The Express.
London, England, 1859-11-11 00:00:00

Pee pp% irmb &b.O brb• 6.1.. mai In* by boa for &.
Sm be.
HOURLY'S FARNIEkb' ALMANACK for
IMF—ro Old •Inermet • pr••••••
NNW= morrielrbsoltyleem• homoysysent
rIR
I• lemillee, ill
_•••••••••• of L A onerwlt
anielo el Yews MN be mewl talm•••••• tor et
•ftiom-•••••• cre•••-•••••• Como-emu.
011age•-effaMin et war r”od -Mutton.
WarNNW YoWit led .1160-oeadwlle nows•d•-Irel-
4•1•1•10 itailelpi awl Ihrlisto 1110.4•11, sm.4.
Ombra. re if I•=tavlan.,
L•••••: 14•••••••••••• SO.:
rime•• W 1127114 soluideid was kr Or We •I " Tlrels••
•••0111W

LITEKA 1 ÜBE.

The Biylow Papers. By JAMAS REttBELL LOWELL.
Newly Edited, with a Preface, by the Author of
" Tom Brown's School Daye." Tifibner and Co.
These compositions are something more than
slaver political squibs. They are masterpieces of
satirical humour, and are entitled, as such, to a per-
manent piece in American, which is English, litera-
ture. They also present to us a life-like portraiture
of the besetting sins and impostures of public life in
the United States at the present day, and this alone
would make them worthy of preservation u illus-
trative of American history—which is likewise Eng-
lish history. For these reasons, Mr. Lowell's witty
contributions of home-spun New England verse, pub-
lished twelve years ago in the Boston Courier upon
the occasion of certain controversies provoked by the
events of that period, have acquired a permanent
celebrity which will assuredly survive that of the
Letters of Junius. It will do so, because the Ame-
rican Republic of transplanted Englishmen bids fair
to outlive the stale traditions of whig and tory, and
the memory of our party contentions of the last cen-
tury—because, too, the affected and artificial style
of Junius, which is but a glittering envelope conceal-
ing the sterile bitterness of hie sentiments and the
emptiness of his thought, has already ceased to
attract our interest, whereas the genial and sagacious
comments of Hosea Biglow are honestly expressed
In his own broad vernacular, nut very eluvial, but
racy of the soil. The taste of this age, emancipated
from the pedantic bondage of the letter, cares more
for what is original and characteristic than for what
is elegant and conventionally correct in literary com-
position. It likes native good sena, and rustic fun
attired in the Doric simplicity of a provincial dialect,
with which our prim forefathers in the bag-wig days
would have been disgusted. We cherish the heart-
felt Scottish accents which Robert Burns has made
and we thank Lover or Carleton for
importing ioto our literature of comedy and pathos
the genuine flavour of the rich Irish brogue. Peter
Pinder, as we know, in his naughty frolics, pelted
King George with soft Devonshire clay ; Lancashire
and the West Riding have not yet forgotten how to
wield their own rough speech—that of "Tim Bob-
bin," or that of the " Bairnala Folk "—in • reform
or anti-corn-law movement ; and the peculiar lan-
guage of Cockneydom, though seldom employed,
even by Punch, to express the popular opinion upon
any political occasion, is pretty frequently in use for
the chastisement of lighter offences or absurdities,
and the correction of the minor social evils. We
are, therefore, quite ready to appreciate the quaint
provincialisms of Massachusetts English, which do
not strike a bit more strangely upon the ear, or in •
printed page upon the eye, than these of half-a-dozen
different counties at home. The editor of this volume
has thought it necessary to provide us with a glos-
sary, bat many readers here may dispense with its
id.
So mach for the dialect of the "Biglow Papers."
As regards the pleasant little fiction of their author-
, ship a word of explanation may be requisite, for the
transaction is a somewhat complicated one. The
Mile is commenced by a letter from Mr. Ezekiel
Biglow, a respectable elderly farmer, of Jaalam, in
the Old Bay State (Massachusetts), to the editor of a
Boston daily journal, enclosing a poem by his eon
Hosea Biglow, "our Hosea," suggested by the sight
of • recruting sergeant, who, with drum and fife and
bombastic proclamation on martial glory,was pending
the villages around Boston to entice young fellows of
spirit into volunteering for the Mexican war.
This poem is the favourite, if not the best, of the
