r
unwholesome, to palates cloyed with the sugariness of tamed and
cultivated fruit. It may be, also, that some touches of my own, here and
there, may have led to their wider acceptance, albeit solely from my
larger experience of literature and authorship.[3]

I was, at first, inclined to discourage Mr. Biglow's attempts, as
knowing that the desire to poetize is one of the diseases naturally
incident to adolescence, which, if the fitting remedies be not at once
and with a bold hand applied, may become chronic, and render one, who
might else have become in due time an ornament of the social circle, a
painful object even to nearest friends and relatives. But thinking, on a
further experience, that there was a germ of promise in him which
required only culture and the pulling up of weeds from around it, I
thought it best to set before him the acknowledged examples of English
compositions in verse, and leave the rest to natural emulation. With
this view, I accordingly lent him some volumes of Pope and Goldsmith, to
the assiduous study of which he promised to devote his evenings. Not
long afterwards he brought me some verses written upon that model, a
specimen of which I subjoin, having changed some phrases of less
elegancy, and a few rhymes objectionable to the cultivated ear. The poem
consisted of childish reminiscences, and the sketches which follow will
not seem destitute of truth to those whose fortunate education began in
a country village. And, first, let us hang up his charcoal portrait of
the school-dame.

"Propt on the marsh, a dwelling now, I see
The humble school-house of my A, B, C,
Where well-drilled urchins, each behind his tire,
Waited in ranks the wished command to fire;
Then all together, when the signal came,
Discharged their _a-b abs_ against the dame,
Who, 'mid the volleyed learning, firm and calm,
Patted the furloughed ferule on her palm,
And, to our wonder, could detect at once,
Who flashed the pan, and who was downright dunce.

There young Devotion learned to climb with ease
The gnarly limbs of Scripture family-trees,
And he was most commended and admired
Who soonest to the topmost twig perspired;
Each name was called as many various ways
As pleased the reader's ear on different days,
So that the weather, or the ferule's stings,
Colds in the head, or fifty other things,
Transformed the helpless Hebrew thrice a week