Mexican War, 1846-1848 -- Poetry; Slavery -- United States -- Poetry
"The productions of Mr. B. have been stigmatized in some quarters as
unpatriotic; but I can vouch that he loves his native soil with that
hearty, though discriminating, attachment which springs from an intimate
social intercourse of many years' standing. In the ploughing season, no
one has a deeper share in the well-being of the country than he. If Dean
Swift were right in saying that he who makes two blades of grass grow
where one grew before confers a greater benefit on the state than he who
taketh a city, Mr. B. might exhibit a fairer claim to the Presidency
than General Scott himself. I think that some of those disinterested
lovers of the hard-handed democracy, whose fingers have never touched
anything rougher than the dollars of our common country, would hesitate
to compare palms with him. It would do your heart good, respected Sir,
to see that young man now. He cuts a cleaner and wider swarth than any
in this town.
"But it is time for me to be at my Post. It is very clear that my young
friend's shot has struck the lintel, for the Post is shaken (Amos ix.
1). The editor of that paper is a strenuous advocate of the Mexican war,
and a colonel, as I am given to understand. I presume, that, being
necessarily absent in Mexico, he has left his journal in some less
judicious hands. At any rate, the Post has been too swift on this
occasion. It could hardly have cited a more incontrovertible line from
any poem than that which it has selected for animadversion, namely,--
"'We kind o' thought Christ went agin war an' pillage.'
"If the Post maintains the converse of this proposition, it can hardly
be considered as a safe guide-post for the moral and religious portions
of its party, however many other excellent qualities of a post it may be
blessed with. There is a sign in London on which is painted,--'The Green
Man.' It would do very well as a portrait of any individual who would
support so unscriptural a thesis. As regards the language of the line in
question, I am bold to say that He who readeth the hearts of men will
not account any dialect unseemly which conveys a sound and pious
sentiment. I could wish that such sentiments were more common, however
uncouthly expressed. Saint Ambrose affirms, that _veritas a quocunque_
(why not, then _quomodocunque_?) _dicatur, a spiritu sancto est_. Digest
also this of Baxter:--'The plainest words are the most profitable
oratory in weightiest matters.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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