NAMES. 
481 
ships into which the counties are divided, an outrageously absurd 
jumble of words has been fastened upon too many of them. It 
ought to be a crime little short of high treason, to give such 
names to habitable places ; we have Ovids and Milos, Spartas 
and Hectors, mixed up with Smithvilles, and Stokesvilles, New 
Palmyras, New Herculaneums, Romes and Carthages, and all 
these by the dozen ; for not content with fixing an absurd name 
upon one spot, it is most carefully repeated in twenty more, with 
the aggravating addition of all the points of the compass tacked 
to it. 
We cannot wonder that such gratuitous good-nature in provid- 
ing a subject of merriment to the Old World should not have 
been thrown away. The laugh was early raised at our expense. 
As long ago as 1825, some lines in heroic verse, as a model for 
the imitation of our native poets, appeared in one of the Englisli 
Reviews. 
" Ye plains where sweet Big-Muddy rolls along, 
And Teapot, one day to be found in song, 
"Where Swans on Biscuit, and on Grindstone glide, 
And willows wave upon Good- Woman's side !" 
******* 
Blest bards who in your amorous verses call 
On murmuring Pork, and gentle Cannon-Bail, 
Split-Rock, and Stick-Lodge, and Two-Thousand-Mile, 
White- Lime, and Cupboard, and Bad-Humored Isle." 
***** * 
" Isis with Rum and Onion must not vie, 
Cam shall resign the palm to Blowing-Fly, 
And Thames and Tagus yield to Great-Big-Little-Dry !" 
Retaliation is but an indifferent defence, and is seldom needed, 
21 
