Ef once we git to Mexico, we fairly may persume we An', not a hunderd miles away frum ware this child wuz posted, The on'y thing like revellin' thet ever come to me Wuz bein' routed out o' sleep by thet darned revelee. They say the quarrel's settled now; fer my part I've some doubt on't; (I mean fer any thet includes good easy-cheers an' soffies; I never did hev any gret, ez you can testify; I'm a decided peace-man tu, an' go agin the war, Fer now the holl on't 's gone an' past, wut is there to go for? To know my views o' State affairs, jest answer, "WOODEN LEG!" - took! Then you can call me "Timbertoes; "thet's wut the people likes, — I tell ye wut the people want is jest correct idees. "Old Timbertoes," yon see, 's a creed it's safe to be quite bold on, Thet valooable class o' men who look thru brandy-toddy; It gives a Party Platform tu, jest level with the mind There's one thing I'm in doubt about; in order to be Presidunt, The Constitution settles thet, an' also thet a feller Must own a nigger o' some sort, jet-black, or brown, or yeller. You might raise funds enough fer me to buy a low-priced baby; Yourn, BIRDOFREDUM SAWIN. We have now a tolerably fair chance of estimating how the balance-sheet stands between our returned volunteer and glory. Supposing the entries to be set down on both sides of the account in fractional parts of one hundred, we shall arrive at something like the following result: It would appear that Mr. Sawin found the actual feast curiously the reverse of the bill of fare advertised in Faneuil Hall and other places. His primary object seems to have been the making of his fortune. Quærenda pecunia primum, virtus post nummos. He hoisted sail for Eldorado, and shipwrecked on Point Tribulation. Quid non mortalia pectora cogis, auri sacra fames? The speculation has sometimes crossed my mind, in that dreary interval of drought which intervenes between quarterly stipendiary showers, that Providence, by the creation of a money-tree, might have simplified wonderfully the sometimes perplexing problem of human life. We read of bread-trees, the butter for which lies ready churned in Irish bogs. Milk-trees we are assured of in South America; and stout Sir John Hawkins testifies to water trees in the Canaries. Boot-trees bear abundantly in Lynn and elsewhere; and I have seen, in the entries of the wealthy, hat-trees with a fair show of fruit. A familytree I once cultivated myself, and found therefrom but a scanty yield, and that quite tasteless and innutritious. Of trees bearing men we are not without examples; as those in the park of Louis the Eleventh of France. Who has forgotten, moreover, that olive-tree, growing in the Athenian's back-garden, with its strange uxorious crop, for the general propagation of which, as of a new and precious variety, the philosopher Diogenes, hitherto uninterested in arboriculture, was so zealous? In the sylva of our own Southern States, the females of my family have called my attention to the china-tree. Not to multiply examples, I will barely add to my list the birch-tree, in the smaller branches of which has been implanted so miraculous a virtue for communicating the Latin and Greek languages, and which may well, therefore, be classed among the trees producing necessaries of life, - venerabile, donum fatalis virgo. That money-trees existed in the golden age, there want not prevalent reasons for our believing; for does not the old proverb, when it asserts that money does not grow on every bush, imply, à fortiori, that there were certain bushes which did produce it? Again: there is another ancient saw to the effect that money is the root of all evil. From which two adages it may be safe to infer that the aforesaid species of tree first degenerated into a shrub, then absconded underground, and finally, in our iron age, vanished altogether. In favorable exposures, it may be conjectured that a specimen or two survived to a great age, as in the garden of the Hesperides; and indeed what else could that tree in the Sixth Æneid have been, with a branch whereof the Trojan hero procured admission to a territory for the entering of which money is a surer passport than to a certain other more profitable (too) foreign kingdom? Whether these speculations of mine have any force in them, or whether they will not rather, by most readers, be deemed impertinent to the matter in hand, is a question which I leave to the determination of an indulgent posterity. That there were in more primitive and happier times shops where money was sold, and that, too, on credit and at a bargain, I take to be matter of demonstration. For what but a dealer in this article was that Eolus who supplied Ulysses with motive power for his fleet in bags? what that Ericus, King of Sweden, who is said to have kept the winds in his cap? what, in more recent times, those Lapland Nornas who traded in favorable breezes? - all which will appear the more clearly when we consider, that, even to this day, raising the wind is proverbial for raising money, and that brokers and banks were invented by the Venetians at a later period. And now for the improvement of this digression. I find a parallel to Mr. Sawin's fortune in an adventure of my own; for, shortly after I had first broached to myself the before-stated natural-historical and archæological theories, as I was passing, hæc negotia penitus mecum revolvens, through one of the obscure suburbs of our NewEngland metropolis, my eye was attracted by these words upon a sign-board: CHEAP CASH-STORE. Here was at once the confirmation of my speculations and the substance of my hopes. Here lingered the fragment of a happier past, or stretched out the first tremulous organic filament of a more fortunate future. Thus glowed the distant Mexico to the eyes