A Satire on the Times. By ROBERT B. JOSSELYN. St. Louis: Southwestern Book and Publishing Co. 1873.

A very entertaining pamphlet, being sometimes highly ludicrous at places where "the laugh" was hardly intended to "come in" by the author. It is written from the antediluvian-proslavery point of view. Unparalleled and impossible virtues are invented for the past, and every exceptional case of transgression in modern times dragged into comparison with a shadowy ideal of Mr. Josselyn's own; when this portion of his stock in trade has become exhausted, he resorts to calling good things by bad names, which does quite as well. Strengthened by these advantages, he has succeeded, within the narrow compass of some seven hundred lines, in knocking modern society quite out of time. Any praise of ours must sound feeble after the tribute of one Albert T. Bledsoe, LL. D. and editor of the Southern Review, who has discovered that "the tremendous lash of satire" was not applied "with a more vigorous hand, or with a juster discrimination," by Juvenal, than by our author.

Among the gems of purest lustre to be found in this sparkling brochure, we may quote his playful allusion to the Reverend Theodore Parker as a "spawn of hell"; his tribute to our honored chief-magistrate, -

"The cloud-compelling deity who rules

His piebald worshippers of knaves and fools," -

which is by no means complimentary to the Great American People. How painful, also, to hear that

"Sumner, imbecile for all but evil,

Now plays the puritan and now the devil."

After politics, the Southwestern bard proceeds to solve what is known as "the woman question"; he strongly disapproves of those ladies

"Who travel loosely round and make stump speeches,

Rending the air with your infernal screeches,

Or write flash articles for trashy papers

Defensive of free-love and Cupid's capers;

Who scale the pulpit and the courts of law,

And threaten both with an eternal jaw.

Is not 'confusion worse confounded' made

A hotter hell created by your aid."

His parting advice to them is expressed in terse and vigorous English: -

"O Susan, Anna, Lizzy, Abby, all

Ye lecturers and writers, great and small,

Put on your petticoats and cease to bawl;

Abjure the rostrum, lay aside the pen,

Strive to be women, for you can't be men.

It is impossible, without transgressing our limits, to do justice to the endless variety of good things afforded by our author. There is something noble, however, in Mr. Josselyn, which excites our regard for his "chivalry" (a word which he uses with affection and frequency). Although he proves incontestably that "the newrigged Ship of State" is pursuing

"A hellward course with telegraphic speed,"

yet in his closing lines he proposes to stick by her to the bitter end. We can wish the gentleman nothing better than to live to witness the calamities and retributions he prophesies (fire and brimstone being among the least of these), because in that case he would be likely to attain to an exceedingly verdant old age.