Rhode Island American, Statesman And Providence Gazette

IDENTITY OF THE PROVIDENCE PATRIOT.— The Editor of the Patriot is in really a melancholy condition, and has positively lost his own identity. He has given so many liveries to the political children of his brain, that he can no longer recognize them. Yesterday he cruelly drove from him a bantling, but just eight months and twenty-three days old, and was ready to take his bible oath, twas none of his offspring, but belonged to the household of the Journal. The poor little thing came back to us, in the greatest distress at this unfatherly treatment, and we have furnished it with credentials fully to establish its parentage. How it will now fare among the strange brood of little Jacksonians it will have to encounter in the paternal mansion, is matter of serious apprehension. An attempt was made by its infatuated father, yesterday morning, to strangle it, the moment he laid his hands on it. If he persists in this outrageous conduct, he must be put under bonds, or infanticide will be the consequence.

We do not wonder that the Editor of the Patriot has forgotten his own productions and himself. A constant whirling round, produces dizziness and confuses the faculties. Many an honest Paddy has been led to doubt his identity by having his coat turned, without exactly knowing how it was done. There is a beautiful classical illustration, directly in point, from Mother Goose's Melodies, which we cannot forbear quoting. It relates the history of a little, old woman going to market to sell her eggs, and as she was solely intent on securing customers, the parallel between her and our neighbor is still more striking. On the way she fell asleep. and upon waking found that the cut of her garments had been materially altered by a mischievous pedlar, of the name of "Stout," a figurative personification of the "Strongest side" a fellow who has made similar derangements in the political exterior of our neighbor. After a metaphysical soliloquy upon the question of identity, the old lady resolved to settle the matter by the following ingenious device, the result of which however, we fear will form another parallel between this ancient case and the modern one under consideration:

If this be I as I do hope it be,
I have a little dog at home and he knows me.
If I be I, he'll wag his little tail,
If I be not I he'll bark and wail.

When this little woman went home in the dark,
Up starts the little dog, and he began to bark,
He began to bark and she began to cry,
Goodness, mercy on me, There I said twas none of I.

MOTHER GOOSE.