Phenix Gazette

Thanksgiving Day, is an ever memorable one in the annals of our New England brethren.— We Southerners have nothing like it among our "feasts, fasts, and holidays." The Yankee newspapers, generally, give their readers a homily when the day arrives, to prepare them for its sober enjoyment. A correspondent of the Boston Courier, however, strikes out into a new path, and decks the anniversary with "quips and cranks and wanton wiles." We were much pleased with the perusal of the article, and have no doubt our readers will share our pleasure. Thanksgiving Day in Massachusetts, this year, was on Thursday, the 26th ult.

PROCLAMATION FOR THANKSGIVING.

The man who this day frowns shall lose his head,
Let no face but a face of joy be seen.
That he may have no face to frown withal
Thomas Thumb.

The pathetic exclamation of the ancient British Sovereign (Arthur yclept) on the eve of a general thanksgiving for the triumph of his mighty warrior over countless legions of truculent giants. We are in a situation somewhat similar to that of the rejoicing Monarch; for we have triumphed over giant Time. We have lived to bid "good night! to the season" once more. Cannot but observe that the revelation of the seasons has left us much to be thankful for, albeit we are but a thankless crew, in despite of East winds and politics. This day is almost the sole remnant of the habits of our grandsires, and while it becomes us to rejoice that we yet have it, we must fain remember that like an "upper Benjamin," it is but custom made, and that as we "decline to the vale of years," some not-now-to-be-conceived-of freak of Fashion may send it to keep festival with its cousins german, "the days before the flood," into some "receptacle of things lost upon earth."

When we speak thus in trepidation we refer, of course, to Thanksgiving in New England; where to frown, being to knit the brows, is to labor, and against the statute, and where to be lean is in a fowl a capital offence, deserving death; for that which hath not flesh enough to be killed in the natural way, for mastication, ought to be thrown into the sea with Pharaoh's lean kine. It becomes Yankees to be thankful that this is no apple-toddy or egg-pop festival, the which to keep, is to be waked at day-light, deluged with strong liquors, and mulcted of all ones loose change. It is none-such, as we say of a good apple. Thanksgiving, with us, is not "to sleep as snore," but to break the fast but to keep it broken, that snooge the fuster. Thanksgiving is not only naco. Thanksgiving is to have all juniors at years of discretion, "for this night only," to put up with the multifarious breakings out of what are seldom "still small voices." It is to laugh, without being tickled, to banish regret, bear no malice, think no evil, and use the best carving knife. Thanksgiving is,—in short, it is thanksgiving; and we welcome its return with no acid but cranberry tarts; or as the good dame welcomed her children with unalloyed pleasure, having whipped them, on account, before travelling Smile, all Dollalolla's descendants! It is necessary for us to hint the wherefore? Smile upon trust. Because every man hath two legs, or if a few have but one, the carpenters will have more Cause to be thankful. Because Congress sits but once in a twelve month, at our expense. Because tradesmen trust, and the banks discount, because we have not all failed. Because newspapers procreate faster than fish spawn egg. Because beef is but ninepence the pound. Because no woman hath two tongues. Because pistareens are but sixteen cents, and because every quid pro quo is not a quid of tobacco. And lastly in this small fry, because it is agreeable to the invitation of His Excellency the Governor.

Ye that hold offices, be thankful that ye are not deprived of your salaries, and ye that hold no offices, that ye are not turned into trouble. Rejoice that the nation is happy under the mild and paternal rule of the most eminent of all reformers. that no one can complain of his ignorance, or doubt the decision of his character; that his clemency is as indisputable as his intellectualities; that no man scolds at him for acts done in the mind which he has not, or in his body which is but a shadow, and that "the everlasting fitness of things" has not been outraged by him in the choice of his supernumeraries. Perhaps these latter causes of rejoicing may be considered superfluous by some, but we are not at liberty to abate one jot; for rejoicing without sufficient causes would sit on mankind like a pair of new fangled inexpressibles without waistband buttons.

Among the many absolute blessings we enjoy, and the still greater number which come, as it were, by implication, we must not forget to mention in an especial manner the successful efforts of those who have bent all their tremendous energies, physical and intellectual—immortalizing the name of Foolscap, and making "gone to Pot" an honorable epithet, quailing beneath no abuse, and receiving but little encouragement from this benighted community—to drive out from among us the pestiferous influence of that barbarous despoiler of our theology, ethics, mechanics, and, "above all minor things," our literature, that limping, threadbare, short-eared, long sighted, and (if we may so speak) palpable nonentity, old-fashioned common sense. It has long been "going," like an auctioneer's hammer, and, ere another year, will have departed. If Arthur's spouse wrinkled her queenly visage with a smile, at the fall of giants, what manner of rejoicings will be too uproarious for us, when we hail the ascending star of the deity of our adoption. "Smile!" Shout! A louder yet, and yet a louder strain."
And let it be the last. for, under the new order, men shall be born without these useless heads, captious may "have no face to frown withal," that, in the true spirit of Arthur's order, even Happy era! when the whole feminine gender shall be transformed into Genevieves and Delilahs, and all the heroines by birth, or as Dogberry learned to read and write, "by nature." "Good people all, of every sort," cast your thoughts to that time when Thanksgiving pre-ambles, at least those longer than Gilpin's ride, shall be among the things "Unwritten."

Per order.
THANKFUL HOBBY,
Squire To The Table.