542 AMERICAN ANGLER'S BOOK. 



Now I call that hexameter in the rough, and taking it all 

 through, it is pretty good legendary poetry, to boot. 



Nes. Your taste in such matters, my dear boy, betrays your 

 "bringing up ;" but it seems to me, that a man who spends 

 much of his time on lake or river, and allows the " particular 

 metre," as you call it, and the repetitions in "Hiawatha" to 

 prejudice him against the book, comes short of a full 

 appreciation of camping out, or cooking his dinner on the 

 stream. 



Nor. Now you are a beautiful specimen of a star-struck 

 fisherman, with your hair poking through the crown of 

 that old hat, and that terrible rent in your trousers ; how 

 you would captivate your wife, and the ladies in general. 

 But let me give you the concluding lines of the drama, as, 

 well as I can recollect them, and then if you can see 

 no similarity between the "Song of Hiawatha," and the 

 " Song of the Nigger Gin'ral," I'll consent to a truce between 

 Longfellow and Dick Cooper. See now, how harmoniously 

 the descriptive blends with the dramatic. 



" Thursday week come on his trial, 



Ho my boys you most done. 



(But I forgot, I did not mean to put in the chorus.) 



" Day sont an called all de county, 

 To come and see de Nigger Gin'ral ; 

 Some dey called him Archy Mullin, — 

 Right name was John de Cullln. 

 I'm here to-day and gone to-morrow, 

 I didn't come to stay forever. 



" Dey drove him down to de gallus, 

 Drove him down wid fo' gray hosses ; 

 Diggs's Ben he druv de wagon. 

 Dar dey hung him and dey swung him, 

 An dat's de end of de Nigger Gin'ral. 