of Sawin as he looked through the dirty pane of the recruiting-office window, or speculated from the summit of that mirage-Pisgah which the imps of the bottle are so cunning in raising up. Already had my Alnaschar fancy (even during that first half-believing glance) expended in various useful directions the funds to be obtained by pledging the manuscript of a proposed volume of discourses. Already did a clock ornament the tower of the Jaalam meeting-house, — a gift appropriately but modestly commemorated in the parish and town records; both, for now many years, kept by myself. Already had my son Seneca completed his course at the university. Whether, for the moment, we may not be considered as actually lording it over those Baratarias with the viceroyalty of which Hope invests us, and whether we are ever so warmly housed as in our Spanish castles, would afford matter of argument. Enough that I found that sign-board to be no other than a bait to the trap of a decayed grocer. Nevertheless, I bought a pound of dates (getting short weight by reason of immense flights of harpy flies who pursued and lighted upon their prey even in the very scales); which purchase I made not only with an eye to the little ones at home, but also as a figurative reproof of that too-frequent habit of my mind, which, forgetting the due order of chronology, will often persuade me that the happy scepter of Saturn is stretched over this Astræa-forsaken nineteenth century. Having glanced at the ledger of Glory under the title Sawin, B., let us extend our investigations, and discover if that instructive volume does not contain some charges more personally interesting to ourselves. I think we should be more economical of our resources, did we thoroughly appreciate the fact, that, whenever Brother Jonathan seems to be thrusting his hand into his own pocket, he is, in fact, picking ours. I confess that the late muck which the country has been running has materially changed my views as to the best method of raising revenue. If, by means of direct taxation, the bills for every extraordinary outlay were brought under our immediate eye, so that, like thrifty housekeepers, we could see where and how fast the money was going, we should be less likely to commit extravagances. At present, these things are managed in such a hugger-mugger way, that we know not what we pay for; the poor man is charged as much as the rich; and, while we are saving and scrimping at the spigot, the government is drawing off at the bung. If we could know that a part of the money we expend for tea and coffee goes to buy powder and balls, and that it is Mexican blood which makes the clothes on our backs more costly, it would set some of us a-thinking. During the present fall, I have often pictured to myself a government official entering my study, and handing me the following bill: WASHINGTON, Sept. 30, 1848. REV. HOMER WILBUR to Uncle Samuel, To his share of work done in Mexico on partnership account, sundry jobs, as below: ,, killing, maiming, and wounding about 5,000 Mexicans ,, slaughtering one woman carrying water to wounded. Dr. $2.00 .10 extra work on two different sabbaths (one bombardment and one assault), whereby the Mexicans were prevented from defiling themselves with the idolatries of high mass 3.50 throwing an especially fortunate and Protestant bombshell into the Cathedral at Vera Cruz, whereby several female Papists were slain at the altar. .50 glory Immediate payment is requested. do. his proportion of cash paid for conquered territory do. manuring do. with new superior compost called " American Citizen " extending the area of Freedom and Protestantism 1.75 for conquering do. 1.50 .50 .01 .01 $9.87 N. B. Thankful for former favors, U. S. requests a continuance of patronage. Orders executed with neatness and dispatch. Terms as low as those of any other contractor for the same kind and style of work. I can fancy the official answering my look of horror with, "Yes, sir; it looks like a high charge, sir: but, in these days, slaughtering is slaughtering." Verily, I would that every one understood that it was; for it goes about obtaining money under the false pretence of being glory. For me, I have an imagination which plays me uncomfortable tricks. It happens to me sometimes to see a slaughterer on his way home from his day's work; and forthwith my imagination puts a cocked hat upon his head, and epaulets upon his shoulders, and sets him up as a candidate for the Presidency. So also, on a recent public occasion, as the place assigned to the "Reverend Clergy" is just behind that of "Officers of the Army and Navy" in processions, it was my fortune to be seated at the dinner-table over against one of these respectable persons. He was arrayed as (out of his own profession) only kings, court-officers, and footmen are in Europe, and Indians in America. Now, what does my over-officious imagination but set to work upon him, strip him of his gay livery, and present him to me coatless, his trousers thrust into the tops of a pair of boots thick with clotted blood, and a basket on his arm out of which lolled a gore-smeared axe, thereby destroying my relish for the temporal mercies upon the board before me! H. W. EDGAR ALLAN POE. BORN JANUARY, 1811, BALTIMORE, MD. A writer of undoubted poetical genius, but so prejudiced in his tastes, and so erratic in his life, that he left no fitting monument of his power. "The Bells," "Annabel Lee," and "The Raven," are his best-known pieces. He died in Baltimore, Oct. 7, 1849. THE RAVEN.* ONCE upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Ah! distinctly I remember: it was in the bleak December, This poem is justly celebrated as unique in its expression, and unrivalled in the wild, weird fancy of its conception. |