[This letter of Mr. Sawin’s was not originally written in verse.  Mr. Biglow, thinking it peculiarly susceptible of metrical adornment, translated it, so to speak, into his own vernacular tongue.  This is not the time to consider the question, whether rhyme be a mode of expression natural to the human race.  If leisure from other and more important avocations be granted, I will handle the matter more at large in an appendix to the present volume.  In this place I will barely remark, that I have sometimes noticed in the unlanguaged prattlings of infants a fondness for alliteration, assonance, and even rhyme, in which natural predisposition we may trace the three degrees through which our Anglo-Saxon verse rose to its culmination in the poetry of Pope.  I would not be understood as questioning in these remarks that pious theory which supposes that children, if left entirely to themselves, would naturally discourse in Hebrew.  For this the authority of one experiment is claimed, and I could, with Sir Thomas Browne, desire its establishment, inasmuch as the acquirement of that sacred tongue would thereby be facilitated.  I am aware that Herodotus states the conclusion of Psammetieus to have been in favor of a dialect of the Phrygian.  But, beside the chance that a trial of this importance would hardly be blessed to a Pagan monarch whose only motive was curiosity, we have on the Hebrew side the comparatively recent investigation of James the Fourth of Scotland.  I will add to this prefatory remark, that Mr. Sawin, though a native of Jaalam, has never been a stated attendant on the religious exercises of my congregation.  I consider my humble efforts prospered in that not one of my sheep hath ever indued the wolf’s clothing of war, save for the comparatively innocent diversion of a militia training.  Not that my flock are backward to undergo the hardships of defensive warfare.  They serve cheerfully in the great army which fights, even unto death pro aris et focis, accoutred with the spade, the axe, the plane, the sledge, the spelling-book, and other such effectual weapons against want and ignorance and unthrift.  I have taught them (under God) to esteem our human institutions as but tents of a night, to be stricken whenever Truth puts the bugle to her lips and sounds a march to the heights of wider-viewed intelligence and more perfect organization.—­H.W.]

MISTER BUCKINUM, the follerin Billet was writ hum by a Yung feller of our town that wuz cussed fool enuff to goe atrottin inter Miss Chiff arter a Drum and fife, it ain’t Nater for a feller to let on that he’s sick o’ any bizness that He went intu off his own free will and a Cord, but I rather cal’late he’s middlin tired o’ voluntearin By this Time.  I bleeve u may put dependunts on his statemence.  For I never heered nothin bad on him let Alone his havin what Parson Wilbur cals a pong shong for cocktales, and he ses it wuz a soshiashun of idees sot him agoin arter the Crootin Sargient cos he wore a cocktale onto his hat.