Page:In the dozy hours, and other papers.djvu/218

 204 copies had disappeared from the face of the continent. The book was so exceedingly rare that it must have been a universal favorite for the lighting of household fires. In the end, however, persevering effort was crowned with its inevitable success. "The works of Cornelius Mathews" were unearthed from some dim corner of obscurity, and suffered to see the genial light of day.

They comprise a great deal of prose and a very little verse, all bound up together, after the thrifty fashion of our fathers, in one portly volume, with dull crimson sides, and double columns of distressingly fine print. The "Poems on Man" are but nineteen in number, and were originally published in a separate pamphlet. They are arranged systematically, and are designed to do honor to American citizenship under its most sober and commonplace aspect. The author is in no way discouraged by the grayness of his atmosphere, nor by the unheroic material with which he has to deal. On the contrary, he is at home with farmers, and mechanics, and merchants; and ill at ease with painters and soldiers, to whom it must be confessed he preaches a little