The Virginian

To the Editors of the Virginian.

Gentlemen—As you have published papers which your correspondents have the liberty of filling, you will hear from me whenever I feel a very great degree of dullness and stupidity. I am a solitary individual object, anxious for literary fame; but unfortunately, I am poor and illiterate, and never could learn. Whether this latter circumstance was produced by "mineral poison," poetic phrenzy, or a too great fondness for those things which Heaven in its wrath has made women, I cannot exactly decide; but I think it produced by a compound of all three.

As I have suffered severely from the effects of all these, my case will no doubt be highly interesting to the public. The case of mineral poison under which I labor, is this: One warm sultry summer evening, when the sun was sinking safely, slowly and temperately to the west, we stole through a lovely pine thicket to uncle Tom's water-melon patch. Having gathered two or three watermelons, we made a hasty retreat into a delicious grove of briars and gum-bushes, and sat down on the margin of a beautiful swamp. But here, (how shall I describe our horror and consternation! O that I could write sense in good English, I would tell a tale that would make hearts of marble bleed!) we found our melons all green.

"Deep in despair's unfathomable gulf
We sunk at least a mile!"

As my manner of writing is very desultory, I will draw to a conclusion. Tell Miss Truelove, that as I am very poor, I cordially detest riches, and advise her by all means to make the Carolina trip. I hope she will call on me near Pittsylvania Court House, especially that I may have the irresistible honor of tasting the bride-cake.

OLD PEWTER-BRAIN,
Beotia, Jan. 3.