Jasmin
* * * * *
'Multos enim, quibus loquendi ratio non desit, invenias, quos curiose
potius loqui dixeris quam Latine; quomodo et illa Attica anus
Theophrastum, hominem alioqui disertissimum, annotata unius affectatione
verbi, hospitem dixit, nec alio se id deprehendisse interrogata
respondit, quam quod nimium Attice loqueretur.'--QUINTILIANUS.
'Et Anglice sermonicari solebat populo, sed secundum linguam Norfolchie
ubi natus et nutritus erat.'--CRONICA JOCELINI.
'La politique est une pierre attachée an cou de la littérature, et qui en
moins de six mois la submerge.... Cette politique va offenser mortellement
une moitié des lecteurs, et ennuyer l'autre qui l'a trouvée bien autrement
spéciale et énergique dans le journal du matin.'--HENRI BEYLE.
[When the book appeared it bore a dedication to E.R. Hoar, and was
introduced by an essay of the Yankee form of English speech. This
Introduction is so distinctly an essay that it has been thought best to
print it as an appendix to this volume, rather than allow it to break in
upon the pages of verse. There is, however, one passage in it which may
be repeated here, since it bears directly upon the poem which serves as
a sort of prelude to the series.]
'The only attempt I had ever made at anything like a pastoral (if that
may be called an attempt which was the result almost of pure accident)
was in _The Courtin'_. While the introduction to the First Series was
going through the press, I received word from the printer that there was
a blank page left which must be filled. I sat down at once and
improvised another fictitious "notice of the press," in which, because
verse would fill up space more cheaply than prose, I inserted an extract
from a supposed ballad of Mr. Biglow. I kept no copy of it, and the
printer, as directed, cut it off when the gap was filled. Presently I
began to receive letters asking for the rest of it, sometimes for the
_balance_ of it. I had none, but to answer such demands, I patched a
conclusion upon it in a later edition. Those who had only the first
continued to importune me. Afterward, being asked to write it out as an
autograph for the Baltimore Sanitary Commission Fair, I added other
verses, into some of which I infused a little more sentiment in a homely
way, and after a fashion completed it by sketching in the characters and
making a connected story. Most likely I have spoiled it, but I shall put
it at the end of this Introduction, to answer once for all those kindly
importunings.'