Consequently our dialect approaches nearer to uniformity than that of any other nation. The English have complained of us for coining new words. Many of those so stigmatized were old ones by them forgotten; and all make now an unquestioned part of the currency wherever English is spoken. Undoubtedly, we have a right to make new words as they are needed by the fresh aspects under which life presents itself here in the New World; and indeed, wherever a language is alive, it grows. It might be questioned whether we could not establish a stronger title to the ownership of the English tongue than the mother-islanders themselves. Here, past all question, is to be its great home and center. And not only is it already spoken here by greater numbers, but with a far higher popular average of correctness, than in Britain. The great writers of it, too, we might claim as ours, were ownership to be settled by the number of readers and lovers. As regards the provincialisms to be met with in this volume, I may say that the reader will not find one which is not (as I believe) either native, or imported with the early settlers; nor one which I have not with my own ears heard in familiar use. In the metrical portion of the book, I have endeavored to adapt the spelling as nearly as possible to the ordinary mode of pronunciation. Let the reader who deems me over-particular remember this caution of Martial: Quem recitas, meus est, O Fidentine, libellus ; Sed male cum recitas, incipit esse tuus." A few further explanatory remarks will not be impertinent. 1. The genuine Yankee never gives the rough sound to the r when he can help it, and often displays considerable ingenuity in avoiding it even before a vowel. 2. He seldom sounds the final g; a piece of self-denial, if we consider his partiality for nasals. The same of the final d, as han' and stan' for hand and stand. 3. The h in such words as while, when, where, he omits altogether. 4. In regard to a, he shows some inconsistency; sometimes giving a close and obscure sound, as her for have, hendy for handy, ez for as, thet for that; and again giving it the broad sound it has in father, as hânsome for handsome. 5. To the sound ou he prefixes an e (hard to exemplify otherwise than orally). The following passage in Shakspeare he would recite thus: "Neow is the winta uv eour discontent Med glorious summa by this sun o' Yock; An' all the cleouds thet leowered upun cour house In the deep buzzum o' the oshin buried. Neow air cour breows beound 'ith victorious wreaths; Eour starn alarums changed to merry meetin's, Eour dreffle marches to delightful measures. Grim-visaged War heth smeuthed his wrinkled front; An' neow, instid o' mountin' barebid steeds To fright the souls o' ferfle edverseries, 6. Au, in such words as daughter and slaughter, he pronounces ah. [Mr. Wilbur's notes here become entirely fragmentary. — C. N.] No. VIII. A SECOND LETTER FROM B. SAWIN, ESQ. [In the following epistle, we behold Mr. Sawin returning, a miles emeritus, to the bosom of his family. Quantum mutatus! The good Father of us all had doubtless intrusted to the keeping of this child of his certain faculties of a constructive kind. He had put in him a share of that vital force, the nicest economy of every minute atom of which is necessary to the perfect development of humanity. He had given him a brain and heart, and so had equipped his soul with the two strong wings of knowledge and love, whereby it can mount to hang its nest under the eaves of heaven. And this child, so dowered, he had intrusted to the keeping of his vicar, the State. How stands the account of that stewardship? The State or Society (call her by what name you will) had taken no manner of thought of him till she saw him swept out into the street, the pitiful leavings of last night's debauch, with cigar-ends, lemon-parings, tobacco-quids, slops, vile stenches, and the whole loathsome next-morning of the bar-room, - -an own child of the Almighty God! I remember him as he was brought to be christened, a ruddy, rugged babe and now there he wallows, reeking, seething, — the dead corpse, not of a man, but of a soul; a putrefying lump, horrible for the life that is in it. Comes the wind of heaven, that Good Samaritan, and parts the hair upon his forehead, nor is too nice to kiss those parched, cracked lips; the morning opens upon him her eyes full of pitying sunshine; the sky yearns down to him: and there he lies fermenting. O Sleep!