(The kindness of an anonymous correspondent, however,
enables us to assure him that _lay_, and not _laid_, is the preterite
of _lie_.) One page of Meshach's own writing would have been worth all
his bear-stories put together. Many men may shoot bears, but few can
write like backwoodsmen. We shall expect an edition of "The Rivals"
from Mr. Stabler, with Mrs. Malaprop's epitaphs revised by the "Aids to
Composition." Luckily, Meshach himself will never know the wrong that
has been done him. On the contrary, he probably pleases himself in
finding that he is made to write President's English, and admires the
new leaves and apples not his own. But, in his polishing, American
letters have met as great a loss as American fiction did when the
depositions of the survivors of Bunker's Hill, taken fifty years after
the battle, were burned.
However, he who knows how to read with the ends of his fingers may yet
find good meat in the book. An honest provincialism has escaped Mr.
Stabler's weeding-hoe here and there, and we get a few glimpses, in
spite of him, into log-cabin interiors when the inmates are not in
their Sunday-clothes.
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