University of Virginia Library

POSTSCRIPT.

BY MAJOR DOWNING.

When a lady or a politician writes a letter, you may generally
expect the most important idea to come into the postscript,
jest as the newspaper folks put in a postscript for the
latest news, and sometimes “stop the press” to announce it.
Whether my postscript here will be the most important thing
in the book, is not for me to say; but it is the latest news, so
I've stopt the press to put it in.

The American Review for June has made an outrageous attack
upon Daniel Webster, and my literature. It is a whig
Review, and therefore thinks Daniel Webster is small potatoes.
It is a literary Review, and therefore thinks my literature is

worse than nothin. According to my notion, Daniel is able
enough to hoe his own potatoes, and therefore I shant answer
for him; but I have a word or two to say for myself. What
is one's meat is another's pisen; and if the American Review
don't like my literature, it is because he doesn't know what is
good, for every body else eats it and likes it. But let us see
what the Review has to say about me.

[From the American Review for June, 1845.]

“American Letters.—Is there an American school of
writers? None, certainly, unless they who degrade and vulgarise
the tongue and the taste of the country by performances,
the whole merit of which consists in their adoption of particular
local slang (such as was employed in Major Downing's
Letters, or in the lucubrations of Sam Slick) are the models
of a new and noble literature that is to be for us. When these
things shall found for us a learning, the Ethiopian Minstrels
will create for us a Music, and the disciples of Jim Crow a
Theatre of our own.”

I am willing to believe, after reading the Publisher's Preface
to this little book, that there is a Downing school of literature
in the country, and that I had something to do with it.
But I did not know, before the American Review said so, that
mine was the only “American school of writers.” The New-York
Evening Gazette copies the paragraph from the Review,
and makes the following remarks about it, which I think prove
that the Gazette can tell a hawk from a handsaw if the Review
cant.

[From the Evening Gazette.]

“The writer of the above amusingly confounds `learning'
with genius in the quoted sentence; just as he elsewhere in
the same article confounds the honor which the production of
some great poem may confer upon the land which produced it,
with the poetic associations wherewith a song-writer like
Burns may clothe that land. We may never, in this country,
produce an Epic that will live; we may never, in these United
States, give birth to a Homer, a Milton, or Tasso, whose
world-renown may proudly reflect upon ourselves. But, a
hundred songs, from anonymous pens if you choose, having
half the merit of those which have given a mystic charm to
the braes and brooksides of the land of Burns, would still associate
a poetic feeling with the soil, that might be worth all
the glory of an Epic.

“In a word, we may be nationalized in literature as well
through our affections as through our intellect; just as we
may be more bound together by the characteristic strains of
a few national airs than by the production of an opera;—
while the organ of those airs, if they come from among the
many, will speak more for the general musical feeling of the
people than the composition of the grandest overture from the
hand of a Master.

“The learned Dr. Julius, who was sent here by the King of
Prussia, to make notes upon certain institutions of our country,
carried home with him a scroll of these very `Ethiopian
songs,' at which this Reviewer sneers, as affording proof as
striking as it was interesting, that we had the germs of a national
music among us; and when his large collection of minerals,
pamphlets, &c., &c., was destroyed in the great fire of
New-York, as he was on the eve of sailing for Europe—the
worthy Doctor, in trying to replace what he could, was particularly
careful to supply the place of those humble ditties
which had shared the fate of the vast mass of interesting materials
which he had been so indefatigable in bringing together
for his royal master.

“And now, as to the `Jack Downing and Sam Slick literature,'
which this sage Reviewer thinks has the one sole mission
of vulgarizing the tongue and the taste of the country. We
are not unwilling to admit that it may have, in some degree,
produced this effect; but we care not for a small evil if it be
inseparable from a great good. And this `literature' has
done good; for if not the first sign of our intellectual independence,
it certainly has aided vastly in breaking the servile
chain of provincial imitation. It established the independent
Republic of American jokedom upon the ruins of transplanted
cockneyism.”

Now, as for this ere difficulty between me and the editor of
the American Review, I shant stop to have any very long
yarn about it. If I was a great writer, as he is, I'd go at
him pell-mell and raise such a dust about his head that he
couldn't be seen again this six months. But I'm only a plain,
blunt man, that speaks right on, and tells folks what they already
know. I'm something like that old Roman that Mr.
Shakspeare tells about—for I do read Shakspeare sometimes
in winter evenings, and like it, it's full of meat as an oyster—
so I say I'm something like that old Roman, “for I have
neither wit, nor worth, nor words, action, nor utterance, nor

power of speech to stir men's blood;” and all I can do is to
point my adversary to the pens of his editorial brethren,
“poor, poor, dumb mouths, and bid them speak for me.”

The New-York Mirror,—I mean the old Mirror—five or six
years ago, speaking of some of my writings published at that
time, says:

“These are the most graphic and really the best Yankee
papers we have ever seen, or expect to see, let who wil write
them. Their author has struck at a new line in literature,
more piquant, racy, and original, than that adopted by `Boz.'
We like him none the less for being `native here, and to the
manor born;' for we are among those who can appreciate
a good production, even before it has received the commendation
of foreign critics.”

The New-York Morning Despatch, April 22, 1839, speaking
of the same writings, says:

“The author has the richest and most natural Yankee dialect
of any writer who has attempted to give the peculiarities
of Jonathan. The wit is real, attic, and something more than
poor orthography.”

The New-Yorker, May 25th, 1839, speaking of the same
writings, says:

“It is enough to observe that they emanate from the pen of
the original author of the Jack Downing Letters. His Yankee
stories and style are very diverting, and possess an originality
and fidelity, which are not discernable in the writings
of a numerous horde of imitators.”

The New-York Courier and Enquirer, July 3, 1839, speaks
of the same writings as follows:

“There is no doubt that the author of this little volume is
the best painter of Yankee peculiarities that ever wrote. He
is true to nature and never caricatures, but without caricaturing,
is most amusing.”

There, I might go on in this way and fill up another book.
But I shan't do it; for if the American Reviewer won't believe
the witnesses I've already brought up, I don't spose he
would believe it if my dear old friend the Gineral should come
back and tell him he was a goose.

So I shall here bid my readers good-by till next time.