of the grape inspiring them—­no; but by himself:  selfish and apart from witty men, or ennobling spirits, in the secret seclusion of a dirty little back-room, and on corn-whiskey!—­these only, communing in affectionate brotherhood, the son of Virginia and the spirits of old Kentucky!  Why, fellow—­citizens, as the Governor of the State, he refused to sign the gallon-law until he had tested, by experiment, that a gallon would do him all day!

“Now I will admit, fellow-citizens, that sometimes, when in the enjoyment of social communion with gentlemen, I am made merry with these, and the rich wines of glorious France.  It is then I enjoy the romance of life.  Imagination, stimulated with the juice of the grape, gave to the world the Song of Solomon, and the Psalms of that old poet of the Lord—­glorious old David.

“The immortal verse of wandering old Homer, the blind son of Scio’s isle, was the inspiration of Samian wine; and good old Noah, too, would have sung some good and merry song, from the inspiration of the juice of the vine he planted, but having to wait so long, his thirst, like the Democratic nominee’s here, became so great, that he was tempted to drink too deeply, and got too drunk to sing; and this, I fancy, is the true reason why this distinguished gentleman never sings.

“Perhaps there is no music in his soul.  The glug-glug-glug of his jug, as he tilts and pours from its reluctant mouth the corn-juice so loved of his soul, is all the music dear to his ear, unless it be the same glug-glug-glug as it disappears down his capacious throat.  Now, fellow-citizens, during this ardent campaign, which has been so fatiguing, I have only been drunk once.  Over in Simpson County I was compelled to sleep in the same bed with this distinguished nominee—­this delight of the Democracy—­this wonderful exponent of the principles and practices of the unwashed Democracy—­and in the morning I found myself drunk on corn-whiskey.  I had lain too close to this soaked mass of Democracy, and was drunk from absorption.”

This was more than the Governor could stand, and, amidst the shouts and laughter of the assembled multitude, he left the stand, and declined to meet again, before the people, the young Ajax Telemon of the Whig party.

The memory of that campaign will probably never be forgotten in Mississippi.  Mothers, in stories of Prentiss, tell it now to their children, and it and he have become a tradition of the early days of Mississippi.  The election terminated in the choice of Prentiss and Wood, by a small majority; but the certificate was given, through the basest fraud, to Claiborne and Gholson.