked past
twenty to gib me a job of whitewashin’.
Fact is, though I’m old an’ bald-headed
an’ stoop-shouldered, it does me a heap
of good to have some man stop me on
de street an’ lie to me like blazes in say
in’ dat I’m looking as young as a man
ef 80.” —Detroit Free Press.
SLOW GROWTH OF TREES.
To make no mention of the cost of pre
paring it for the stove or grate, wood is
a very expensive sort of fuel when pro
duced by cultivation, and raised on land
capable of yielding valuable cultivated
crops. Ten years are required to pro
duce trees of the quick-growing varie
ties of sufficient size to cut for fuel. The
fuel they will then afford will be of infe
rior quality, being what is known as
sap-wood. Only trees that afford soft
wood, as poplar, bass or linden, or
the willow will attain sufficient size to
make it an object to cut them in ten
years. Twice that time will be required
to produce oak, ash, beech, bircli, wal
nut and hickory trees of a size tit to be
cut for fuel. During five years, at least,
the ground on which the trees grow
must be kept in cultivation. Seeds or
cuttings must be planted in the first in
stance, end they cannot b© obtained
without some expense. During twenty
years’ time the taxes on a piece of land
will amount to the sum it will bring in
the market. The growth of trees that
afford good fuel is very slow. The grand
forests of Maine and Michigan afforded
much the appearance they now do not
only in colonial days, but before they were
ever penetrated by white men.
Elizur Wright says on this subject:
“ I not long ago, in Ohio, measured the
stump of a sugar maple, recently cut,
and found it thirty inches in diameter.
The tree had lived 125 years. In the
first sixty-three years, while it had stood
in the dense forest, it had acquired but
nine inches in diameter. After the for
est was cut away, and it was left with
only a few scattering companions, it
soon assumed a superior rate of growth,
which it maintained till nearly the last,
so as to add twenty-one inches of diam
eter in sixty-two years. The rings av
eraged about seventeen-hundredths of
an inch in thickness, whereas, in the
first sixty-three years they had averaged
but seven-hundreths. ” —Chicago Times.
SILENT SUFFERING.
Silent suffering is a thing often un
known to the world, for there is much
pain that is quite noiseless, and vibra
tions that make, human agonies are often
mere whispers in the roar of hurrying
existence. There are glances of hatred
that stab and raise no cry cf murder,
robberies that leave man and woman for
ever beggared of peace and joy, yet they
are kept secret by the sufferer—commit
ted to no sound except ©f low moans in
the night—seen in no writing exoept
that made on the face by the slow
months of suppressed anguish and early
morning tears. Many an inherited sor
row that has marred a life has been
breathed into no human ear.
Aim the good things of this world ar%
no further good to us than as they are
of use; and, whatever we may heap up
to give to others, we enjoy only as much
as we can use, and no more.
Isn’t it a little curious that a man will
denounce marriage as a delusion, and
yqt eagerly embrace this delusion a sec
end time when opportunity offers ?
THE READING HABIT.
Charles Dudley Warner says, in the
Qhristian Union, that the extent of ilte*
reading habit is overestimated. Even in
the United States, where the habit of read
ing is most prevalent, few of th© popu
lation read a book. In support of. his
opinion, Mr. Warner brings out tNe fol
lowing i
Nearly everybody takes a daily snatch
at the newspapers, at the summary of
news or at the telegraph columns, and
tile base-ball record, and occasionally
persons follow for days the columns de
voted to some singular accident or curi
ous jnurder— eveii women have acquired
the art of deftly skimming the cream off
the morning journal; comparatively few
of the entire population, even tne edu
cated, read books.
Unless a book by some good luck be
comes a fashion, and is recommended in
conversation, few see it; the number of
people who riginally seek out the read
able book from their habit of craving is
very small.
When a story becomes the fashion,
everybody reads it; but who is every
body ? Why, a novel is said to have a
“run” if 10,000 copies of it are pub
lished for 40,000,000 people.
And there are books that “ everybody
has read, and all the newspapers
talk of,” which have not got beyond the
third or fourth thousand.
The late Samuel Bowles once told me
of his experience. He had written his
capital book on the far West at the time
of the Pacific-railway excitement, when
millions of people were eager for the in
formation his book contained.
Never did a book seem to be in greater
demand ; it was sold in England as well
as in America, and all the newspapers of
both countries quoted from it and com
mented on it.
Mr. Bowles said that he never met a
person who had not read it—or who did
not say he read it, I forget which. And
yet, he asked, how many copies do you
suppose satisfied this enormous demand
of everybody? Fifteen thousand filled
the market.
I believe that the majority of business
men read a book very rarely; the ma
jority of young men in business and in
society, I fancy, read little—they do not
give their evenings to reading, and are
not apt to take up a book unless it be
comes the talk of society.
People who spend a great deal of
money on dress, on dinners, on amuse
ment®, would think it extravagant to
buy a book, and, if one is commended
to them, they will wait till they can
borrow it or get it from the library.
They do not hesitate two minutes
about an ordinary $2 dinner, but they
will wait months to borrow a 50-cent
book. -
AUTHORS' OPINIONS OF AUTHORS*
Says an English paper: Pitt told
Wilberforce, respecting Bishop Butler’s
great work, “You may prove anything
by analogy.” Sydney Smith says the
book is “ the most noble and surprising
defense of revealed religion ever made* ’
Fielding was “ the prose Homer of hu
man nature,” according to Byron; “a
blockhead,” if we believe Dr. Johnson.
Johnson himself was dubbed “Ursa
Major” by Lord Auchinlec. “He has
nothing of the bear but the skin,” said
Goldsmith. “Johnson was an odious
and mean character,” according to Hor
ace Walpole; Mr. Thomas Carlyle
praises him as “ a mass of genuine man
hoed. ” “ Sir, I don’t think Gray a first
rate poet,” quoth Johnson. “I have
been reading Gray’s works, and I think
him the only poet since Shakspeard en
titled to the character of the sublime, ”
wrote Cowper. “ The first of solemn
coxcombs,” says Warton of Goldsmith.
“An inspired idiot,” says Horace Wal
pole ; while Bishop Percy speaks of his
“elegant and enchanting style.” Cur
ran tells us that “Edmund Burke’s
mind was like an over-decorated chapel
rilled with gauds end shows and badly
assorted ornaments. ” Sir James Mack
intosh held he was “ the greatest phil
osopher in practice the world ever saw.”
“ There could not,” said Porson, “ be a
better exercise for a schoolboy than to
turn a page of Gibbon’s ‘ Decline and
Fall’ into English.” “The luminous
page of Gibbon,” said Sheridan ; though
tho wit afterward declared he meant
voluminous. ”
A negro, one night at a meeting,
prayed earnestly that he and his breth
ren might be preserved from what he
called their “ Upsettin’sins. ” “ Brad
der,” said one of his friends, “you ain\
got de hang of dat ar word. It’s ‘ be
settin’,’ not ’upsettin’.” “Brudder,”
replied he, “if dat’s so, it’s so. But I
was prayin’ de Lord to save us from de
sin of ’toxication, and if dat ain’t a up
settin’ sin I donno what am. ”
The papers have a deal to say about
the means of egress from our theaters.
Fogg says he is more troubled about the
means of entrance.— Boston Tran
script,
A young gentleman once sent a bas
ket of apples to his lady-love and told
her to read Solomon iii., 5. It reads :
“ Stay me with flagons, comfort me with
apples; for lam sick of love.”
Tt is estimated that the loss by lung
plague in cattle in this country amounts
to $2,000,000 annually.