Semi-weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1853-18??, 1856-01-30

For the Standard.
Editors of tile North Carolina Standard:
GENTLEMEN: You have lately published sketch
Of the debut Of my friend, David Pitchpipe, in -
County Court. His subsequent history may serve
to point moral, which the careful reader may east
ly extract.
That day Of trial was great day for David Pitch
pipe H. departed from the Court House in tri-
umph. His musical talents having won legal
sanction, as it were, it was unto him as diploma
ever thereafter. He wandered many years, hither
and yon, laboring in his vocation as Psalmody
Teacher, in many Of the vast dominions of Rip Van
Wrinkle. He became more and more cnthused with
his calling; and many time, and oft of Silly
night hath his voice been heard in the solitary wilds
of NorhCarolina, like the voice of Pelican in the
wilderness, as the lone parpatetic trudged on, from
school to school, with his Village Harmony in his
right pocket, and clean shirt and spotted cotton
pocket handkerchief in the left
1t may be proper, also to state, that he did not
neglect the study of military tactics He thought it
not unworthy the son of Apollo, to worship the God
of War. In short, he became the Captain of the
Mud Greek Invincibles, whom he commanded with
great satisfaction to himself and to host of little
negroes, who were always at his heels grinning ad-
mraton at his brave old cooked hat and rusty broad
sword. His military studies were not without their
use, though the minstrel never went to the wars
They were merely ancillary to his great vocation,
viz the proper execution of the art of Psalmody,
and gave it some peculiarities which cannot be very
infinitely discussed. Suffice it to say, that our vo.
cal hero had passion for galloping Fugoes. 1t be-
came his pride to have the four parts brought into
action in military order. First, the heavy bass
moved onward initiating the big guns of artillery;
next came the tenor, like corps of grenadiers
then the treble whrled in with the brilliant execu.
ton of light infantry; and last came rushing by the
counter, with the dashing speed of cavalry; and
then all mingled together in battle array, and by
this united effort they carried themselves triumph
antly through each vanqushed stanza bringing all
the skirnshes at the close together at dead halt,
each in his proper position and all standing ready
for renewed action The lockers on would wonder
how it could be possible for them to come out of the
melee together. Not the musical captain. He
had previously carefully surveyed his ground and
drilled his forces; and from a seeming inextricable
confusion, his psalmodical skill enabled him to evolve
the most harmonious and beautiful results.
David Pitchppe inveighed bitterly against the
savage custom adopted by some churches, of the
preacher pressnting line by line, and waiting for
each to be separately sung. He denomnated it
song-saughter. Cutting up the following couplet Of
old Steenhold and Hopkins in this barbarous way,
was worse; it was murder in the first degrees: n
eis- |" The Lord will come and he will not
Keep silence, but speak out" a sr'f sa''u 'I 2
Sing each line separately, and see how it works,
said David:
"The Lord will come. and be will not y
which involves q manifest contradiction Fl.
Keep silence, but speak OUT s-iNs.
. little worse, and more incomprehensible than dark