University of Virginia Library

12. CHAPTER XII.

It was a pleasant autumnal morning, and the sun shone
warmly and brightly down into that stupendous chasm of
the Highlands, through which the majestic Hudson is forever
rolling his vast column of pure and uncontaminated

waters, the accumulated tribute of a thousand hills, to cool
and freshen the turbid bosom of the briny ocean. On the
deck of a sloop moored at a landing near this picturesqe
spot two men were now to be seen sitting, like tailors, with
something between them on which they appeared to be intensely
employed; while the sounds of axes on shore, and
the appearance of several men throwing wood towards the
vessel, denoted that she had hauled up at this place to take
in a quantity of that article, and that all the crew, except
the two persons just mentioned, were now engaged on
shore for that purpose. Of these two last named personages,
one was a dumpy looking fellow of the apparent age
of about thirty-five, with red hair and a freckled face. The
other was evidently much younger, tall and well formed in
his person. His hair and eyes were black; and indeed he
was every way as remarkable for his fine, as his companion
for his insignificant, appearance. After they had been
thus busily engaged awhile the younger one, suddenly
springing on to his legs, bounded several feet from the
deck, snapping his fingers and exclaiming, “Nine hundred
and forty-four odd dollars! O thunder and bombs! O
lightning! two lightnings! O Jupiter and Jeremiah!
Nine hundred and forty-four odd dollars! What shall we
do with it all? Upon my sequacity I did not dream there
was so much. O Nebuchadnezzar and the rest of the patriarchs,
what a tornado of effulgent fortune has befel us!
Hurra! Huzza! kick over the chairs—raise Ned, and break
things!” `Come, come, Tim,' said the other, who, though
partaking largely in the raptures of his friend, seemed less
enthusiastic in the manner of expressing them, `come,
Tim, you are out of your senses. They will observe you on
shore, if you crack and crow at this rate. Come, sit down
again, and let us divide this windfall according to agreement;
and then we will talk over other matters.' The
parties were soon again seated with the glittering heap between
them, and with a sort of suppressed chuckling, and
eyes beaming with exultation and delight, proceeded to the
task of dividing the booty. This pleasing employment was
at length satisfactorily completed; and each one gathered
up his portion, and, carefully tying it up in an extra cravat,
deposited it in his bundle.

“Now, brother Timothy,” said the elder, “what do you
propose to drive at by way of laying out your money? I
believe,” he continued without waiting for a reply, “I believe
I shall go directly home and pay off the mortgage on
my place. I shall have money enough now to square off
every thing to the last cent, and have some odd change
left, I guess. Gemini! who would have thought of such
thumping luck! By George! I'll get the old woman a
bran-fir'd new calico at Albany, and the boys a bushel of
fishhooks. Lord! how the little devils will grin and snap
their eyes when I get home!—and the old woman—Tim,
I kinder like the old creature, after all, if she does raise a
clatter about masonry once in a while.—But as I was saying,
what are you going to do?”

`Why, as to myself, brother Jenks,' replied Timothy, `I
have been thinking that I should make some tarryfication
at Albany; and, if I can get in with the brethren there,
I shall take the higher degrees of masonry, and perhaps
attend to the great study of the forty-seven Euclids, mentioned
in our lectures.'

“You are right, brother Timothy,” said the other, “you
have now the lucre to enable you to perfect yourself in the
great and noble art of masonry; and I advise you by all
manner of means to attend to it. I have a masonic friend
at Albany who will introduce you into his lodge. If I had
your gifts, Timothy, I would be a great man. When I
proposed to you to join me in this expedition to New York,
I knew what your appearance and gifts of speech would
do. I can contrive as well as the fattest of them, but
hang me, if I can argue. You see how cutely I planned
out this show business of Boaz which has lined our pockets
so handsomely. And for all that you remember how
they all always seemed to look and listen to you to explain
and expound matters—and how all the ladies gathered
round you, while me, the main-spring of the whole, they

would scarcely notice at all. It makes me mad when I
think of it. But blast 'em, I have now got pretty well
paid for bearing their treatment this time; for mean and
insignificant as they appeared to think me, I had wit
enough, it seems, to Tom-fool the whole posse of 'em there
in New-York, big-bugs and all. But as to you, there is
some encouragement for you to advance in Masonry. You
can stay a few months in Albany, perfect yourself in all
the lower degrees, and take all the higher. And when
you have done this I have no doubt you will be one of the
brightest Masons in all America. You can then travel
where you please and get a good living by lecturing to the
lodges about the country. Your fortune will then be
made, and then you will be a great man, Timothy.”

