The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1871-06-13

"On man tnat uleu 1Or men, lndentln-
ed in degree in virtue, nobility, and NOR
al granduer, with the character of Jesus
Christ?
FIRST bigamy is an element
zone wife in Matches under the hill
And another one here IN Pike"
Bigamy it will be borne in mind is
only another word for adultery, ,hypocracy
and scnsuality, in their vilest forms.
Second, profanity and obscurity,
"a keeress in his talk Jim,"
"IIe swore
He would her nozzel again the bank
Till every galcoots ashore"
Third, brutality,
"And an awkward in n row."
Now against this formidable catalogue
of the foulest vices, we have in extenua-
ton only the doubtful virtue che never
hunked."
This is the moral character of John
Hays, hero in the poem entitled d" Jim
Bludso."
This character he puts on board the
"Prairie Bell' packet steamboat on
Western river, as an engineer.
In the same brutal spirit of bragga-
docio, in which a bully draws n chalk
line across the floor of bar room and
dares any single person of the crowd
around to pass it John Hays hero
"Swore,
lie would hold her nozzle again the bank
Till every gacoot's ashore" if
The "Prairie bell" should ever get on fire.
The brutal dare devil recklessness of
J the hero is well sustained.
The "Prairie Bell" loaded with pass
, engers, is racing with rival on dark
| night with safety valve loaded, "And
J with furnace crammed rosin and pine,
when she takes fire, when her engineer
. "Jim Bludso' to keep his oath good, or
in the slang term mot to funk" sticks to
l his post and runs the boat ashore, the same
t that the bully of the bar room will fight
= rather than "to funk" thought an antag-
e onist appears that he is certain will give
a sound thrashing
= Now the direct comparison of the non
: 'funking" element in "Jim Bludso's'
character surrounded as it is with the
c worst and most loathsome "plague spots"
j if vice found in human nature with the
!. inefable moral grandeur and glory in the
d character of Jesus Christ, considered from
purely aesthetical point of view, is at
/ once the most outrageous and execrable
e violation of good taste that can be easily
l imagined, This making doubtful in
e significant virtue the sole basis of model
t, human character - the central orb to
|. warm vitalize, and cothe with beauty and
granduer a score of the Opaque, hideous
IS revolving, satalites of vice, however pop.
's ular it may be, however exultingly the
victims Of the sensational school of litera-
a ture may point to Millions "archangel
Is ruined" as an unimpcachable precedent
y STILL | say, this attempt to populize vice
at the expence ofvirtue has done as much
l. if not more,to degrade the purity pure
If chaste aesthetical taste in the popular
II mind, than all other causes combined
At this point, though somewhat foreign
es to the subject under discussion, the ri
diculous position in which John Hay as
poet and ideaist has placed his hero
"Jim Bludso" is worthy of passing no,
al tice.
n. 1t illustrates how utterly deficient OF
ideal culture Of the power OF perceiving
H. clearly and wildly with the intellectual
ic sense of sight the elements of the subject
n. under treatment are the minds of the lea
id ders of the sensational and slang element
lg in the literature of the day.
IN The hero of Jim Bludso" is san en-.
gneer."
U.s. Now the engine room, the engineers
at post of duty, is of necessity in vesse
propelled by steam, Jelor the main dcch
the engineer holding communication
with the pilot by means of a system o.
signals.
Now the idea of the engineer al
set forth in the poem, slim Bludso,
"IIolding her nozzle again the bank,
ar Till every galcoots ashore
od is from literary artistic point of view
"a as insane and ridiculousas would be tn,
We one painting barn yard fowl "sittinl
ry on the jutting brow Of precipice," o.
c" "rising in the azure vault in widening
Ir- circles with unwearicd wings till lost tt
human ken"
ma Unfortunately for John Hay produc
tion the pilot or steersman is the onl.
one on board the prairie Bell to di
rect her course-the only one to
"Hold her nozzel agin the bank,
Till every galcoots ashore.
From dimness of mental vision Ha,
got the function of engineer and pilot in
is, to a snarl-making the engineer act il
1o- the capacity of both.
Try True to the training and principles o
i'm the school in which he was educated ou
lry critic fails to perceive anything but idea
al grace and beauty in this remarkab
er- complication,
en-, Beside the perverSion Of the faculty o
rat aesthetical taste to condition of hope
less imbecility, the mind of the dupe o
le the sensational and slang element in th
tai literature of the present day, soon, 81
&C. looses its power Of determining its mora
hat latitude and longitude as, in many instan
ces, to be utterly incapable of recognizing
ons the course of virtue from that of vice.
How conspicuously does this moral de
iormity, of blindness to the character O
vice, exhibit itself in our critics effort
or "He says; Does the Lieutenant of tn
red Oneida, the son fwealthy parents, stand
ese ing dressed in his handsome uniform a
his post when the ship went down pre-
in sent nobler instance of fheroic adherenc
ON to duty and high daring than doc
to Simmons (who perhaps chewed tobaec
IN and swore occasionally as he stood il
he greasy flannel upon his engine as it leape'
| it into that fearful gulf Of death at New
Han, hnr,,h 0u