rhyme of "Uncle Peleg," or "Pillick," as it is pronounced,--probably an
historical ballad concerning some departed worthy of the Folger family of
Nantucket. It begins--

"Old Uncle Pillick he built him a boat
On the ba-a-ck side of Nantucket P'int;
He rolled up his trowsers and set her afloat
From the ba-a-ck side of Nantucket P'int."

Like "Christabel," this remains a fragment. Not so the legend of "Captain
Cottington," (or Coddington,) which perhaps is still traditionally known
to the young gentlemen at Harvard. It is marked by a bold and ingenious
metrical novelty.

"Captain Cottington he went to sea,
Captain Cottington he went to sea,
Captain Cottington he went to sea-e-e,
Captain Cottington he went to sea."

The third verse of the next stanza announces that he didn't go to sea in a
schoo-oo-ooner,--of the next that he went to sea in a bri-i-ig,--and so
on. We learn that he got wrecked on the "Ba-ha-ha-hamys," that he swam
ashore with the papers in his hat, and, I believe, entered his protest at
the nearest "Counsel's" (_Anglicé_. Consul's) dwelling.

For the amateur of genuine ballad verse, here is a field quite as fertile
as that which was reaped by Scott and Ritson amid the border peels and
farmhouses of Liddesdale. It is not unlikely that some treasures may thus
be brought to light. The genuine expression of popular feeling is always
forcible, not seldom poetic. And at any rate, these wild bits of verse are