`That is precisely the plan,' rejoined our hero, as he
pulled up his cravat in the dignified consciousness of meriting
his companion's encomiums, `that is precisely the
plan I ramified and co-operated for myself before I left
home, provided we should meet with that indelible success
in the exhibition of Boaz which we hoped and prophetized,
and which has now, bating the poor animals' abolishment,
transpired and expanded to a certain occurment.'

“Ah! poor Boaz! said Jenks mournfully, “How sorry
I am that we could not have got him away alive! what
a noble fellow for a bear he was, Timothy! and how bravely
he died!”

`Yes,' observed the other with kindling enthusiasm,
`Yes, as I looked on with the most indignant admiration,
and saw them expunging the life of the poor fellow, I
thought of Cæsar who was killed and assassinated in the
senate by Brutus and a concatenation of others, and who
only had time to look Brutus in the face and say, tu Brute,
which meant, I suppose, too much of a brute, and this I
take it was the reason why the murderer was called Brutus.
But why I similified the two cases was because Boaz
was also assassinated by brutes, like Cæsar. And I opinionate
likewise the death of Boaz resembles the way and
manner, that we read some of our ancient brethren were

put to the torture and rack—those two machines that they
used to bind and murder Masons upon, to get their secrets
in the days of poperarity.'

“That is very true,” rejoined Jenks, “and, like those old
martyrs, Boaz may be considered as dying for the cause
of masonry, since he was the means of helping us to money
which you are agoing to lay out in studying, and of course
in extending the knowledge of the art; and if you should
become a great Mason, Timothy, by means of the money
he brought you, he will have been a great benefit to our
order, and ought to have a monument, like those old heroes
and martyrs, erected to his memory. I wish you would
write a pair of verses about him, Timothy—same as if they
were going to be put on a grave-stone,—epitaphs I think
they call them.”

`My mind,' replied Timothy, in answer to this request
or proposition of his friend, `my mind was never much diverged
towards rhymetry, but we may as well have our time
amplified, on our voyage, in writing something for the glorification
of his memory, as in any other way, since we
have but little else to procrastinate our leisure employment.'

The crew now coming on board and beginning to take
in their wood, this interesting discussion upon the character
of Boaz, and on the propriety of composing an elegiac
tribute to his memory, was of course suspended. In a short
time, however, the wood was taken in—all the business
for which the vessel had moored was completed, and she
was again put before the wind and proceeded slowly on
her voyage. After indulging awhile in viewing the magnificent
and diversified scenery that opened in beauty and
grandeur on either side of them as they wound their way
along the bends of this noble and picturesque river, our
friends began to bethink them of the task which they lately
had under consideration, that of honoring the lamented
Boaz with an epitaph. They accordingly borrowed pen,
ink and paper of the captain, and going to a retired part of
the deck, fitted or piled up some square boxes of freight

so that they very well answered the double purpose of seats
and writing desk. Here, being again by themselves, they
resumed the discussion of the subject.

“Now, as I told you, Brother Jenks,” observed Timothy,
as he spread a sheet of white paper before him, and held
the pen in his hand shaking out its superfluity of ink,
“now as I told you, I comprehend the art of poetification
but badly. I have often tried, but I never could make
more than one line of rhyming in my life without confuscating
my sentiments or debasing the sublimity of my language.
And I should rather prefer concocting an oration
instead of making a rhymified curtailment on this grievous
occasion.”

`I still think,' said Jenks, firmly persisting in his opinion,
`that a pair of verses would be much more fitting for an
epitaph. If you cannot do it yourself, perhaps we both
could by putting our heads together. Now suppose you
write the first two lines, and kinder give a pitch to it; and
I guess I can think up two more to match them, and so
make it rhyme,—what say you?'

“I will make the endeavor of a beginning,” replied our
hero, “If you really think that the most feasible designment.”

`But is there not some rule,' asked the other, `for making
verses? I conclude all the lines have to be of a particular
length: For unless we know how long each one is to be,
how can we get the others right?'

“To be sure,” replied the other, “I have somewhere
read the rules of making rhymetry—I think it was Blair's
Lecturizing, or some other great work on the decomposition
of language; and I believe the length of the lines is
reckoned by feet”—

`Inches, more like!' interrupted Jenks—`who on earth
ever heard of a line of poetry two or three feet long?'

“Why, I don't exactly understand it myself,” said Timothy,
somewhat puzzled how to get along with the question,
“but still I am very explicit that the book said feet, and
did not, as I commemorate, mention inches at all. I don't

know that I can explanitate the business very discriminately
myself. Yet I suppose these feet are not so long as
common feet—probably not longer than inches, as you
opinionate. But one thing I am certain and conclusive
about, and that is, that all the lines must be measured.”

`Well then,' said Jenks, `we wont puzzle our brains any
more on that point, but measure for ourselves. So you may
write off a couple of lines of about a proper length, and I
will try to mate them in due order and proportion.'

