Palfrey's refusal to
vote for the Whig candidate for the Speakership.
vote for the Whig candidate for the Speakership.
James Russell Lowell
H.
BIGLOW
[The ingenious reader will at once understand that no such speech as the
following was ever _totidem verbis_ pronounced. But there are simpler
and less guarded wits, for the satisfying of which such an explanation
may be needful. For there are certain invisible lines, which as Truth
successively overpasses, she becomes Untruth to one and another of us,
as a large river, flowing from one kingdom into another, sometimes takes
a new name, albeit the waters undergo no change, how small soever. There
is, moreover, a truth of fiction more veracious than the truth of fact,
as that of the Poet, which represents to us things and events as they
ought to be, rather than servilely copies them as they are imperfectly
imaged in the crooked and smoky glass of our mundane affairs. It is this
which makes the speech of Antonius, though originally spoken in no wider
a forum than the brain of Shakespeare, more historically valuable than
that other which Appian has reported, by as much as the understanding of
the Englishman was more comprehensive than that of the Alexandrian. Mr.
Biglow, in the present instance, has only made use of a license assumed
by all the historians of antiquity, who put into the mouths of various
characters such words as seem to them most fitting to the occasion and
to the speaker. If it be objected that no such oration could ever have
been delivered, I answer, that there are few assemblages for
speech-making which do not better deserve the title of _Parliamentum
Indoctorum_ than did the sixth Parliament of Henry the Fourth, and that
men still continue to have as much faith in the Oracle of Fools as ever
Pantagruel had. Howell, in his letters, recounts a merry tale of a
certain ambassador of Queen Elizabeth, who, having written two
letters,--one to her Majesty, and the other to his wife,--directed them
at cross-purposes, so that the Queen was beducked and bedeared and
requested to send a change of hose, and the wife was beprincessed and
otherwise unwontedly besuperlatived, till the one feared for the wits of
her ambassador, and the other for those of her husband. In like manner
it may be presumed that our speaker has misdirected some of his
thoughts, and given to the whole theatre what he would have wished to
confide only to a select auditory at the back of the curtain. For it is
seldom that we can get any frank utterance from men, who address, for
the most part, a Buncombe either in this world or the next. As for their
audiences, it may be truly said of our people, that they enjoy one
political institution in common with the ancient Athenians: I mean a
certain profitless kind of, _ostracism_, wherewith, nevertheless, they
seem hitherto well enough content. For in Presidential elections, and
other affairs of the sort, whereas I observe that the _oysters_ fall to
the lot of comparatively few, the _shells_ (such as the privileges of
voting as they are told to do by the _ostrivori_ aforesaid, and of
huzzaing at public meetings) are very liberally distributed among the
people, as being their prescriptive and quite sufficient portion.
The occasion of the speech is supposed to be Mr.
Palfrey's refusal to
vote for the Whig candidate for the Speakership. --H. W. ]
No? Hez he? He haint, though? Wut? Voted agin him?
Ef the bird of our country could ketch him, she'd skin him;
I seem 's though I see her, with wrath in each quill,
Like a chancery lawyer, afilin' her bill,
An' grindin' her talents ez sharp ez all nater,
To pounce like a writ on the back o' the traitor.
Forgive me, my friends, ef I seem to be het,
But a crisis like this must with vigor be met;
Wen an Arnold the star-spangled banner bestains,
Holl Fourth o' Julys seem to bile in my veins. 10
Who ever'd ha' thought sech a pisonous rig
Would be run by a chap thet wuz chose fer a Wig?
'We knowed wut his princerples wuz 'fore we sent him'?
Wut wuz there in them from this vote to prevent him?
A marciful Providunce fashioned us holler
O' purpose thet we might our princerples swaller;
It can hold any quantity on 'em, the belly can,
An' bring 'em up ready fer use like the pelican,
Or more like the kangaroo, who (wich is stranger)
Puts her family into her pouch wen there's danger. 20
Aint princerple precious? then, who's goin' to use it
Wen there's resk o' some chap's gittin' up to abuse it?
