“I thank you heartily for the ballad, which will go into the next number. I like it all the better for its provincialism,--in all fine pears, you know, we can taste the old _puckers_. I know the story well. I am familiar with Marblehead and its dialect, and as the burthen is intentionally provincial I have taken the liberty to print it in such a way as shall give the peculiar accent, thus:-- ‘Cap’n Ireson for his horrd horrt Was torred and feathered and corried in a corrt.’ That’s the way I’ve always ‘horrd it,’--only it began ‘Old Flud Ireson.’ What a good name Ireson (son of wrath) is for the hero of such a history! “You see that ‘Tritemius’ is going the rounds! I meant to have sent you the proofs, and to have asked you to make a change in it where these four rhymes come together (assonances I mean),--‘door,’ ‘poor,’ ‘store,’ ‘more.’ It annoyed me, but I do not find that any one else has been troubled by it, and everybody likes the poem. I am glad that the Philistines have chosen some verses of mine[121] for their target, not being able to comprehend the bearing of then. I mean I am glad that they did it rather than pick out those of any one else for their scapegoat. I shall not let you rest till I have got a New England pastoral out of you. This last is cater-cousin to it, at least, being a piscatorial. “Will you be good enough to let me know how much Mr. Underwood shall send you? He will remit at once. “The sale of Maga has been very good considering the times, and I think you will find the second number better than the first. If you do not wish the burthen so spelt, will you write me?”