As I write, comes the news of our disaster at Hampton Roads.  I do not understand the supineness which, after fair warning, leaves wood to an unequal conflict with iron.  It is not enough merely to have the right on our side, if we stick to the old flint-lock of tradition.  I have observed in my parochial experience (haud ignarus mali) that the Devil is prompt to adopt the latest inventions of destructive warfare, and may thus take even such a three-decker as Bishop Butler at an advantage.  It is curious, that, as gunpowder made armour useless on shore, so armour is having its revenge by baffling its old enemy at sea; and that, while gunpowder robbed land warfare of nearly all its picturesqueness to give even greater stateliness and sublimity to a sea-fight, armour bids fair to degrade the latter into a squabble between two iron-shelled turtles.

Yours, with esteem and respect,

HOMER WILBUR, A.M.

P.S.—­I had wellnigh forgotten to say that the object of this letter is to enclose a communication from the gifted pen of Mr. Biglow.

I sent you a messige, my friens, t’other day, To tell you I’d nothin’ pertickler to say:  ‘twuz the day our new nation gut kin’ o’ stillborn, So ‘twuz my pleasant dooty t’ acknowledge the corn, An’ I see clearly then, ef I didn’t before, Thet the augur in inauguration means bore.  I needn’t tell you thet my messige wuz written To diffuse correc’ notions in France an’ Gret Britten, An’ agin to impress on the poppylar mind The comfort an’ wisdom o’ goin’ it blind,—­ 10 To say thet I didn’t abate not a hooter O’ my faith in a happy an’ glorious futur’, Ez rich in each soshle an’ p’litickle blessin’
Ez them thet we now hed the joy o’ possessin’,
With a people united, an’ longin’ to die
For wut we call their country, without askin’ why,
An’ all the gret things we concluded to slope for
Ez much within reach now ez ever—­to hope for. 
We’ve gut all the ellerments, this very hour,
Thet make up a fus’-class, self-governin’ power:  20
We’ve a war, an’ a debt, an’ a flag; an’ ef this
Ain’t to be inderpendunt, why, wut on airth is? 
An’ nothin’ now henders our takin’ our station
Ez the freest, enlightenedest, civerlized nation,
Built up on our bran’-new politickle thesis
Thet a Gov’ment’s fust right is to tumble to pieces,—­
I say nothin’ henders our takin’ our place
Ez the very fus’-best o’ the whole human race,
A spittin’ tobacker ez proud ez you please
On Victory’s bes’ carpets, or loaf-in’ at ease 30
In the Tool’ries front-parlor, discussin’ affairs
With our heels on the backs o’ Napoleon’s new chairs,
An’ princes a-mixin’ our cocktails an’ slings,—­
Excep’, wal, excep’ jest a very few things,
Sech ez navies an’ armies an’ wherewith to pay,
An’ gettin’ our sogers to run t’other way, An’ not be too over-pertickler in tryin’ To hunt up the very las’ ditches to die in.