[The ingenious reader will at once understand that no such speech as the
following was ever _totidem verbis_ pronounced. But there are simpler
and less guarded wits, for the satisfying of which such an explanation
may be needful. For there are certain invisible lines, which as Truth
successively overpasses, she becomes Untruth to one and another of us,
as a large river, flowing from one kingdom into another, sometimes takes
a new name, albeit the waters undergo no change, how small soever. There
is, moreover, a truth of fiction more veracious than the truth of fact,
as that of the Poet, which represents to us things and events as they
ought to be, rather than servilely copies them as they are imperfectly
imaged in the crooked and smoky glass of our mundane affairs. It is this
which makes the speech of Antonius, though originally spoken in no wider
a forum than the brain of Shakespeare, more historically valuable than
that other which Appian has reported, by as much as the understanding of
the Englishman was more comprehensive than that of the Alexandrian. Mr.
Biglow, in the present instance, has only made use of a license assumed
by all the historians of antiquity, who put into the mouths of various
characters such words as seem to them most fitting to the occasion and
to the speaker. If it be objected that no such oration could ever have
been delivered, I answer, that there are few assemblages for
speech-making which do not better deserve the title of _Parliamentum
Indoctorum_ than did the sixth Parliament of Henry the Fourth, and that
men still continue to have as much faith in the Oracle of Fools as ever
Pantagruel had. Howell, in his letters, recounts a merry tale of a
certain ambassador of Queen Elizabeth, who, having written two
letters,--one to her Majesty, and the other to his wife,--directed them
at cross-purposes, so that the Queen was beducked and bedeared and
requested to send a change of hose, and the wife was beprincessed and
otherwise unwontedly besuperlatived, till the one feared for the wits of
her ambassador, and the other for those of her husband. In like manner
it may be presumed that our speaker has misdirected some of his
thoughts, and given to the whole theatre what he would have wished to
confide only to a select auditory at the back of the curtain. For it is
seldom that we can get any frank utterance from men, who address, for
the most part, a Buncombe either in this world or the next. As for their
audiences, it may be truly said of our people, that they enjoy one
political institution in common with the ancient Athenians: I mean a
certain profitless kind of, _ostracism_, wherewith, nevertheless, they
seem hitherto well enough content. For in Presidential elections, and
other affairs of the sort, whereas I observe that the _oysters_ fall to
the lot of comparatively few, the _shells_ (such as the privileges of
voting as they are told to do by the _ostrivori_ aforesaid, and of
huzzaing at public meetings) are very liberally distributed among the
people, as being their prescriptive and quite sufficient portion.
The occasion of the speech is supposed to be Mr.
Palfrey's refusal to
vote for the Whig candidate for the Speakership. --H. W. ]
No? Hez he? He haint, though? Wut? Voted agin him?
Ef the bird of our country could ketch him, she'd skin him;
I seem 's though I see her, with wrath in each quill,
Like a chancery lawyer, afilin' her bill,
An' grindin' her talents ez sharp ez all nater,
To pounce like a writ on the back o' the traitor.
Forgive me, my friends, ef I seem to be het,
But a crisis like this must with vigor be met;
Wen an Arnold the star-spangled banner bestains,
Holl Fourth o' Julys seem to bile in my veins. 10
Who ever'd ha' thought sech a pisonous rig
Would be run by a chap thet wuz chose fer a Wig?
'We knowed wut his princerples wuz 'fore we sent him'?
Wut wuz there in them from this vote to prevent him?
A marciful Providunce fashioned us holler
O' purpose thet we might our princerples swaller;
It can hold any quantity on 'em, the belly can,
An' bring 'em up ready fer use like the pelican,
Or more like the kangaroo, who (wich is stranger)
Puts her family into her pouch wen there's danger. 20
Aint princerple precious? then, who's goin' to use it
Wen there's resk o' some chap's gittin' up to abuse it?
