Philip, His Hand-Book [pp. 153-154]

VMANITY FAIR.
PHILP, HIS HAND-BOOK.
N many branches of
Literature we would
.$!1D~ y / A! -as liefread our own
__ l huh l X R \ authors, as those of
any other country.
,j ~ ~ < ^t/, ~ DIn History have
we not BANCROFT,
(who writes for It,)
and the immortal
PREScoTT, whose tal,/~ ~~~/j Em~ ~ A d ented daughter,Miss
;~ NJ-~ |HARRIET E. PRES COTT, is now contri buating a story to our
grave contemporary,
emiC'~~~~ D~ ~the Ancient Nicholas,
~~ ~' —' _ ~~ vulgarly, Old Knick!
-._A(We prefer her story
, < -- <;)J'~~~~~ A Lto history.) In Poe try, have we not
JR~~~~~ i Lo =BRYANT, who edits
the Evening Post,
with GoDwIN, the
father of Mrs. SHELLEY, and is known to scholars by his work on
Ancient Mythology, (" A New System or Analysis of Ancient Mythology." London: 1774-76, 8 vols. 4 to.;)and LONGF.LLOW, whose
Song of HIAWATHA is a specimen of his handicraft. (to say nothing of Schoolcraft, from whom it was taken,) and MORRis, whose
song-spared tree will never become a back-log on the hearth of
Oblivion!
In Fiction, does not our COOPER head off the great novelists of
England? Have we not a SImMS, (alas, no, for he is now a citizen
of the S. C., unhappy SImSs!) the author of "The Tower House"
in the moral World. ("Good EAVENS!" said V. F. when he tried
to read it!)-and last, not least, the sweetest of the sylvan race,
bYLYANUS?
We might go through the whole department of letters and find
no deficiency, (of course we do not mean the Post-office, for we
still remember FOWLItER!) certainly none worth mentioning, except
in Hand-books, a branch of writing in which our authors must
bow to their English brethren. They are not handy at Handy
books, to adopt, for this time only, the phraseology of my Lord
ST. LEONARDS.
Go where you will on the Continent; in Paris, to which all
good Americans go, before or after death; at Baden, where all the
Bad'uns congre ate, and make their little game; up the romantic,
memory-haunted Rhine, (we stifle here a joke on the Rhino!)
among the frozen sublimities of the Alps, where FREDRICA BREMER
eats Vanilla ices; in Italy, the home of the arts, the land of song,
(to say nothing of organ-grinders and plaster-image makers!) anywhere and everywhere in Europe, you will find the Hand-books of
MURRAY, which, like their covers, are always Read. JOHN MURRAY,
thou art as great a benefactor as thy father, LINDLEY MURRAY,
whose accidence, happily not yet obsolete, (when are accidents out
of date?) was at the bottom of our juvenile studies.
We have no MURRAY in America, but we have a PHILP!
"A PHILP-pray what is that?"
Reader of V. F. did you never hear the anecdote of the rural
gentleman, who, on seeing a show-bill of a lecture in his neighborhood, (perhaps it was one of BAYARD TAYLOR'S,)" The Age of
PERICLES," asked, "What are Pericles?" You have, and you remember that no one answered him, not even Echo, who is always
so polite on these occasions. V. F. will be more communicative,
and tell you what a PHILP is, or rather what the PHILP is, for he
believes the phenomenon in question to be a cousin of the mysterious PHNIX, who was his own father and mother, and brother
and sister, and any amount of uncles and aunts-in short his whole
family,and who rose from his ashes,(pot or pearl,not stated,) exclaiming "Death's a Lie! Life's Hope!" PHILP is a bookseller of Washington, the Senior member of the firm of PHILP & SOLOMON, (it was
wise of PHILP to take SOLOMON into the concern!) and the getter-up
of a Hand-book, with a sanguinary cover, and a stamp of the
Capitol in gold, (we hope PHILP'S capital is in gold!)-" PHILP'S
Washington Described."
PHIL,P describes Washington in full, beginning with its Geography and Natural History, and ending with its "places of interest" near the seat of Government. (We expected to find the
Banking House of RIoos & Co among the "places of interest," but
did not. How is this, PHILP?) We shall not follow the learned
topographer through the classic scenes of the Federal Capitol, but
confine ourselves to a few remarks, amplifications, corrections, etc.,
on his first chapter.