whole series, and it his been so often quoted, espe-
cially on the platforms of our Peace Congress advo-
cates, that the most effective of its twenty stanzas
are familiar to everybody. It is a pity that these
some vans are defaced in two or three instances by
the wanton association of base and ludicrous meta
photo with the name of the Deity. In our judg-
ment, Mr. Hughes fails in apologising for this irre-
verence. Ridicule may be legitimately directed
against cant and hypocritical professions of
religion. But in this cue we have the
honest indignation of the New England Puritan,
sincerely invoking the sanction of the Christian
faith, and the author has unjustifiably degraded this
appeal to the most sacred obligations of the human
conocienoe by introducing vulgar and incongruous
terms. We cannot agree with Mr. Hughes in sup-
posing that our sturdy Bishop Latimer, or Rowland
Hill, or even Mr. Spurgeon, much less that Martin
Luther and St. Paul, would ever have ventured "to
court a grin when they should woo a soul," by telling
the sinner, "God'll send the bill to you," or admonish-
ing him that "you've got to get up sirly if you think
intake in God. Excepting, however, these instances
of bad taste and misplaoed levity, how excellent is
the comic humour, and bow true the conception of
character, which Hosea Biglow's forcible eloquence
displays.
The second letter is from Hosea himself, who,
having entered into direct correspondence with the
editor, sends in for publication a doleful copy of
vanes from a friend of his gone to Mexico, a dap.
pointed though still heroic volunteer named Bird°.
freedom Sawin. Some months later, at the conclu-
sion of the war, we have a second and third epistle of
Sawin's lamentations, effectually rubbing the shine
off the thawed image of military success, which
it had been the policy of President Polk
and his party to set up. Then there is
a report by Hosea of the speech delivered by Increase
D. Wham, Esq., at an ' Extrumpery lances" is
Statestreet, upon the occasion of Mr. Palfrey's re-
fuel to vote for the party candidate for the speaker-
ship i there is a capital summary of a debate in the
Senate at Washington, where Calhoun', philippies
against the North are echoed in fiercer tones of 1
menace and denunciation by the acolytes of the
great Pro-slavery leader;
Sec John C. Calhoun, see be;
" Human rights aim no more
" Right to come on ibis floor,
" No the man In the moon," ems he.
The whole of this debate is admirably hit off. We
must find room for another verse :
" The North sin't no kind of businsee with nothhe,
" An' you've no ides bow much bother it saves;
" We eint noes riled by their (retitle and (within',
" We're seed to lapin' the string on our ilea,"
Sec John C. Calhoun, ties be
Ors Mr. Foote,
" I shwald like to shoot
" The hill gang, by the great horn spoon I" sash*.
We would give a trifle to learn more of the authen-
ticity of that delicious expletive, " by the great horn
moon !" And how well the hollow pretext of " mani-
hat destiny " under which their buccaneering an-
nexation projects were recommended by the place-
' hunting demagogues of the day, is disposed of in
two lines:
It Tate all the cunnineet oars is dace,
An reeling our Maker's ong'nal ides.
If there is anything better than this, it ie the
Pious Editor's Creed," which reminds us not a
little of "Holy Willie's Prayer," by its conscious
self-acknowledgment of villsny, combined with an
ostentation of zeal for righteousness and religion,
and amongst this clue of Pharisees Mr. Lowell's
unsparing sarcasm may have produced a salutary
terror. Some of the rhj men are exquisite—aa
irresistible as those of Wolcott, Byron, Ingoldsby, or
Tom Hood, to say nothing of Sam Butler, who
showed them the way to it :
I du believe thet I should give
Wit 's Min unto Co-or,
Per 'tie by him I move are live,
And Ms ray bread and cheese air.
Let us now take the conclusion at which he arrives
in the last verse :
In short, I firmly du believe
In Humbug generally'
Ft r it's a thing thee I believe
To her a solid valley.
This bosh my faithful shepherd bees,
In pears sweet heth led me,
As this II keep the people gees n,
To feed ea they hey led me.
Imagine these confeasions recited with a nasal
drawl by some white-chokered Pecksniffian "dough-
Lae,' seer oily deacon or smug quaker contractor,