The Biglow Papers

And the bravest officer in Her Majesty's service will laugh as heartily as you will, I take it, my dear reader, if you have never heard it before, over a picture and a contrast such as the following:--

Parson Wilbur sez, he never heerd in his life Thet th' Apostles rigged out in their swaller-tail coats, An' marched round in front of a drum and a fife To git, some on 'em office, an some on em votes, But John P Robinson he Sez they didnt know everythin' down in Juddee.

But England is a small and wealthy country, whose best defence against a neighbour, always likely to become a foe, consists in a mere ocean canal; where the question, I will not say of war, but of readiness for war, is one of life or death--in which the temptation, always so strong, to subordinate national honour to what is supposed to be policy, is in our day for most statesmen almost irresistibl