er and
terrene fealty. Our true country is that ideal realm which we represent
to ourselves under the names of religion, duty, and the like. Our
terrestrial organizations are but far-off approaches to so fair a model,
and all they are verily traitors who resist not any attempt to divert
them from this their original intendment. When, therefore, one would
have us to fling up our caps and shout with the multitude,--"_Our
country, however bounded!_" he demands of us that we sacrifice the
larger to the less, the higher to the lower, and that we yield to the
imaginary claims of a few acres of soil our duty and privilege as
liegemen of Truth. Our true country is bounded on the north and the
south, on the east and the west, by Justice, and when she oversteps that
invisible boundary-line by so much as a hair's-breadth, she ceases to be
our mother, and chooses rather to be looked upon _quasi noverca_. That
is a hard choice, when our earthly love of country calls upon us to
tread one path and our duty points us to another. We must make as noble
and becoming an election as did Penelope between Icarius and Ulysses.
Veiling our faces, we must take silently the hand of Duty to follow her.

Shortly after the publication of the foregoing poem, there appeared some
comments upon it in one of the public prints which seemed to call for
some animadversion. I accordingly addressed to Mr. Buckingham, of the
_Boston Courier_, the following letter.

"JAALAM, November 4, 1847.

"_To the Editor of the Courier:_

"RESPECTED SIR,--Calling at the post-office this morning, our worthy and
efficient postmaster offered for my perusal a paragraph in the Boston
Morning Post of the 3d instant, wherein certain effusions of the
pastoral muse are attributed to the pen of Mr. James Russell Lowell. For
ought I know or can affirm to the contrary, this Mr. Lowell may be a
very deserving person and a youth of parts (though I have seen verses of
his which I could never rightly understand); and if he be such, he, I am
certain, as well as I, would be free from any proclivity to appropriate
to himself whatever of credit (or discredit) may honestly belong to
another. I am confident, that, in penning these few lines, I am only
forestalling a disclaimer from that young gentleman, whose silence
hitherto, when rumour pointed to himward, has excited in my bosom
mingled emotions of sorrow and surprise. Well may my young parishioner,