The Complete Works of Josh Billings. Billings Josh
wag his own peculiarity in peace.”
That my Yankee acquaintance was partial to Josh Billings, and that anything which related to dogs was congenial with his tastes, I furthermore ascertained by noticing two scraps of paper posted on the rough wall of his cabin. I copied both. One was in prose and the other in rhyme. Here is the prose one: —
Dogs.
“Dogs are not vagabones bi choise and luv tew belong tu sumbody. This fac endears them tew us, and i have alwas rated the dog az about the seventh cusin tew the human specious. Tha kant talk but tha can lik yure hand; this shows that their hearts iz in the plase where other folks’ tungs is. – Josh Billings.”
Thus it was that I first heard of Josh Billings. In the course of my voyage from Aspinwall to New York, while seated on the deck of the steamer, listening to the drolleries of a group of very convivial passengers, and gliding along the coast of Cuba in the brightness, sheen, and splendor of a tropical night, I heard many of his best things recited, and his name frequently quoted as that of one who had already taken his place in American literature. Oliver Wendell Holmes I had known for years, Artemus Ward was a household name in California, James Russell Lowell had become a familiar acquaintance through the “Biglow Papers;” but who was Josh Billings? I asked my compagnons de voyage, but all they knew of him was that he was a very clever fellow who had written some very clever things. Whether he lived in New York State, Pennsylvania, Vermont, or Missouri, no one could tell me, nor could I get any satisfactory information as to the journal in which his articles had first appeared, what his antecedents were, or whether the name attached to his writings was that of his parentage and christening, or merely a whimsical nomme de plume.
Long after my arrival in New York the mystery remained unsolved. I applied to literary friends for its solution, but all they seemed to know was that various smart things had run the round of the papers with the signature of “Josh Billings” to them, but in what paper they had originated or by whom they were written none could give me information. My friend George Arnold, a well-known wit of the New York Leader, knew of my anxiety. Meeting me one day at Crook and Duff’s Restaurant, the mid-day rallying point of most of the genial spirits of New York, he drew me aside and gravely asked —
“Have you found out yet who Josh Billings is?”
“I have not,” I answered. “Do you know?”
“Yes; but keep it dark. Only five of his friends have been let into the secret. It would not do to let the world know. His position would be damaged.”
“Who is it?” I demanded eagerly. “Is it Hosea Biglow under a new name?”
“No; somebody better known.”
“Horace Greeley?” I suggested, interrogatively.
“No. A still greater man. Can’t you guess?”
“Really, I cannot. Don’t keep me in suspense. Tell me.”
“The author is – ” and my friend paused – “the author of Josh Billings is none other than – President Lincoln!”
My informant made the communication so gravely, that for the moment I believed it; especially as some few days previous, being down in Washington, I had occasion to know that Barney Williams, the actor, was summoned to the White House on a Sunday afternoon, that he spent some hours with the President, and that on his return in the evening to Willard’s Hotel he assured me that the President had beaten him in telling funny stories, and had said the drollest things he had heard for many a day. That my information was nothing more than a hoax the reader will readily suppose; but I felt bound to “pass it on” to my acquaintances, with a like injunction to secresy, until at length I had the amusement of hearing that it had reached the ears of Mr. Lincoln, who laughed heartily at the joke, and pleasantly observed that his shoulders were hardly broad enough to bear the burdens of the State, without having to carry the sins of all its wits and jesters.
Time passed on and business called me to take a trip one day up the Hudson River to the pleasant little town of Poughkeepsie. What a quiet, charming little town it is, those who have visited it can well remember. I selected the steamer Armenian for my trip up the river. The Rhine of America never was seen to more advantage than it was on that bright summer’s day, and Poughkeepsie never looked fairer than as I saw it from the middle of the stream. I landed at a town on the left bank, crossed the river, went down to Poughkeepsie by rail, and arrived there late in the evening, I knew of only two staple products of the place, and they were – whiskey and spiritualism. The whiskey I tasted, and the spiritualism I went in search of in the person of Andrew Jackson Davis, the Swedenborg of the United States, whose books on the unseen world have been introduced to the British public by Mr. Howitt. A kindly Poughkeepsian volunteered to conduct me to where the great mysticist had lived; but I found, to my disappointment, that he was then absent from the town. To console me for my ill-luck, in not being able to see so great a celebrity, my guide soothingly observed that there was another great writer resident in and belonging to Poughkeepsie.
“Who is he?” I asked.
“Why, Josh Billings!” was the reply.
Eureka! I had found him. I had unearthed my game at last and discovered my eremite in his mystic seclusion. I lost no time in inquiring who Josh Billings was and where he lived.
“His name is Shaw – Henry W. Shaw. He’s an auctioneer, and I’ll show you the way to his house,” volunteered my friendly guide.
We went to the house; but like Mr. Davis, Mr. Shaw was not at home. All that I could then learn about him was that he belonged to Poughkeepsie, that he had been the Auctioneer of the town for many years, that he was by no means a young man, that his address for the general public was “Box 467” at the Post-office, that he was a very business-like person, and that he wrote articles for the newspapers, as well as sold property by auction and acted as agent for the transfer of real estate. The reader will therefore fully comprehend how much Mr. Shaw felt himself to be in his element while writing the chapter headed “Advertizement,” in which he offers
“To sell for eighteen hundred and thirty-nine dollars a pallas, a sweet and pensive retirement, lokated on the virgin banks of the Hudson river, kontaining 85 acres. Walls ov primitiff rock, laid in Roman cement, bound the estate, while upward and downward, the eye catches far away, the magesta and slow grander ov the Hudson. As the young moon hangs like a cutting of silver from the blue brest of the ski, an angel may be seen each night dansing with golden tiptoes on the green. (N. B. The angel goes with the place).”
Better fortune led me at last to meet Mr. Shaw in New York City. We were introduced to one another at Artemus Ward’s Mormon entertainment on Broadway. I found a man rather above the middle height, sparse in build, sharp in features, his long hair slightly turning gray, and his age between forty and fifty, reserved in manner, a rustic, unpolished demeanor, and looking more like a country farmer than a genial man of letters or a professed wit and a public lecturer on playful subjects. I can vouch for his geniality, for, on the evening of our first meeting, we adjourned from Dodworth Hall to the St. Denis Hotel opposite, and, in the company of a few friends, spent a mirthful hour or two. The night was bitter cold; but warm sherry, excellent Bourbon, and jovial spirits made the bleak wind which whistled up Broadway from the Bay, as melodious as the music of lutes.
Mr. Shaw informed me that he was born in the State of Massachusetts, town of Lanesboro, county of Berkshire, and came from Puritan stock. He said that his father and grandfather both had been members of Congress, and each one had left so pure a political record, that he himself had never dared to enter the arena of politics. His first literary efforts in the comic line were published in the country papers of New York State; many of them first attracted attention in the columns of the Poughkeepsie Daily Press. In America a popular author has much more scope for gaining publicity and popularity than he has in England. The newspapers of the Union are always ready to receive pithy paragraphs from clever men, and to attach the authors’ name to them. The great secret of the popularity of Artemus Ward and of Josh Billings is simply that which the late Albert Smith of England so well understood years ago, never to publish any article, however trivial or lengthy, without