The Bedford gazette. [volume] (Bedford, Pa.) 1805-current, 1866-01-05

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them precisely agree in the portions OF
the Sacred Book which they scout and
defy in the exact texts which are to
be cast out and rejected; but they are
beautifullyunited in scOrningandsneer-
ing at all of it which does not accord
with the schemes, the passions, or the
aggrandizement of each.
The songs Of this Abolition Litera-
ture are by no means suggestive of the
trill of birds which sing because song
is their natural speech. The nasal pipe
Of the Puritan has nothing of the war
bleof ewoodsaboutit. Hisattempts
to chirp after the fashion of Natures
born MINISTRIES afford no pleasure, it
is true; butit is thepleasure of down
right, hearty, shaking laugh at the lu-
dicrous failure of the poor devil, who
fancies, because he has counterfeited
nutmegs with success, he can manipu-
late melody, and cheat you as readily
in song.
To affect a thorough acquaintance
with everything the Abolition Yankee
has put into print, would imply an i'm
mense amount of leisure and a Very
small amount of tasteOnthe part Of the
person who omightsetupany such claim.
As it is not necessary to drink perpetu-
ally of the waters of the Nile, or even
to take more than a single glass of il to
taste its flavor and judge its quality,
so with the tide of literary trash which,
year by year, rolls from its New Eng
land fountains through ten thousand
channels over all the rest Of the land.
It is as mOnOtOnOus a mass as the cur
rent of the great "Father of Waters, y
and, may add, quite as muddy. In
deed, one Of the most amazing things
about the productions of these people,
is thesameness of their modes of think.
ing, their habit Of looking at a subject
and their fashion Of discussingit. TheiI
minds seem to be cast in one mould
Intellectually they are as much alike as
little pigs are physically. They are all
equally incapable of soaring for one mo-
ment above the bleak area of the sheep
walks and oniOn-patches on which they
were born. They are all alike possess.
ed with the idea that New England is
not merely the centre of American civ.
iIization, literature and art, but that
she holds all that we haveOf these things
within her borders. Their admiration
of one another is in proportion to then
cOntemptfOreverybOdy else. OF course
they are notaboveplunderingand chea,
ting each other, and the s0lartest man
fortune fastest by dishonest ednning.
But, plundered and plunderor, the sharp
fellow who has won, and the unlucky
rogue who has lost, unite in eXalting
the fame of their common mother, and
in despising those dull, "outside barba-
rians," to whom we have the misfor-
tune to belong. In short, they are alike
malignant, greedy, cunning, arrogant
and unprincipled, and while these traits
crop out more distinctly insome Of their
books than in others, they are not alto
gether missing in any Of them.
There is an idea which these people
have carefully fostered, and which has
gained a certain prevalence through
the agency of their political allies in
this State, that they are naturally the
intellectual superiors Of our own citi-
zens; especially that they are born to
a apre-eminence in the world of letters.
This idea is as destitute asanything can
be of foundation in truth. | admit
freely that they read more books, write
more books and print more books than
are read, written, or produced by all
the rest of the country besides; and
we must concede to them, therefore. a
greater amount of activity with thepen
and with the press than we claim for
ourselves. But that is all that we con-
cede. Tell me how many kits of
mackerel, or pounds of Goldfish, were
caught last year. on the Yankee coast,
under the stimulus of the enormous
Government bounty; how many yards
of calico and bales of shOddy were
thrown out by themillsof Lowell, how
many bushels of onions Weathersfeld
and her fragrant sister towns cast upon
the market, how many cheeses came
from the dairies of Connecticut, and
how many CLAIMS from the shores of
Rhode Island, and / can form some idea
of how much the country owes New
England for her annual contribution to
the common stock of wealth. ButbOoks
belong to a class of merchandise widely
different from all these. Their quality
is the measure of the debt we owe the
people who give them to Us. Their
bulk, their weight, their numbers, "a
vail nothing toward an estimate of the
minds from which they emanate. A
pocket copy of Shakespeare is worth all
the trash under which the presses of
New England ever groaned, all the
millions of pages which her diligent
scribblers ever fastened between covers.
To thank a nation of untiring literary
hacks simply for giving you plenty of
books, is to rate poetry along with
cheese and Goldfish.
The ORIGINAL Abolitionists We're.