Sidebilder
PDF
ePub

THE HASTY PUDDING.

CANTO I.

Ye Alps audacious, through the heavens that rise
To cramp the day and hide me from the skies;
Ye Gallic flags, that o'er their heights unfurl'd,
Bear death to kings and freedom to the world,
I sing not you. A softer theme I choose,
A virgin theme, unconscious of the muse,
But fruitful, rich, well suited to inspire
The purest frenzy of poetic fire.

Despise it not, ye bards to terror steel'd,
Who hurl your thunders round the epic field;
Nor ye who strain your midnight throats to sing
Joys that the vineyard and the stillhouse bring;
Or on some distant fair your notes employ,
And speak of raptures that you ne'er enjoy.
I sing the sweets I know, the charms I feel,
My morning incense, and my evening meal,
The sweets of Hasty Pudding Come, dear bowl,
Glide o'er my palate and inspire my soul.
The milk beside thee, smoking from the kine,
Its substance mingled, married in with thine,
Shall cool and temper thy superior heat,
And save the pains of blowing while I eat.

Oh! could the smooth, the emblematic song,
Flow like thy genial juices o'er my tongue,
Could those mild morsels in my numbers chime,
And, as they roll in substance, roll in rhyme,
No more thy awkward, unpoetic name
Should shun the muse or prejudice thy fame;
But, rising grateful to the accustom'd ear,
All bards should catch it, and all realms revere.
Assist me first with pious toil to trace,

Through wrecks of time, thy lineage and thy race;
Declare what lovely squaw, in days of yore,
(Ere great Columbus sought thy native shore,)
First gave thee to the world; her works of fame

Have lived indeed, but lived without a name.

Some tawny Ceres, goddess of her days,

First learn'd with stones to crack the well-dried maize, Through the rough sieve to shake the golden shower, In boiling water stir the yellow flour;

The yellow flour, bestrew'd and stirr'd with haste,

Swells in the flood and thickens to a paste,

Then puffs and wallops, rises to the brim,

Drinks the dry knobs that on the surface swim;

The knobs at last the busy ladle breaks,

And the whole mass its true consistence takes.

CANTO II.

To mix the food by vicious rules of art, To kill the stomach and to sink the heart, To make mankind to social virtue sour,

Cram o'er each dish, and be what they devour;

For this the kitchen muse first framed her book,
Commanding sweat to stream from every cook;
Children no more their antic gambols tried,
And friends to physic wonder'd why they died.
Not so the Yankee; his abundant feast
With simples furnish'd and with plainness dress'd,
A numerous offspring gathers round the board,
And cheers alike the servant and the lord,
Whose well-bought hunger prompts the joyous taste,
And health attends them from the short repast.
While the full pail rewards the milkmaid's toil,
The mother sees the morning caldron boil:
To stir the pudding next demands their care,
To spread the table and the bowls prepare;
To feed the children as their portions cool,

And comb their heads and send them off to school.

[blocks in formation]

Some with molasses line the luscious treat,
And mix, like bards, the useful with the sweet.
A wholesome dish and well deserving praise,
A great resource in those bleak wintry days
When the chill'd earth lies buried deep in snow,
And raging Boreas drives the shivering cow.

Bless'd cow! thy praise shall still my notes employ,
Great source of health, the only source of joy;
How oft thy teats these precious hands have press'd!
How oft thy bounties proved my only feast!
How oft I've fed thee with my favorite grain!
And roar'd, like thee, to find thy children slain !

Ye swains, who know her various worth to prize, Ah! house her well from winter's angry skies. Potatoes, pumpkins, should her sadness cheer, Corn from your crib, and mashes from your beer; When spring returns she'll well acquit the loan, And nurse at once your infants and her own.

Milk then with pudding I would always choose; To this in future I confine my muse, Till she in haste some further hints unfold, Well for the young, nor useless to the old. First in your bowl the milk abundant take, Then drop with care along the silver lake Your flakes of pudding; these at first will hide Their little bulk beneath the swelling tide; But when their growing mass no more can sink, When the soft island looms above the brink, Then check your hand; you've got the portion due; So taught our sires, and what they taught is true.

TO FREEDOM.

Sun of the moral world! effulgent source
Of man's best wisdom and his steadiest force,
Soul-searching Freedom! here assume thy stand,
And radiate hence to every distant land;

Point out and prove how all the scenes of strife,
The shock of states, the impassion'd broils of life,
Spring from unequal sway; and how they fly
Before the splendor of thy peaceful eye;
Unfold at last the genuine social plan,
The mind's full scope, the dignity of man,
Bold nature bursting through her long disguise,

And nations daring to be just and wise.

Yes! righteous Freedom, heaven and earth and sea
Yield or withhold their various gifts for thee;
Protected Industry beneath thy reign

Leads all the virtues in her filial train;
Courageous Probity, with brow serene;

And Temperance calm presents her placid mien;
Contentment, Moderation, Labor, Art,
Mould the new man and humanize his heart;
To public plenty private ease dilates,
Domestic peace to harmony of states.

Protected Industry, careering far,

Detects the cause and cures the rage of war,

And sweeps, with forceful arm, to their last graves,
Kings from the earth and pirates from the waves.

Columbiad.

JOHN MARSHALL, 1755-1835.

