ie of inglorious fortification and
indigestion.

MUGGY JIM,

A MACKEREL FIFER,

LATE OF THE NEW YORK FIRE DEPARTMENT;
TAKEN SICK
OF INDIGESTION,
HE COMMENCED TO
THROW UP FORTIFICATIONS,
AND DIED OF STRATEGY.

..........

_Hic Jacet._
1..5-4.

0....4....1....2....8,

0....4....1....2....0;

0....2...80....8,

0....2...45....4.

It needs no Champollion's hieroglyphical skill to read the beautiful
little verse of the fifer's epitaph, though that verse had to be
inscribed figuratively, in order to get it all upon the narrow
monument. In all its praise of that quiet sleep in which there are no
anticipations to be disappointed, no gluttony to make sick, and no
Confederacies to guard against,--the verse will be plain to all as
reading:

"HERE LIES

ONE FIFER:

Nought for one to wait,
Nought for one to sigh-for;
Nought too weighty ate,
Nought to fortify-for."

The Mackerel poet who wrote those lines, my boy, may have been no
rhetorician; but his theme was an inspiration giving him more than
ordinary mastery of the figures of speech.

Yours, gravely,

ORPHEUS C. KERR.

LETTER XCII.

IN WHICH OUR ENTHUSIASTIC CORRESPONDENT SURPASSES AESCHYLUS IN THE
WAY OF AN INVOCATION; AND DESCRIBES REAR ADMIRAL HEAD'S GREAT NAVAL
DEMONSTRATION AGAINST FORT PIANO.

WASHINGTON, D.C., April 20th, 1863.

Stand aside, my boy, and realize your own civilian insignificance,
while I invoke all the gods of Old Olympus to aid me with their
inspiration, in the tale of naval grandeur it is my duty to unfold.

Fired with the soul to hail my country great, and write her honors
endless to the world, full to the sun I wave the eager pen, invoking
all the lightning of the gods. Descend on me, Olympian dews, descend!
that this tired brain, where oft the new-born thought hath died
unblossomed in the fainting soil, may catch fresh vigor from the
grateful balm, and teem thrice glorious in a nobler youth. By all the
fire that glows in Homer's song, to make all ages flame anew with Troy;
by all the music stirred in Virgil's lay, to make AEneas ever march the
world; by all the heav'nly fury of the theme, AEschylus-taken, picturing
gods to men; by all the Art o'er nature raised subli