New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1861-01-09
4 E p0I.IT4cs AND PoRrIsX.

A
Mr.. Martin Farquhar Tupper an Englishwan
1 chiefly noted for having written book calle
Proyerbal Philosophy, z full Of stuff and baldet
dash, has felthimself called upon to write some
iii hpnor of the election of Old Abe to the Pres
deney. This poetieal gem is sueha sumner Y
to use q word borrowed from the slang Of Topper
own countrymen-th we do not feel at liberty +
withhold it from our readers:
SONNET TO ABR AHAM LINCOLN.
How nobiy Great America, thy heart
Greeted our states sweet Hope iiower-aud nov
I well
Thy children played their true and tender part,
4 ENGLAND has thrilled to hear and loves to tell.
And now, another glad and glorious phase
4 OF the United Grandeur that tllou art,
Has risen upon the world for peace and praise
i In this thy new-e1eeted he is one,
A natural chief amongst his fellows seen;
/ Selfpoised. self-aided-Lbertyfs own son,
/ Wise, temperate. righteous, of majestic mien,
4 And loving bond and free; but longing more
| To find no slavery possible between
The twin vast oceans, free from shore to shore
! ALBuBY, SuTRY. 81 MARTINI 4. TUPPER.
The sonnet" you perceive, opens with an
affecting alusion to the late visit of the Prince Of
Wales to this country and how nobly that "sweet
| Hope,aower was greeted by America. Then
by an easy and graceful transition the poet passes
/ from the Hope-aower to Old Abe-both being
latter Of a that will be left after the 18th of March
of Great America The coupling of these two
/ together is only delicate mode Of expressing the
/ idea that Abe is the Hope-hower of America, even
! as Wales is the ditto of Great Britain.
/ Observe especially, the terse and epithetic de-
/ scription of our own native American Hope
/ fower.r He is a natural Chief He is self
| poised.u Also selfaidedH Likewise Liber-
tvs own son. In addition to this, Abe is "wise,
temperate, righteous In respect of physical APP
pearance he IS of majestic mien'' {FnpPer ought
to have written it mean and his " love y is of
that gushing and expansive sort which includes
both !" bond and free.n The vocabulary of praise
il almost exhausted in behalf of the Illinoisan
Hope. Tower. We doubt that Old Abe himself will
recognize his own picture, highly colored is it
by the Walt Whitman Of Europe.
As Lincoln has never done anything in the way
Of craftsmanship to entitle him 20 this sweeping
eUieguni, We strongly suspect that Topper had
refsTenee to his early career as a fatboatman 1t
is known that the Hope-iower in his callow youth
commanded and nayigated broadhorn. which
r,.sa successful voyage from Cairo to this city.
History is silent WIZ, .ssgard to the cargo tua.he
brought down. Itmay have been potatoes, OF ii
may have been poultry. Who cares? Who will
stop to inquire into these Insignificant triftes and
overlook the salient fact that this trip was the be-
ginning of a career of craftsmanship which has
eliminated in the captainoy Of the great broad
horn Of the Union2 On this supposition, then,
the words natural chief z refer to the seIfelec
ton of Abe to the command of the flatboat Self
aided Z means that he steered tie boat himself,
and Z selfpoised mat be rested himself, when
Tired BY getting astraddle OF the tiller. With this
lucid explanation the reader will have no difficulty
in arriving at the otherwise obscure purport Of the
great Progerbiai Philosophers sonnet.''
Then the Hope-HoWer Of America is designated
as Libertys own son vas II Liberty could have
any other son than her own. We take it that Lib
erty is not Mrs. Burdell. Cunningham of a woman,
passing OF bogus baby upon people. Being
Lbertys own son, it is also natural that he should
4 love bond and free" Abstractly we have no
objection to Abe's loving as many Of the bond as
he chooses. 1t is only when his love, and that of
his friends, reaches such an excessive pitch that
they must signalize it by theft, that the circum-
stance becomes at all binding upon those whose
love does not happento be quite SO comprehen-
aive.
Finally he longs to find no slavery possible he
tween lHt tWIit detStlS-Sftel oGbhIiS Delug Tree
from shore to shore.n Very likely. But he
will long long before his longings in this re.
spect will be gratified. If he will simply con-
fine himself to longing,n it will be all
right. When, however, mere peetical longing
assumes the practical form of robbery, then,
the case being altered, alters the case.n We
dent object to Abolition sentiment, if people
choose to Indulge in it upon abstract poetical
principles They may weep oceans of tears if
they like, SO that they conine themselves merely
to lachrymal exercises. They may preach NOR
atty and sentiment with the combined power
of Joseph Surface and the man in green spectacles
in the Vicar of Wakefield. But, unfortunately,
they don't stop at that. When they love the
bond SO much that they steal them, and encourage
those that they cannot steal to set fire to houses
and cut threats, why then, the poetry of the thing
becomes converted into a very rugged sort Of
prose. And we, of the South, in such cases, have
an ugy fashion of substituting for the thread of
sentiment The stronger cord Of hemp.
When the news reaches Mr.. Martin Topper that
fifteen of the States of Great America are no
longer associated with the others, and that the
Hope.fower regns only over those who, like
himself, are Liberty's own sons, we trust he will
give Us another sonnet adapted to the change Of
circumstances. We rather like Mr.. Tupper's SON
nets. 1nasmuch as, at Ethiopian entertainments,
3 horribly mean pun is held to be just as good as
a good one; SO also, sometimes, the verest trash,
in verse, is equally as enjoyable as if it were the
genuine inspiration of the muses..