Friendly Reader:—

Of a truth, we are a great people!—and most happy am I, Solomon Secondthoughts, Schoolmaster of the Borough of Quodlibet, that it hath fallen to my lot, even in my small way, to make known to you how in our Borough that greatness hath grown toward its perfect maturity—feeling persuaded that Quodlibet therein is but an abstract or miniature portrait of this nation. Happy am I, although sorely oppressed with an inward perception of my defective craft in this most worthy task, that I have been thought by our Central Committee a fit expounder of that history wherein is enchrysalized (if I may be allowed to draw a word, parce detortum, from the Greek mint) the most veritable essence of that recently discovered Democratic theory, for distinction called the Quodlibetarian, which is destined to supplant all other principles in our government, and to render us the most formidable and the most imposing people upon the terraqueous globe.

How it came to pass that this duty has been committed to my hands, you shall learn.

In the days of the late Judge Flam, now thirty years gone by, and long before Quodlibet was, that very considerate and astute gentleman honored me, a poor and youthful scholar, with a promotion to the office of private tutor in his family, then residing at their ancient seat in this neighborhood. It was my especial duty, in this station, to prepare Master Middleton, the eldest born, for college; which in three years of assiduous labor was achieved, much to my content, and, I need not scruple to affirm, no less to my honor, seeing how notably my pupil has since figured in high places among the salt of the nation. Far be it from me to take an undue share of desert for this consummation; it would be disingenuous not to say that my pupil's liberal endowments at the hand of Nature herself rendered my task easy of success.

By the aid of my early patron the Judge, whose memory will long be embalmed in the unction of my gratitude, I became, after Master Middleton was passed from under my care, the head of our district school, which at first was established in that lowly log building under the big chestnut upon the Rumblebottom, about fifty rods south of Christy M'Curdy's mill—which tenement is yet to be seen, although in a melancholy state of desolation, the roof thereof having been blown away in the famous hurricane of August, 1836, just two years and ten months after the Removal of the Deposits. This unfortunate event—I mean the blowing off of the roof—it was the mercy of Providence to delay for the term of one year and a fraction of a month after I had removed into the new academy which my former pupil, and now, in lineal succession to his lamented parent the Judge, my second patron, the Hon. Middleton Flam, had procured to be erected for my better accommodation in the Borough of Quodlibet. Had my removal been delayed, or the hurricane have risen thirteen months sooner than it did, who shall tell what mourning it might not have spread through our country side—who shall venture to say that Quodlibet might not have been to-day without a chronicler?

This long inhabiting of mine in these parts has afforded me all desirable opportunities to note the growth of the region, and especially to mark out the beginnings, the progression, and the sudden magnifying of our Borough; and being a man—I speak it not vaingloriously—of an inquiring turn, and strongly gifted, as our people of Quodlibet are pleased to allow, with the perfection of setting down my thoughts in writing; and having that essential requisite of the historian, an ardent and unquenchable love of my subject, it has ever been my custom to put into my tablets whatsoever I have deemed noteworthy in the events and opinions of my day, accompanied by such reflections thereon as my subject might be found to invite. Some of these memorabilia, with discourses pertinent to the same, have I from time to time, distrustfully and with the proper timidity of authorship, ventured to contribute to our newspaper, and thereby has my secret vanity been regaled by seeing myself in print. By what token I have not yet ascertained, but these lucubrations of mine were not long ago discovered to our "Grand Central Committee of Unflinching New-Light Quodlibetarian Democrats," who have been charged with the arduous duty of maintaining the integrity of the party in the present alarming crisis, and of promoting, by all means in their power, the indefeasible, unquestionable, and perpetual right of succession to the Presidential Chair, claimed by and asserted for the candidate of the great, unterrified New Democratic school of patriotic defenders of the spoils. This Central Committee now hold their sessions weekly in Quodlibet—and having discovered my hand in the lucubrations to which I have alluded above, they have been pleased to express a favorable opinion thereon; and, as a sequence thereto, it has occurred to them to fancy that my poor labors being duly given to the compiling of such a history as my tablets might afford of the rise and progress of the New Democratic principle in Quodlibet, the same would greatly redound to the advantage of the cause in the present great struggle. Acting upon this suggestion, the Grand Central Committee have honored me with a request to throw into such shape as I might deem best these scattered records of opinion and chronicles of fact, whereof I was supposed to have a rich magazine.

Readily and cheerfully have I acceded to this request; and with the more relish, as I shall thus be furnished with an authentic occasion to present to the world the many valuable thoughts and eloquent utterings of my late distinguished pupil, and now beneficent patron, the Hon. Middleton Flam, long a representative of this Borough and the adjacent district in the Congress of the United States.

I pretend to no greater merit in this execution of my task than what an impartial spirit of investigation, a long acquaintance with persons of every degree connected with this history, an apt judgment in discriminating between opinions, a most faithful and abundant memory, a careful store of documentary evidence, an unalterable devotion to the great principles of Quodlibetarian Democracy, and, for the expounding of all, a lucid and felicitous style, may allow me to claim as the chronicler of this Borough.

The better to assure you, my friendly reader, that, in temper and condition, I may demand somewhat of the confidence due to the character of a dispassionate commentator on the times, I would have you understand that I am now on the shady side of sixty, unmarried, and in possession of an easy revenue of four hundred dollars per annum, which is voted to me by our commissioners, for instructing in their rudiments thirty-seven children of both sexes; that I have a plate at the table of my patron, the Hon. Middleton Flam, my former pupil, every Sunday at dinner; and that he, being aware for some time past of my purpose to treasure up his remarkable sayings, has, with a generous freedom, often repeated to me many opinions which otherwise would have been irretrievably lost. Moreover, since I am now brought before the public under circumstances in which reserve on my part would be no better than affectation, I would also advertise my indulgent reader of the fact that I belong to the Quodlibetarian New-Light Club, whereof I some time officiated as Secretary, and which club generally meets on Saturday night at Ferret's; that the members of the same, noting my staidness of deportment and the careful deliberation with which I guard myself in the utterance of any discourse, do frequent honor to the temperance of my judgment by making me the arbiter of such casual controversies as arise therein, touching the true import and application of the principles of our New-Light Democracy; and—if I run no risk of being charged with offering a trivial evidence of the reputation I have earned in the club—I would also mention, that some of our light wags have gone so far—facetiously and with a commendable good nature, knowing that I would not take it ill, as more peevish men might, in their jocular pleasantry—as to call me, in allusion to my natural sedateness, Sober Secondthoughts:—the rogues!

And now, amiable and considerate reader, you have "ab imo pectore" my honest avouch for what I propose to lay before you, and a plain confession of my weaknesses. I come with a clean breast to the confessional. We shall have a frugal banquet of it, but the fruits, I make bold to promise, shall be wholesome and of the best. Now turn we to it in good earnest. If this little chronicle—for my book shall not be overgrown and apoplectic, but rather, as you shall find it, "garrulous and thin"—do not bring you to a profound sense of the value of this Amaranth of Republicanism, the New-Light Quodlibetarian Democracy, then say it to my teeth, there is no virtue in Sober Secondthoughts. Go thy ways—"The wise man's eyes are in his head, but the fool walketh in darkness."

S. S., Schoolmaster.