Our hero now took his pen, and wrote a caption; and,
then, after thinking awhile, now putting his pen almost to
the paper, now taking it suddenly back to relapse into musing
again, and exhibiting sundry other of the usual symptoms
and sufferings of mental parturition, he at length
dashed off two whole lines without the least pause or hesitation,
and handed them over to his companion, whose
more mechanical genius, it was expected, would enable
him to match them with alternate rhyme. Jenks was for
proceeding to business in proper form, and doing every
thing in a workmanlike manner. He accordingly took the
paper and first laid it squarely before him. After this was
adjusted, he thrust his hands into his breeches' pocket, and
drew out a little folded box-wood rule, which, as he said,
being somewhat of a joiner, he always carried about with
him. He then took the exact measure of the length of the
two lines which Timothy had written, in inches, fourths,
eighths, &c., agreeably to the rule which his literary friend
had suggested. Having ascertained the measure in this
manner, he next took a separate piece of paper, and pricking
off a corresponding space, drew two perpendiculars
for boundaries on the right and left, so that he might write
his lines horizontally and at right angles between them,
and have their required length indicated without the trouble
of repeated measurement to find when he had got them
of the right length. Having thus hit on a satisfactory
plan for preserving the measure which his friend had adopted,
he then read the lines that were to be mated, and,
humming over the closing or final words of each, put his

brains to the task to get two others of corresponding sound
to make the rhyme. These he had the good fortune to hit
upon without much trouble, and having done so, he carefully
placed them close against the right perpendicular, for
the final or rhyming words of the two lines which were to
constitute his part of the performance. Nothing now remained
but the less important task of finding sentiment
and words to fill up the lines. And this, after running over
the words in the two lines of Timothy awhile to get the
jog of them, as he expressed it, he very soon and very
happily effected; and then, with much self-gratulation,
transcribed and placed them exactly under Timothy's lines
in their order, thus completing one verse of their undertaking
to the mutual satisfaction of the parties. Another
verse was then begun and finished in the same manner;
and thus they proceeded through five entire verses, which
brought them to the conclusion of their performance.
This notable production of partnership poetry I have most
fortunately been enabled to obtain; and to remove all
doubts of its genuineness I can assure the reader that I
now have it before me in the original hand writing, and on
the same piece of paper on which it was first written. I
shall make no apologies in offering it entire, believing that
my masonic readers at least will be capable of justly appreciating
its merits, and concur with me in considering it
a morceau of genius too precious to be lost. It is as follows:

Such the chaste, classical and elegant offspring of the
masonic muse as invoked by the combined efforts of our
two friends in behalf of the memory and virtues of their
lamented brother, Boaz! It perhaps were needless to attempt
its praise, or to say how much it resembles, in beauty
and pathos, many of those much admired songs and odes,
which through the consenting judgment of ages, are now
found gracing the pages of the Book of Constitutions. I have
been particular in describing the original mode of versification
which the writers of this unique and inimitable production
here adopted, in the construction of their rhymes,
in order to give modern rhymers, especially the ode-makers
of the masonic household, the benefit of the improvement.
They will not fail, I think, to see at once its advantages, and
avail themselves of the system accordingly. Some may
perhaps say that this system is liable to objection, as having
a greater tendency than the old one to lead those adopting
it to sacrifice the sense to the rhyme. But in answer
to this I would say, that I believe there is little danger of
making matters much worse in this respect than they always
have been among even the most celebrated rhymers:
For some of the most approved of these, it would seem,
have considered, with the humorous author of the work
from which I have quoted at the beginning of this chapter,
that

which implies that the rhyme must govern, whatever shall
become of the sense or sentiment. We learn from one of
the annotators of Pope, in one of the first editions of his
works published after his death, that the great poet finished
and sent to the press the copy of his “Essay on Man,”
with those well known introductory lines proposing as they
now read to
written in the following manner:
But on being told by a judicious literary friend that the
whole treatise went directly to contradict this proposition
which he had laid down as the foundation of his work, all
going to prove a great and connected plan in all the operations
of the Deity, he, with a most accommodating spirit,
took his pen and altered the last line of the couplet as it
now stands,

Thus transforming himself from an atheist, a believer in
chance, and a want of any fixed order in the works of creation,
as the line, as he first had it would imply, into a consistent
believer in the settled and determinate plans of
providence, and all this too, as one would judge, only because
he luckily hit on another phrase that would effect
the change without injuring the rhyme! If the consideration
of rhyme then could thus influence the great and
acknowledged model and father of versification, what may
not be expected from the children? Alas then for those
who depend, for moral or ethical guides, on the maxims
and precepts of rhyming philosophers!