Will excuse ye in His sight;

'Ef you take a sword an' dror it,
An' go stick a feller thru,
'Guv'ment aint to answer for it,
God 'll send the bill to you.

And the bravest officer in Her Majesty's service will laugh as heartily
as you will, I take it, my dear reader, if you have never heard it
before, over a picture and a contrast such as the following:--

Parson Wilbur sez, _he_ never heerd in his life
Thet th' Apostles rigged out in their swaller-tail coats,
An' marched round in front of a drum and a fife
To git, some on 'em office, an some on em votes,
But John P
Robinson he
Sez they didnt know everythin' down in Juddee.

But England is a small and wealthy country, whose best defence against a
neighbour, always likely to become a foe, consists in a mere ocean
canal; where the question, I will not say of war, but of readiness for
war, is one of life or death--in which the temptation, always so strong,
to subordinate national honour to what is supposed to be policy, is in
our day for most statesmen almost irresistible, because political
influence is so evenly balanced, that a peace party of perhaps twenty
votes has often the destinies of a ministry in its hands. Had Mr. Lowell
been an Englishman, no one who knows his writings can believe for a
moment that he would have swelled the cry or strengthened the hands of
the vain and mischievous clique, who amongst us have of late years
raised the cry of peace when there is no peace.

The same caution will apply to our marked peculiarity of style in the
book, which may offend at first many persons otherwise most capable of
entering into its spirit. I mean the constant, and so to speak,
pervading use of Scripture language and incidents, not only side by side
with the most grotesque effusions of humour, but as one main element of
the ludicrous effects produced. This undoubtedly would be as really
offensive as it would be untrue, from any other point of view perhaps
than that of a New Englander bred in the country. The rural population
of New England is still, happily for itself, tinctured in all its
language, habits, modes of feeling and thought, by a strict Scriptural
training--"Out of the fulness of the heart the mouth speaketh." Look
below the surface and you will see that there is no irreverence whatever
beneath Hosea Biglow's daring use of Scripture; only that "perfect love