JOHN MARSHALL, the son of Thomas Marshall, of Fauquier County, Virginia, was born on the 24th of September, 1755. He had some classical instruction in his youth, but never had the benefit of a regular collegiate education. At the commencement of the Revolutionary War, he engaged with ardor in the American cause, and was promoted in 1777 to the rank of captain. In 1781, finding that there was a redundancy of officers in the Virginia line, he resigned his commission, and, having been admitted to the bar the year before, he devoted himself to the practice of the law, and soon rose to great distinction. He was a member of the Virginia Convention that was called to ratify the Constitution; and in this body he greatly distinguished himself by his powerful reasoning and eloquence. After this he accepted two or three high offices of trust and honor; and, on the resignation of Chief-Justice Ellsworth, he became, by the nomination of President Adams and the confirmation of the Senate, on the 31st of January, 1801, Chief-Justice of the United States, which office he continued to fill with becoming dignity, increasing reputation, and unsullied purity till his death, which took place in Philadelphia on the 6th of July, 1835.1

1 He had been for some months in feeble health, and went from Richmond, the place of his residence, to Philadelphia, in order to obtain medical aid. He died surrounded by three of his children, and "to the last moment retained the faculties of his mind, and met his fate with the fortitude of a philosopher and the resignation of a Christian." Read A Discourse upon his Life, Character, and Services, by Joseph Story, LL.D., and A Eulogy on his Life and Character, by

It is impossible to speak in too high terms of the public and private worth of Chief-Justice Marshall. No man ever bore public honors more meekly; but while, from the simplicity of his manners and his kindness of heart, he endeared himself to every social circle, from his extraordinary talents, his great legal attainments, and his unsuspected integrity, he was the object of respect and confidence throughout the nation, all acknowledging, in the language of Judge Story, that "the highest judicial honors could not have fallen on any one who could have sustained them with more solid advantage to the glory or interests of the country."

Judge Marshall's published works are A Life of Washington, five volumes 8vo; The History of the American Colonies, one volume; and a work upon The Federal Constitution. His judicial decisions will ever remain a glorious monument of his learning and his wisdom.

CHARACTER OF WASHINGTON.

General Washington was rather above the common size: his frame was robust, and his constitution vigorous-capable of enduring great fatigue, and requiring a considerable degree of exercise for the preservation of his health. His exterior created in the beholder the idea of strength, united with manly graceful

ness.

His manners were rather reserved than free, though they partook nothing of that dryness and sternness which accompany reserve when carried to an extreme; and on all proper occasions he could relax sufficiently to show how highly he was gratified by the charms of conversation, and the pleasures of society. His person and whole deportment exhibited an unaffected and indescribable dignity, unmingled with haughtiness, of which all who approached him were sensible; and the attachment of those who possessed his friendship, and enjoyed his intimacy, was ardent, but always respectful.

His temper was humane, benevolent, and conciliatory; but there was a quickness in his sensibility to any thing apparently offensive, which experience had taught him to watch, and to cor

rect.

In the management of his private affairs he exhibited an exact yet liberal economy. His funds were not prodigally wasted on capricious and ill-examined schemes, nor refused to beneficial

Horace Binney, Esq.; also, a well-written life in Flanders's Lives of the ChiefJustices of the United States. In the 26th vol. of the N. Am. Review is an article upon Marshall's Public Life and Services, by Judge Story; and in the 42d vol. a finished article upon his Life, Character, and Services, by G. S. Hillard, in a review of Story's admirable "Discourse." In the first volume of Kennedy's Life of William Wirt are some fine remarks upon the character of Judge Marshall, by

Mr. Wirt himself.

though costly improvements. They remained, therefore, competent to that expensive establishment which his reputation, added to a hospitable temper, had in some measure imposed upon him; and to those donations which real distress has a right to claim from opulence.

He made no pretensions to that vivacity which fascinates, or to that wit which dazzles, and frequently imposes on the understanding. More solid than brilliant, judgment, rather than genius, constituted the most prominent feature of his character.

Without making ostentatious professions of religion, he was a sincere believer in the Christian faith, and a truly devout man.

As a military man, he was brave, enterprising, and cautious. That malignity which sought to strip him of all the higher qualities of a General, has conceded to him personal courage, and a firmness of resolution which neither dangers nor difficulties could shake. But candor will allow him other great and valuable endowments. If his military course does not abound with splendid achievements, it exhibits a series of judicious measures adapted to circumstances, which probably saved his country.

In his civil administration, as in his military career, ample and repeated proofs were exhibited of that practical good sense, of that sound judgment, which is perhaps the most rare, and is certainly the most valuable quality of the human mind.

No man has ever appeared upon the theatre of public action whose integrity was more incorruptible, or whose principles were more perfectly free from the contamination of those selfish and unworthy passions which find their nourishment in the conflicts of party. Having no views which required concealment, his real and avowed motives were the same; and his whole correspondence does not furnish a single case from which even an enemy would infer that he was capable, under any circumstances, of stooping to the employment of duplicity. No truth can be uttered with more confidence than that his ends were always upright, and his means always pure. He exhibits the rare example of a politician to whom wiles were absolutely unknown, and whose professions to foreign governments, and to his own countrymen, were always sincere. In him was fully exemplified the real distinction, which forever exists, between wisdom and cunning, and the im portance as well as truth of the maxim that "honesty is the best policy."

It is impossible to contemplate the great events which have occurred in the United States, under the auspices of Washington, without ascribing them, in some measure, to him. If we ask the causes of the prosperous issue of a war against the successful termination of which there were so many probabilities; of the good

« ForrigeFortsett »