-let me not profane thy holy name by calling that stertorous unconsciousness a slumber! By and by comes along the State, God's vicar. Does she say, "My poor, forlorn foster-child! - behold here a force which I will make dig and plant and build for me!" Not so; but, "Here is a recruit ready-made to my hand, a piece of destroying energy lying unprofitably idle." So she claps an ugly gray suit on him, puts a musket in his grasp, and sends him off, with gubernatorial and other godspeeds, to do duty as a destroyer. I made one of the crowd at the last Mechanics' Fair, and with the rest stood gazing in wonder at a perfect machine, with its soul of fire, its boiler-heart that sent the hot blood pulsing along the iron arteries, and its thews of steel. And while I was admiring the adaptation of means to end, the harmonious involutions of contrivance, and the never-bewildered complexity, I saw a grimed and greasy fellow, the imperious engine's lackey and drudge, whose sole office was to let fall at intervals a drop or two of oil upon a certain joint. Then my soul said within me, "See there a piece of mechanism to which that other you marvel at is but as the rude first effort of a child; a force which not merely suffices to set a few wheels in motion, but which can send an impulse all through the infinite future; a contrivance, not for turning out pins or stitching button-holes, but for making Hamlets and Lears. And yet this thing of iron shall be housed, waited on, guarded from rust and dust, and it shall be a crime but so much as to scratch it with a pin; while the other, with its fire of God in it, shall be buffeted hither and thither, and finally sent carefully a thousand miles to be the target for a Mexican cannon-ball. Unthrifty Mother State!" My heart burned within me for pity and indignation, and I renewed this covenant with my own soul: In aliis mansuetus ero, at, in blasphemiis contra Christum, non ita. — H. W.] I S'POSE you wonder ware I be; I can't tell, fer the soul o' me, There's one good thing, though, to be said about my wooden new one, - So it saves drink; an' then, besides, a feller couldn't beg I've lost one eye, but thet's a loss it's easy to supply Off'cers, I notice, who git paid fer all our thumps an' kickin's, Now, le' me see, thet isn't all; I used, 'fore leavin' Jaalam, To count things on my finger-eends, but sutthin' seems to ail 'em : I've hed some ribs broke, – six (I b’lieve), — I hain't kep no account on 'em : Wen pensions git to be the talk, I'll settle the amount on 'em. the one I let' behind; you should see her, jest clear out the spout o' your invention, An' pour the longest sweetnin' in about an annooal pension, An' kin' o' hint (in case, you know, the critter should refuse to be Consoled) I ain't so 'xpensive now to keep ez wut I used to be; There's one arm less, ditto one eye, an' then the leg thet's wooden Can be took off an' sot away wenever ther' 's a puddin'. I s'pose you think I'm comin' back ez opperlunt ez thunder, Ware every rock there wuz about with precious stuns wuz blazin'; Then there were meetinhouses, tu, chockful o' gold an' silver, But sech idees soon melted down an' didn't leave a grease-spot; I guess I mentioned in my last some o' the nateral feeturs Our Prudence hed, thet wouldn't pour (all she could du) to suit her : It's reggilar employment, though, an' thet aint thought to harm one, To hev it said you're some gret shakes in any kin' o' way. One day a reg'lar shiver-de-freeze, an' next ez good ez bakin', - Git up all sound, be put to bed a mess o' hacks an' smashes. An', spose we hed, I wonder how you're goin' to contrive its Ef you should multiply by ten the portion o' the brav'st one, You wouldn't git mor'n half enough to speak of on a grave-stun; It the coppers. may Isuit folks thet go agin a body with a soul in't, An' aint contented with a hide without a bagnet hole in't; But glory is a kin' o' thing I shan't pursue no furder, Coz thet's the officers parquisite, yourn's on'y jest the murder. Wal, arter I gin glory up, thinks I at least there's one Thing in the bills we aint hed yit, an' thet's the GLORIOUS FUN; Ef once we git to Mexico, we fairly may persume we All I know is, thet out o' doors a pair o' soles wuz fried, An', not a hunderd miles away frum ware this child wuz posted, The on'y thing like revellin' thet ever come to me They say the quarrel's settled now; fer my part I've some doubt on't; 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? Then you can call me "Timbertoes; "thet's wut the people likes, - "Old Timbertoes," you see, 's a creed it's safe to be quite bold on, Thet valooable class o' men who look thru brandy-toddy; |