there is something to live for. It is that "fair and abounding land" which gave him and his children birth, and which is now doubly dear because of the infinitely precious blood which has moistened and hallowed it forever.

Moreover, the Virginian is the last man on earth to accept commisseration. Flatter and fool him, you may easily; but pity him, never! He will none of it. Pascal tells us that "pity for the unfortunate is no proof of virtue; on the contrary, it is desirable to make this demonstration of humanity, and to acquire, at no expense, the reputation of tenderness. Pity, therefore, is of little worth."

The Virginian, possibly, never heard of Pascal; but he feels this in his heart, and he scorns your pity.

Lord Halifax says, "Complaining is contempt upon one's self," and therefore the Virginian does not complain. He accepts the issue of the great struggle, not as the wili of man, but as the will of Him whom he was taught to reverence and obey at his mother's knee. He was brought up to tell the truth, and to keep his word. Now that the hatchet is buried, the Virginian will keep the troth he has plighted to the General Government. Rest assured of that.

Remember, moreover, that no kind of live stock is so easily improved as the hog on which the Virginian subsists, none so readily accommodate themselves to circumstances, and that the changes produced by domestication and civilization are permanent. Remember, too, that few plants are so hardy

as the cabbage, and none so vastly improved by transplanting. (This is the secret of the Virginian's success outside of his own State.) What is the inevitable inference? It is this: The Virginian will adapt himself to the new order of things; he will master the situation; and, under the stimulus of Progress with a big P, the size of his head (cabbage-head though it may be deemed by his foes) will astonish the moral agriculturists of all Christendom-the Captain Wragges of Exeter and Faneuil halls.

He loves the land which God gave him as a heritage-loves it and is proud of it a thousand-fold more than ever. But he will not oppose Progress. If anybody wants his land, he will sell 'em a "tract"; but he will retain enough to raise his greens and give his hogs free range, so as to keep up the quality of his bacon. He will welcome immigrants by myriads and without fear, because he knows he can feed them on proper food and turn them into Virginians with surprising rapidity.

In his changed estate-his servants all gone-he will no longer be able to board and lodge the whole world; but he will be able to give his friends a hearty old-fashioned Virginia welcome, and a dish of real old Virginia "Bacon and Greens."

LETTERS

OF

MOZIS ADDUMS TO BILLY IVVINS.

INTRODUCTION.

IN 1857, I went to Washington to take the place of my friend Wm. M. Semple, as correspondent of the New Orleans Crescent. Two letters a week to the Crescent, and three to the Eagle and Enquirer, a Memphis paper, left me plenty of leisure for other writing. I had never attempted anything in what is called "Dialect," but, having a natural turn for bad spelling, thought I would try my hand. Accordingly. I sent the first letter of "Mozis Addums to Billy Ivvins" to John R. Thompson, who was then editing the Southern Literary Messenger. He printed it, not without misgivings, and its success amazed both of us, for it was copied all over Virginia, and in many papers outside the State. I literally "woke up and found myself famous," much to my annoyance, for I was then ambitious to succeed in quite other and more elevated fields of literature. But the public Iwould have its way. From that day to this I have gone by the name of "Mozis," and I am sure that, directly and indirectly, these letters have paid me better than all my other writings put together.

Wm. Cullen Bryant complained in his later years that "Thanatopsis," a production of his youth, overshadowed all his subsequent efforts, however labored and meritorious. With much better reason, if I may be permitted to name myself in such company, may I complain that my best exertions have still left me plain "Mozis Addums," a name that for many years made me a little sick whenever I heard it. But at length I got used to it; and now that age and thwarted ambition have brought me

humility, I say to myself, "Well, it is something to have a name at all, provided it is not a bad one."

The reader must judge for himself whether the fact be or be not creditable to the popular taste, but it is a fact that the Letters of Mozis Addums added several hundred names to the subscription list of the Messenger, while the "Reveries of a Bachelor," by Ik Marvel, which appeared originally in the same magazine, made no impression whatever until they were printed in book form, when they at once established the author's reputation as a man of letters, and paved the way to fortune.

Messrs. West & Johnston published a small edition of the Letters in 1862, but they were sold mostly to soldiers in the field, and were soon lost or destroyed.

Washington, when Mozis first saw and described it in 1857, presented a very different aspect from what it does now. Its population was not half so large; the immense improvements in the grading, etc., of the streets had not been even imagined; Boss Shepherd was a little boy; the great sectional war was, indeed, contemplated, but as a thing of the remote future; and the consolidation of the Republic into a Nation, with a permanent capital, destined to become an imperial city, was, to say the least, problematical. While the streets were undisturbed, the public buildings, including the Capitol, were being enlarged, and upon their summits were to be seen the derricks and cranes which Mozis likened to the triggers of immense partridge traps. The House was in the new hall, but the Senate sat in its old chamber, and the Supreme Court occupied an ill-lighted room in the basement just below. Congress was in the throes of the Kansas-Nebraska excitement; the Democratic party was insisting upon the right of slaveholders to carry their slaves into the territories; the Republicans were resisting this right, and the struggle between the sections was rapidly approaching its final issue. Strange, it now seems, that men did not see and prepare for it!

Most of the characters who figure in these letters are real. Some of them have passed away; but, considering the length of time that has elapsed since the Letters were written, a surprising number remain. The "beautiful little girl from Indiana" has left two charming daughters, who are nearly grown. Oans," the dearest friend that Mozis had, in spite of the jokes that he

66

practised on him, has his place in life filled by two manly boysand a lovely girl; but the " Trungils," including their father, who is distinguished for his political writings, are all living; so are the "two pretty married ladies;" and so is the "bald-headed gentleman," who is now the president of a large and flourishing college. The "Mince-Pie," or Avenue House, long ago ceased to be a hotel; the rooms that "Mozis" and "Melloo" occupied on Seventh street are used for purposes of trade; their landlady has retired on a competency, I believe; the Congressmen who entertained Mozis with their dreams of power and purposed dispensing of offices when they should become President, are no longer known in political life; and, in a word, the flight of time has brought upon Washington and its inhabitants the usua, changes. I wonder if, to those who have survived these changesl there is, as to the writer, the usual disappointment in life,—the shortcoming of aspirations. So far as fortune and reputation in certain pursuits are concerned, many of them, I am glad to say, have succeeded; but I doubt if any one of them has achieved just the success which he then anticipated and desired. One of the Congressmen, I know, had every right to expect a political career of the greatest brilliancy, but has become a railroad president, rich, politically unknown, and perhaps all the happier for being unknown. G. W. B.

RICHMOND, December, 1878.

FIRST LETTER.

FROM FOMVIL TO WASHINTUN, BY WAY OF RICHMUN.

To MISTER BILLY IVVINS,

WASHINTUN CITY, Dec. the 14, 1857.

Kerdsvil, Buckingame Cty, Ferginny.

EAR BILLY: You reclect lass summer, arfter

DE

I had puffectid my skeam and had detummined to go to Washintun city, I promist you to rite freekwently if not oftner, and to giv you a acount uv all I seen and dun. Well, I've bin hear more'n a weak, and has writ nar time yit, for the resin that I