s
some malformation or defect of the vocal organs, which either prevents
our uttering it at all, or gives it so thick a pronunciation as to be
unintelligible. A mouth filled with the national pudding, or watering in
expectation thereof, is wholly incompetent to this refractory
monosyllable. An abject and herpetic Public Opinion is the Pope, the
Anti-Christ, for us to protest against _e corde cordium_. And by what
College of Cardinals is this our God's-vicar, our binder and looser,
elected? Very like, by the sacred conclave of Tag, Rag, and Bobtail, in
the gracious atmosphere of the grog-shop. Yet it is of this that we must
all be puppets. This thumps the pulpit-cushion, this guides the editor's
pen, this wags the senator's tongue. This decides what Scriptures are
canonical, and shuffles Christ away into the Apocrypha. According to
that sentence fathered upon Solon, [Greek: Onto daemosion kakon erchetai
oikad ekasto] This unclean spirit is skilful to assume various shapes. I
have known it to enter my own study and nudge my elbow of a Saturday,
under the semblance of a wealthy member of my congregation. It were a
great blessing, if every particular of what in the sum we call popular
sentiment could carry about the name of its manufacturer stamped legibly
upon it. I gave a stab under the fifth rib to that pestilent
fallacy,--'Our country, right or wrong,'--by tracing its original to a
speech of Ensign Cilley at a dinner of the Bungtown Fencibles.--H.W.]

No. III

WHAT MR. ROBINSON THINKS

[A few remarks on the following verses will not be out of place. The
satire in them was not meant to have any personal, but only a general,
application. Of the gentleman upon whose letter they were intended as a
commentary Mr. Biglow had never heard, till he saw the letter itself.
The position of the satirist is oftentimes one which he would not have
chosen, had the election been left to himself. In attacking bad
principles, he is obliged to select some individual who has made himself
their exponent, and in whom they are impersonate, to the end that what
he says may not, through ambiguity, be dissipated _tenues in auras._ For
what says Seneca? _Longum iter per praecepta, breve et efficace per
exempla_. A bad principle is comparatively harmless while it continues
to be an abstraction, nor can the general mind comprehend it fully till
it is printed in that large type which all men can read at sight,
namely, the life and character, th