The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1885-10-07


passenger. He was a well dressed finely APP
pearing man, AID as he came near to me
with his quick, nervous springing step, !
recognized that prince OF good fellows, Gen
eral John Mcdonald. What brings You
here to this quiet neigh5orhood,' 1 ex-
claimed. ''You are invading my jurisdic-
ton" Il came here" he replied, upon the
express invitation of the great Hindoo, who
is holding the fort on the bluffs yonder.
Here is the note he sent me in which he
says that he wishes TO examine and pur-
chase for his university dozen copies of the
book written by my great commander,
called the Personal Memoirs Of L.
:. Grant, and also to see
a live book agent. He adds in the postscript
that in Persia, noblemen only or those of
the . lood royal are permitted to sell books
by subscription, and it is a strict law Of the
country that book agent there can only So
heit a citizen or citizeness in the following
manner The agent hands the party the
sample and the subscription list, with price
affixed, without uttering a word. If the
party desires to subscribe, he records his
name on the list and pays the money. If he
does not, he returns the book ,and the list
without comment. Three minutes only are
allowed Dy law at eac0 interview. IL the
agent opens his mouth or stays beyond the
three minutes, he suffers death by process
similar to the japanese harikari. Professor
Chum has heard of my wonderful success in
so delighting and entertaining those whom /
solicit that they take no note Of time, and
he wants me 10 become general agent for
Grants book in Persia and India also,
promising to get a special dispensation
for me, to eGable me TO exemplify the great
American soliciting plan whereby man has
to buy book to get rid of an agent, and my
plan, the very opposite of that, of so pleas
ing the man or woman that he or she Will
invariably buy the book in order TO keep
me longer in conversation with them"
BY this time we had reached the villa and
Professor Chum, after saluting the General
In the Oriental style, exclaimed: welcome
To the Stone Fort, the great Mcdonald, the
book agent of book agents, who is renowned
in Persia as the silver tOngued, magnetic,
subscription seducing and irresistible talker.
in my Persian 'Childs Fourth Reader,'
now in it's 1O01st edition, under the title of
Living NOtables of America, / have re-
corded, General John Mcdonald, expose
of the whisky ring He recruited, uniformed
ana equipped the first loyal regiment raised
in rebel State. He is the only book agent
IN America to whom one can not say no.
| thought the General would never get
through blushing, but he looked down at
his subscription sample and regained cour-
age and soon rallied. He waved his right
hand eloquently and said. This Grant
book of Grants was written wholly by
himself. Badean did not write line of it
and ParSOn Newman wasn't even allowed 10
see it. The style tells the tale"
How do you knew?,' l asked. "Why
you can easily tell, j." he answered, 'by COM
pairing the words and phrases of this book
with Grants letters and dispatches. They
are all written in the clear, compact, terse,
West Point STYLE
yes" said the Professor, 'and that is the
very first test we were going to apply to
shakespeare to-day. The chief trouble how
ever is that the son of John Shakespeare
never wrote enough TO furnish much of a
standard of comparison. However taking
what his admirers claim TO be his, as an eX-
ample, we will try McDonalds suggestion.
Here is one of Shakespeare's rhymes on
the authority OF John Jordan.
WHOM HAVE DRUNKEN WITH
Piping Pebworth, dancing MarstOn.
Haunted HillSbOrOugh and hungry Grafton:
With dancing Exhall, Papst Wixford,
"Beggarly Bloom and drunken Bidford."
That poetry will hardly come up to the
eifuSiOn of 'Tittlebat TltmOuse," which APP
pears in Ten Thousand Year"
-Titlebat Titmouse is my name,''
England is my nation,
London is my dwelling place
"And Christ is my salvation
Here is another specimen of real Shakes
peaTe poetry on the authority of Stratford
local tradition,
''DAvID AND GOLIATH"
Goliath comes with sword and spear
And David with sling;
Although Goliath rage and swear
If there is anything in your English or
American Mother Goose's Melodies TO excel
that, l have not seen it.
Then here is an epitaph on John Comb,
taken from the Ashmolean Nj, $.
Ten in the hundred lies here engraved
lis hundred TO ten his soul is not saved;
IL any one asks, Who lives in this tomb?
HO, O..auOth the devil, tbs my John A. Combe."
And / have found another epitaph on
TOm-A-COmbe, quoted on the authority OF
Peck in his Memoirs of Milton
"Thin in beard and thick in purse,
Never man beloved worse;
He went TO the grave with many curse
The devil and he had both one nurse"
l will quote one mere epitaph, on Sir
Thomas Stanley, taken from Dugdale's Visi-
tation book.
ASK who lies here, but do not weep"
He is not dead he doth but sleep;
This stony register is for his bones
His fame is more perpetual than these stones"
'sYOu recollect, General Mcdonald, those IA
nous lines of Rollin NJ. Squire, in honor of
General Grant, which were posted before an
admiring but critical pubS in a conspicuous
place at the City Hall, in New York City
Mayor to have taken down before Grants
funeral. Everybody said that there wasn't
any poetry in poor Squire's lines, and yet
that same everybody and all the New York
newspapers would have called that poetry
excellent, sublime, magnificent, and very
appropriate, if Squire's had only pretended
that il was the work of Shakespeare. The
truth is that Squire'5 ridiculous stuff was
infinitely superior to the Shakspearian frag-
ments which have quoted. What can any
man bring in all the realm of English htera-
ture Of undisputed Shakspearean production
that can stand the test of confusion with
Hamlet or OthellO? Are there no scraps no
letters, no fragments, no books with his
name written in them, no manuscripts of
this so called child Of nature? How does it
happen that Shakespeare. the son Of an igno-
ramus and the father of an ignoramus a man
without learning habits of study, could
be credited with the authorship OF these
great plays, unless the people like to be de-
ceived and to believe in lies?'
well, said the General, as we rose to go,
1T a Il. L. =.