* * * * *

THE ILLUSTRIOUS OBSCURE.

A SECOND LETTER FROM PAUL POTTER, OF NEW YORK, TO THE DON ROBERTO WAGONERO, COMMORANT OF WASHINGTON, IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.

22,728, Five Hundred and Fifty-First St., } New York, June 1, 1858. }

Dear Don Bobus,—­I see that you have been Christian enough to send my last letter to “The Atlantic Monthly,” and that the editors of that famous work have confirmed my opinion of their high taste by printing it.  Your disposition of my MSS.  I do not quarrel with; although it must be regarded in law as an illegal liberty, inasmuch as the Court of Chancery has decided that a man does not part with property in his own letters merely by sending them; but I ask permission to hint that your conduct will acquire a certain graceful rotundity, if you will remit to me in current funds the munificent sum of money which the whole-souled and gentlemanly proprietors—­pardon the verbal habits of my humble calling!—­have without doubt already remitted to you. Pecunia prima quaerenda, virtus post nummos.  Mind you, I do not expect to be as well paid as Sannazarius.

“Who the deuse was he?” I hear you growling.

My dear Iberian friend, I really thought that you knew everything; but I find that you have set up for an Admirable Crichton upon an inadequate capital.  Know, then, that a great many years ago Sannazarius—­never mind who he was,—­I do not justly know, myself—­wrote an hexastich on the city of Venice, and sent it to the potent Senators of that moist settlement.  It was as follows:—­

  “Viderat Adriacis Venetam Neptunus in undis
    Stare urbem et toti ponere jura mari. 
  Nunc mihi Tarpeias quantumvis, Jupiter, arces,
    Objice, et ilia tui moenia Martis, ait;
  Sic Pelago Tibrim praefers; urbem aspice utramque,
    Illam homines dices, hanc posuisse deos.”

Which may be liberally rendered thus:—­

  When sea-faring Neptune saw Venice well-founded
    And stiffly coercing the Adrian main,
  The jolly tar cried, in a rapture unbounded: 
    “Why, d—­ash my eyes, Jove, but I have you again;
  You may boast of your city, and Mars of his walling;
    But while I’m afloat, I’ll stick to it that mine
  Beats yours into rope-yarn in spite of your bawling,
    Just as snuffy old Tiber is flogged by the brine;
  And he who the difference cannot discern
  Is a lob-sided lubber from bowsprit to stern.

“Very free, indeed!” you will say.  It might have been worse, if I had staid at college a year or two longer, or if I had been elevated to a place in the Triennial Catalogue,—­thus: