We need not speak of the importance to us, as Americans, of looking with an eye of watchful distrust upon the dissemination of the seeds of religious rancor among our people. Yet we cannot conceive that man possessed of the proper feeling on this subject, who is willing to think hardly of his neighbor's opinions without a sufficient examination, and yet censure an exhibition of the spirit. We would far rather be a bigot from ignorance, than from an obstinate repugnance to any change in our opinions. In the name of Liberty, let not her sacred name be defamed in this her temple, by the denial among her votaries, of her cardinal and distinguishing excellence. Let every man examine for himself in a proper spirit; bearing with him the advice of the Roman sage as his motto, "Nil falsi audeat, nil veri non audeat dicere." "A fair field and no favor, and the right must prosper."

J.

192

ETCHINGS OF DEMIJOHN GOSLING,

Cavalier servientè of rogues, father of eleven children, citizen of the world in general, inhabitant of Goose-neck Hollow, G. N. H. L. M., etc. etc.

BY HIS EXECUTOR, APPLE TREE FILLPOT, ESQ.

I ALWAYS hated fine things; you never can touch them. A new silk dress, an a la mode coat, and a biography of a very great man, are the greatest bugbears that ever demanded the curses of Balaam. High heeled boots and a strut, is, to my mind's eye, the plainest sign-board in the world, hung out in capitals: "Chambers in the attic to let; enquire at the tailor's." Rogues are generally the tallest men in community-their heighth enabling them to look into the pockets and affairs of their neighbors. Even Dr. Johnson, pasteboard and buckram aristocrat as he was, was obliged to let out the truth when he confessed that it is in low life at the bottom of the heap-that you meet with the standard of greatness. Demijohn Gosling was begotten, swathed, and suckled, as all the Goslings had been before him. "He certainly looks like his father," ejaculated Aunt Patsey, as she tucked up one side of his flannel case-a case that had been used eight times before for a similar purpose; "the same eyes❞— she looked at the father-"yes, and I do declare, the same family nose." Reader, do you know what family, prefixed to any feature, means? It is only an intimation, by one of the most flattering adjectives that ever took the arm of a noun, that providence has put an awkward label upon a particular string-line is aristocratic of creation. Imagine then for a family nose, a tin dipper, bent three times each way, and at length terminating in a moderate hook. Miss Glorianna Fitzgreaves Marvin, who lived in the large white house in the distance, dropped in from a morning call upon Miss Singleton. "Ah! how pretty the little thing looks it is so innocent, and it does look so like its mother." The fact is, that the gossiping Aunt Patsey and the romantic Miss Marvin, were neither wholly mistaken. The thing inherited the most awkward parts of both father and mother, looking, as it lay in the half-barrel, which originally holding "mackerel, No. 3," was now used to cradle the seedling Goslings, like some of those doughy representatives of men, that children often make upon Christmas eve as propitiatory offerings to the jolly Santa Claus. We would wish as veracious biographers, to render the likeness of Demijohn familiar to the world; no more to be mistaken in a bookseller's window or when stamped on medallion, than the physiognomies of Napoleon or La Fayette. The most charac

teristic feature which the world saw ushered into being, along with Demijohn, were two enormous ears. These "hanging ornaments and handsome volutes of the human capital," were expanded into a size, which bore the same proportion to the main building, that the wings of a modern house do to the intervenient part.

It may be well, on this head, to refute a calumny sometimes uttered by his enemies-for all great men have their enemies-that the crown, from which radiated sundry long, black, sea-weed looking hairs, had been pushed out of its place by a sudden rise of the bump of firmness, which in a storm of conjugal wrath, appeared, like a promontory, to break off the waves. This libel, Demijohn believed, was got up by his political opponents about the time of a warm canvass to defeat his election; although Mr. Smith, who edited the "Goose-neck Hollow Emporium and Mercantile Intelligencer," assured a friend of his, that the three columns of editorial which appeared weekly, for a month before the election, "did not refer to the capital of that gentleman, and that whoever asserted it was as mendacious as he was malicious." The more natural apology for the current scandal is, that Mrs. Gosling, who went through the duties of barber upon the heads of her offspring, having naught but a pair of sheep-shears to perform her task, could not, by reason of the aforementioned ears, reach but one spot of the back part of the head; which spot being the extreme part of the occiput, formed a convenient nucleus, around which the hair naturally arranged itself.

Concerning the habiliments of Demijohn Gosling, we have but little to inform the world. He had no affectation of ton, and therefore expressed no preference for particular colors. The material of his pantaloons, usually corduroy, was too compact and substantial to need straps to draw out any knee curvatures. No plaited linen covered a breast, open to the inhabitants of Gooseneck Hollow. His shoes he always wore rounded at the points, behind which points there spread two feet, which the owner was wont to boast could not be surpassed for size in all his constabulate. These two circumstances, the area of his foot and his roundtoed shoes-Demijohn never wore boots-were sometimes of great service, enabling his customers to track his progress from place to place.

Young Demijohn, like most eminent officials, early evinced a predilection for the post to which his fellow citizens afterwards raised him. A constable's pole! it seemed to him the very wand of royalty. With what admiration did the little ragged urchins of the village follow the bearer of it, as, seated in his sulky, he flogged his venerable nag until he fairly volunteered a trot. Into what commotion did he throw those hereditary hangers-on of the tavern-those only representatives of true independence who can

look a tailor in the face without thinking of his bill-as he drove up to the best hotel in the village, and ordered the ostler "to give Fiery about one third of a quart of oats." All this Demijohn witnessed, and he felt every particle of ambition within him irresistibly drawn around a constable's rod. "Yes, I believe I am destined for this 'ere office," said he, and he turned homeward, inwardly repeating, "seize the goods and chattels," to every hovel that exposed a hat or an old coat in the place of a window, and to every vagabond who sat on the steps of his slovenly home, whittling in the sunshine or mending an old fire-lock. Every thing now bore witness to the intensity of his ambition. Puss, that had occupied the corner so long, regularly turning about three times a day, that she had become a sort of a clock to good old grandmother, was put into 'durance vile;' grandmother herself, almost distracted on account of the absence of tabby, had well nigh lost her wits by a clap upon the shoulder, and a voice in the imperative mood, thundering in her ear, "you are my prisoner."

;

On being reproved for these wayward doings, Demijohn would take down from a nail of his memory, one of those pieces of logic, which every one keeps by him, and which is perfectly conclusive, at least to himself. "This world," said he, "is nothing but a box of hooks and eyes: one set of men, them's your officers, ministers, lawyers, doctors and constables, are the hooks another kind, them's your rogues and good citizens, are the eyes." This volley of small shot was followed by an artillery-like explosion. "To all men to whom these presents may come greeting-I arrest you, Mr. Gosling, in the name of the State," and he had nearly dragged the astonished father to the closet, ere he was stopped by a shrill cry, "Demijohn, I say, Demijohn Gosling, it is your father." It was clear, that "our hero," had talents of a decided order; and his claims to the office of constable were canvassed in a full caucus of the Goose-neck Hollow politicians for two hours. At length, after an "eloquent and impressive" address by squire Wreakham, it was determined, that the name of Demijohn Gosling should be placed on the ticket.-And now the morning of election dawned. Demijohn felt the awful nature of his situation, and as a kind of corollary, put on a clean shirt collar. With a piece of new tallow, he prepared his toilet, at once upon his shoes and his head-not upon the latter, however, until Mrs. Gosling had given a fresh clip to the circle on the back part, which "like the owner" had begun to rise in the world. As a knight sallies forth from castle gate, attended by the winding of horns, the waving of colors and the yelping of dogs; so did Demijohn open with the door, a full tide of domestic, canine and feline eloquence. That was a great day for the Goslings, and Demijohn felt, like Mr. Cooper in Europe, that he was not the representative of himself alone, and, that the eyes of the world

were upon him. He did not go directly to the polls, but with a politic wariness which we would commend to all candidates, he went as near as he could, without seeming to be there. Then he stopped, conversed with his friends about every thing except the election; asked and answered questions, blushed at himself, "the observed of all observers," in fine, attended to any thingbut the polls. At length the increase of the crowd warned him to take care of his dignity by a slow retreat, which he effected, to a horse shed. The rest of the proceedings of that day-how the strife waxed hot among the Goose-neck Hollowites-how our ticket succeeded, how Demijohn put off his collar at evening to save it for the next election, how the sun went down, as though a constable had not been chosen; are not these written in the chronicles of the Gosling family? We believe not, but they should be. We ask no apology for dwelling so long upon this eventful era of his life. Indeed, we have it from a source not apocryphal, that the village poet would have embalmed the memory of this contest in verse, under the title of "Goslingiad," illustrated by an approved and sufficient quantity of notes, accompanied, of course, by a short biography of himself, had it not happened rather unfortunately, that he was "gathered to his grandmothers" ere he had completed the second volume.

The traits in Demijohn's character, like the colors upon the door of a carriage shop, were mottled; now a shade of green running off into a faded yellow; here a tart red, mellowed by the frost of age or office, into a subdued claret, while here and there was dashed a spot of pink and blue. He was a great lover of nature. He loved fountains of water, rimmed with a chasing of green grass and pied flowers, and shaded by weeping boughs, that hung enchanted by the music of fairy feet, tripping in mazy circles upon the dappled sward, and dipping their tiny butter-cup goblets into nature's chalice. Such an one bubbled up near his dwelling, and often would he drive his two geese and three ducks to its mouth, and having waited till they had finished their drinking and bowing, take up a stick or a stone, and drive them back. to their coops. Forests, too, were his delight, and in the poetic, iris-tinted month of August, might he be seen, gazing upon that glorious counterpane of mosaic-and waiting for Dobbin to rest. His ear was attuned to the bass part of the scale; and the cawing of crows, the hooting of owls, the full chorus of bull-frog symphony, and the grunting of young porkers, were sure to enlist his attention. Mr. Gosling was a literary character, although he never read the reviews or quoted Shakspeare. Neither have I ever found among his papers, any thing, that treated of "democracy," or "our country"-those public commons where young genius commonly fences off a kind of white bean patch of luxuriant glory, and raises patriotism and figures, that blossom