PHILP begins his account, (after a page or two of geographical
and historical matter of no account,) by describing what takes
most people to Washington-its rocks. It is underlaid, he tells us,
with gneiss rocks, the trend of which is east and west. There is
no doubt but that the rocks of Washington are nice, but PHILP is
mistaken in their trending to the East or West; they have always
trended to the South! If any one doubts this, let him recall the
career of the great COBB, (not SYLVANUS, but HOWELL,) the late
chief of the Geological Bureau; or that of FLOYD, and his fellow traitors, (FLoYD'S guilt, however, is a mere abstraction;) or
let him read the Post-office Reports, a work of great interest to
men of J,"'ers, (will the Charleston Mercury inform V. F. of the
yearly aunt'6of the postal deficiency of South Carolina?) and he
will seedt&hat the direction of the Rocks of Washington is unmistakably tovards the South.
Contining PHILP'S disquisition, we turn the leaf, and skippirng a
Map of the D. of C., which, by the way, resembles a large ace of
demonds on a very small card, we find this:siingular paragraph:
"so0onnsiderable borings in the way of Aitesian Wells have been
made. " I:True, PHILP, but the borings in oth'er ways are incalculable, chiefly in and about the Capitol. (We suppress a joke here on
Capital Boring!) A great deal of this boring is done in the Senate
daily, and where it will end Providence only knows. The great
bore at present is Secession, and it augurs ill for the country. Artesian,wells!-they bore for something better in Washington. Senators and Congressmen for glory, which means the praise of the
Herald and:the abuse of the Tribune, ori, vice versa; a serenade at
Willard's, afid a public dinner at Phcenixville, and, looming richly
in the future, another term-in short Buncombe; (mnysterious
divinity, we adore thee!) The Lobby bores for,Ju.tice (iat Justitia, Ruat Ccelum,) soldiers' pensions, widows' claims, French spoilations-in short Cash! Wells, forsooth! We suspect, PHILP,
that you were bribed to insert that by the Lobby, for no one outside of it, would ever think of saying, "It is Well!"
PHILP devotes a page ind a half to the water of Washington, a
subject which he had better have omitted, since it is of no earthly
consequence to anybody. Water is a respectable Institution, and,
as has been remarked before, (we believe by NOAH,) "an excellent
thing for the purposes of navigation," but it is seldom thought of
in Washington, and scarcely ever seen there, except in the company of brandy, or whisky, or some other equally potent liquid.
The citizens of Washington have never shown much sympathy for
water, especially since the great poisoning at Willard's, the victims
of which are said to have been water-drinkers! The favorite beverage, under BUCHANAN'S administration, was Old Rye; and it redounds to the credit of J. B., that, false as he was to friends and
foes alike, he was true to Old Rye to the last! We may mention
en passant, that about fifteen years ago several citizens of Washington were banished for persisting in the folly of water-drinking.
They revenged themselves by preaching a coId-water crusade in
the North, and induced many to join their ranks. These persons,
whose apostacy from the drinks of their fathers was happily a short
one, impudently called themselves Washingtonians!
PHILP has a list, or rather a table, of the marketable fish of
Washington. among which we find suckers and pike. Pike are almost unknown there-we are assured by those who know-only
one specimen, and that a very odd fish, having been seen in years.
We refer to ALBERT PIKE, the poet. Of the abundance of Suckers
there can be no doubt I
PHILP is learned in Zoology. He tells us that it is not probable
that buffalo ever lived in that region; (V. W. saw BUFFALO BILL
there a few years ago;) that deer, here he rhymeth, that deer are
not rare in the old Ten Mile Square; (V. F., who, like Sir ANDREW
AGUECHEEK, was "adored once," used to have a Dear there;) and
that otter are even now to be met with.
PHILP mentions six species of bats, but he fails to state their dimensions. We can enlighten him a little on that point. They
are large enough to hold a man! Indeed, we have seen several
men on a Bat in Washington, for a week at a time!
Of rats and mice, and "such small deer," there are thirtyseven species (all of which may be found at Willard's); adding
to this number five species which are now extinct, we have fortytwo in all. It tries one's Fortitude to think of it!
Among the birds mentioned by PHILP, are the cardinal grosbeak,
(a Catholic bird, we presume,) the celebrated mocking-bird, and
Henslow's Bunting. We are ignorant what is meant by the latter.
We of the North only know of one Bunting-Uncle Sam's-(long
may it wave!) which has fallen into disfavor at the South.
Indeed, so much do our fire-eating countrymen dislike it, that
they are determined to abolish it altogether. They intend to begin
at the beginning, for we have it on the best authority, (the Charleston Mercury,) that a noted Southern poet, who, in this instance, at
least, is not Sound on the Goose, is about to revise the Maternal
Anserine Melodies of our childhood, particularly the famous lul
MARCH 30, 1861.1
153