Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1871-10-07
AQueer OLD Preacher and His Queer
Book.

A correspondent of the Springfield Republican
writes from New Hampshire:
Not many years ago; preacher, whom the
k es Sa Eaer od 6S, feose The are
top OF Mount Chocorua, with party, and while
there was seized with poetic spasm-a malady
which often infamed him TO utterance-and
there composed and sang hymn, with such
devout junction that the numerous words rolled
along the crags and down the gorges and were
heard In the adjacent valleys several miles dis
tant. L have heard many queer stories about
this pious old cove, who went the way of all
flesh tive years ago, aged ninety. In
1888 he published a book ''fOr the enlighten-
ment and salvation of the rising genera
TONS" entitled, "The Farmers Medit atoms; or,
Shepherds Songs" ga volume of poams," the
preface informs US. (which cannot fail to amuse
both the aged and the youth, andlead the candid
reader to admire the productions of the Etonian
farmers unpublished pen" This book did amuse,
and at one time was very popular. Some of the
old folks even now believe his hymns to be the
nsarns at Of sanity grace and poetic beauty
kins seeking since the poetic muse. Reasona-
bly, enough, then, find few poets among the
granite hills. L think many of the verses were
spun out TO the time and rhythm of a spinning
wheel or the clack of an old-fashioned loom. He
reels Oft ffty-seven verses, giving description
of the horse. with an account of Alexander and
Bonaparte, +" which commences thus
God Of wisdom and of might,
view thy wonders with delight:
Each insect thou completely drew,
This is the best of the fifty-seven verses. In
fourteen verses concerning the 4" subtitle mer-
chant" he cries -
Here Jane and Sue, and Bet and Kate
he means your sense and pence to rake
He indites fourteen verses to his absent
daughter, which may not be called exactly By
ronic. He says:
my child; you've left Etonian hills.
The purlDg streams and gurgling rills:
In Hayerhill you now reside
Hard by the seas old rolling tide"
He gives her lots of advice, and tells her about
the people who " i'm crowds do throng the street
with glossy shoes upon their feet" He gives his
view of man from his origin to the close OF
life, beginning:
:. Man is an active lump of clay,
Sprung from the earth, his ancient root
lively twig or active shoot"
He rehearses from youth to old age, and then
The eyes grow dim, the grinders cease;
The totterns I knee, the feel feeble hand hand
For lack of strength, they lose command.
The bowels are all out of tunet
Inc oresth II gives IeoT perfumsi
Requires the wool of leecy focks."
An so on. He writes sixteen verses about
1.-The Ok" analyZng its services and various
designs of its body. This is the funniest OF all.
He tells us in the Introductory remarks that he
has penned his little book "to improve the
beauties of the mind" and hopes "none will
expel 1t from his door, until he's read its pages
Ger" In the closing and "One hundred and
eighth pOem," he dedcates the book to his
"Heavenly Father" and asks
Keep it safe, through sQualy weather,
Free from every sour look"
He thinks "the critic, who's annuller, (this
rhymes with color best to let his book alone"
and so we obey. He is like the orator who
misquoted the poets lines, this wise: .'There's
divinity which rough-hews our ends, shape
them mayio