No More Learning

'Respectfully, your obedient servant,

'HOMER WILBUR, A. M.

'P. S. Perhaps the last paragraph may look like an attempt to obtain the
insertion of my circular gratuitously. If it should appear to you in
that light, I desire that you would erase it, or charge for it at the
usual rates, and deduct the amount from the proceeds in your hands from
the sale of my discourse, when it shall be printed. My circular is much
longer and more explicit, and will be forwarded without charge to any
who may desire it. It has been very neatly executed on a letter sheet,
by a very deserving printer, who attends upon my ministry, and is a
creditable specimen of the typographic art. I have one hung over my
mantelpiece in a neat frame, where it makes a beautiful and appropriate
ornament, and balances the profile of Mrs. W. , cut with her toes by the
young lady born without arms.

'H. W. '


I have in the foregoing letter mentioned General Scott in connection
with the Presidency, because I have been given to understand that he has
blown to pieces and otherwise caused to be destroyed more Mexicans than
any other commander. His claim would therefore be deservedly considered
the strongest.
Until accurate returns of the Mexicans killed, wounded,
and maimed be obtained, it will be difficult to settle these nice points
of precedence. Should it prove that any other officer has been more
meritorious and destructive than General S. , and has thereby rendered
himself more worthy of the confidence and support of the conservative
portion of our community, I shall cheerfully insert his name, instead of
that of General S. , in a future edition. It may be thought, likewise,
that General S. has invalidated his claims by too much attention to the
decencies of apparel, and the habits belonging to a gentleman. These
abstruser points of statesmanship are beyond my scope. I wonder not that
successful military achievement should attract the admiration of the
multitude. Rather do I rejoice with wonder to behold how rapidly this
sentiment is losing its hold upon the popular mind. It is related of
Thomas Warton, the second of that honored name who held the office of
Poetry Professor at Oxford, that, when one wished to find him, being
absconded, as was his wont, in some obscure alehouse, he was counselled
to traverse the city with a drum and fife, the sound of which inspiring
music would be sure to draw the Doctor from his retirement into the
street. We are all more or less bitten with this martial insanity.
_Nescio qua dulcedine . . . cunctos ducit_. I confess to some infection of
that itch myself.