The Minnesotian. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn. Territory) 1851-1852, 1851-10-15

Kings own" Many merry time you
must have had, during your career as a
public journalist, over some such speci-
mems, in which while the writer has
thought himself awfully sublimc-the
reader has found him most supremacy RI
diculous.
s.Save me from my friends :" might be
the exclamation of this modern Mungo
Park, if he but knew his true position
He has been so long blarneyed into the
belief that he is the "Divil at making a
spache,'' he has now tempted himself into
the conviction that he can write Also
He has been so long engaged in exchang-
ing gass for blarney, that by way Of va
rying his occupation, he now condescends
to contribute TO the literature of the age.
In the outset, our hero seems anxious
to disabuse the minds of his readers of
any lurking fear that he might have suf-
fercd hunger in the course of his perilous
iourney-he reminds them therefore that
his party took with them quantity-of
- in fact grub. As Mr.. Micaw
Der would have it, there is also a strong
hint, that they made ample preparations in
the way of something stronger than wa
ter. Now really, it is very kind and con-
sderate in our CT deraat traveller, thus
to anticipate the anxietics of his friends:
how could they possibly receive the
instruction so condescendingly intend
ed by the narrative, had they a lurking
suspicion that their brave oracle-while
preparing for them an intellectual feast,
had pinched his own corporcal stomach
in preparing for them dish of Prairie
streets, had missed his own accustomed
bMers.
Our hero is so thoroughly an original,
and SO outre in the perfection of his taste,
it were presumption to expect from him
-perspicuity-tor that is what common
scribes aim at; or common sense-for that
has no poetry in it: he forgcts too in his
own tendency to constant initiation, what
may be the average capacity of his read
crs, lungs; thus he runs them ont of breath
with the length Of his periods, and leaves
them wandering what on earth he means.
Take the following as one specimen
amongst others:
Here, for ages lave bloomcd the wild
flowers and kindred beauties, as luxuri-
antly as amid the tropics, of which poets
have sung in every strain of romantic and
sentimental pocsy shaded at intervals by
the thickly laced branches of forest trees,
inviting the weary traveller to lingcr be-
meath in tie sweet quiet OF rcposc.''
Now, TO say nothing Of It's length, what
on earth are we to understand by the
above sentence? Does the writer mean
that it is in reference TO the tropics that
Poets have s,lngs ? or "the wild flowers
and kindred beauties ?" and were the Po-
els shaded by the trees, or were 'sthe
wild flowers . thus shaded and did those
same Poets invite the traveller to linger,
or did the trees give the invitation? Now,
will defy any reader from the passage
itself, to determine which of these mean
ings is really intended.
1t is unnecessary TO make further ex-
tracts; the foregoing is sufficient (and it
is specimen of the whole) to show how
beside himself man may become, when
seiishncss end cgotism have been minis
tered TO by the tlattcry Of fools. The
pomposity-yet pucrility- aping of
the descriptive-hut failure in aught but
carrleaturc-ihe transparent pretension TO
classic attainment that characterize the
production thus far, prove but too clearly,
that egotism. or Hattcry. has induced at
least one individual TO become wanderer
from the sphere which nature intended
him TO remain in.
"know thyself" is motto which is
specially recommended to this oracle of
the clique by Yours. Sc.
COSMOFOLITE.