The Portland daily press., 1880-05-01

own Congress. Hon. Stephen w. Downey
has an eye regardless of expense in decora-
ton; and-if the gentleman from Wyoming
is to be credited-Jove's palace is adorned
with splendor to make Mr.. Clarence Cook
pale with envy, and draw the blush of NOR
titled pride to the smoke-stack of Misss-
sippi steamboat.
Next, Phantasmagoria is invited by the
muses. to witness a horse-race. The men,
Der from Wyoming reports the race with
great liveliness, although his style of report
ing is modelled rather after Homer than
after Wilkes Spirit of the Times. 1t may
be condensed thus:
Juno names: Flying Coursers
Minerva names: Immortal Steeds.
Stakes: Apples of the Hesperides against
sash woven from the Golden Fleece. The
start seems to have been fair. Juno whipped
up her horses with a lash of scorpions, and
the goddess of wisdom whacked hers with
a chip from one of Jove's thunderbolts and
as no ancestor of Mr.. Bergh was on hand,
the race proceeded The celestial trotting-
course appears to have been under careless
management. A Pleiad started to cross the
lead stout citizens with umbrellas to sim;-
larly transpire at mundane trots. Juno's
horses SHE'D; but blue-eyed Pallas requested
Jove, ON the judges stand, to attend to
the Pleiad; and the latter was struck by a
thunderbolt before he knew what hurt him.
"Winged fiends and giant birds" troubled
the goddess no more than the small boys
and yellow dogs inseparable from similar oc-
casions; and she shook off and relegated to
Hades vampire who caught ON behind.
Meanwhile the MUSES. sung songs and prob
ably garnered in any small change left over
from whatever may be the Olympian proto-
type of peanuts. In the glowing report of
the member from Wyoming it is somewhat
difficult to find out who won the race; but it
viii crafty our readers to know that Miner
va took the stakes. This episode has been
dwelt upon at length, as being perhaps the
elimination of the poetic fervor and fancy
Of Hon. Stephen w. Downey of Wyoming.
Phantasmagoria next recounts her visit
to the neither realm. Hon. Stephen W.
Downey of Wyoming is no Dante. Gentle
men on the other side of the House, or op-
posed to him upon political or financial ques
tions, are not consigned by him to the warm
latitudes. But from the depths of Mr..
Downey's Imagination of the diabolical,
arises this sarcastic and contrapuntal chant,
supposed to be sung by chorus of fiends:
What to me are the evangels
Of the white robed singing angels
On revels shadows casting
From their pinions everlasting?
What care for the har monte
Grandeurs rolling in the tonic
Chords of music round the Throne.
The PRESS offers a rider to this bill which
it is hoped Mr.. Downey will approve:
Though the extreme sharp sixth when finished
Be the inverted chord, diminished,
OF the relative key, A MINOR
Will the harmony be finer?
No! twill not, by an all-fred
Large majority-the triad
Should resolve the dominant.
So far as the ordinary reader can follow
the flight of the muses., Phantasmagoria and
Hon. Stephen W. Downey of Wyoming-a
world of departed spirits, somewhat non
descript limbo, was next visited by the COM
mittee; and here are gathered mighty ghosts
of all times; while over their heads,
massive chaiu, hung from the loftiest point,
Suspended an immense chronometer-
Timekeeper of eternity, twas called
The WATCH OF AGES!
In the Temple of Fame Mr.. Downey over
hears some rather turgid eloquence in the
course of drama played by the ghosts of
Kean, Macready and the elder Booth. Mr.
Downey meets Dante face to face, and feel
ing some natural difiidence in addressing so
great poet in his own poetic Speech strikes
into prose, which is fairly refreshing after
the wearisome cadepces of the not especial
ly fortunate blank verse of the gentleman
from Wyoming.
The latter part of the poem must be left
untouched by laughter. 1t is by no means
its literary merit that bars it from such con-
tact; but the sacred regions which-with zeal
and earnestness, no doubt, equal to his au-
dacity-Mr. Dosney has undertaken to de-
pict. 1t is enough to say the gentleman
from Wyoming has rushed in where the
PRESS fears to tread. Every man has the
right to imagine his own heaven; all men
fail when they attempt to describe it-snd
Hon. Stephen w. Downey is no exception to
the rule.
The Valedictory to oPhantasmagoriai is in the
same lofty strain of Congressional eloquence
as the earlier passages of the poem; and
its final Amen is welcome to the reader who
| by this time is half-amused, half-wearied,
| and something sorry to see man of evident
| good feeling and worthy intentions, making
| such grotesque flourish of his napkin,
| which--had he left it folded-might have
| been reasonably supposed to contain a tai
| ent.
| AT all events, Hon. Stephen w. Downey
has contrived to make the Congressional
Recorl for once an entertaining and live
daily, and to render it exceedingly moral
and amusing literature.
| HERE is an uncommonly fine specimen Of