Minister to me. But when wearily The mind gives over toiling, and, with eyes A CHARCOAL SKETCH OF POT PIE PALMER. BY EDWARD SANFORD. THE poets have told us that it is of little use to be a great man, without possessing also a chronicler of one's greatness. Brave and wise men-perhaps the bravest and wisest that ever lived-have died and been forgotten, and all for the want of a poet or an historian to immortalize their valor or their wisdom. Immortality is not to be gained by the might of one man alone. Though its claimant be strong and terrible as an army with banners, he can never succeed without a trumpeter. He may embody a thousand minds; he may have the strength of a thousand arms-his enemies may quail before him as the degenerate Italians quailed before the ruthless sabaoth of the north; but without a chronicler of his deeds, he will pass by, like the rush of a whirlwind, with none to tell whence he cometh, or whither he goeth. A great man should always keep a literary friend in pay, for he may be assured that his greatness will never be so firmly established as to sustain itself without a prop. Achilles had his poet; and the anger of the nereid-born, and Styxdipped hero is as savage and bitter at this late day, as if he had just poured forth the vials of his wrath. The favorite son of the queen of love, albeit a pious and exemplary man, and free from most of the weaknesses of his erring but charming mother, might have travelled more than the wandering jew, and, without the aid of a poet, the course of his voyage would now be as little known as the journal of a modern tourist, six months from the day of its publication. The fates decreed him a bard, and the world is not only intimate with every step of his wayfaring, but for hundreds of years it has been puzzling itself to discover his starting-place. There has lived but one man who has disdained the assistance of his fellow-mortals, and finished with his pen what he began with his sword. We refer to the author of Cæsar's Commentaries, the most accomplished gentleman, take him for all in all, that the world ever saw. Let us descend for a step or two in the scale of greatness, and see whence the lesser lights of immortality have derived their lustre. The Cretan Icarus took upon himself the office of a fowl, and was drowned for all his wings, yet floats in the flights of song, while the names of a thousand wiser and better men of his day passed away before their bodies had scarcely rotted. A poorer devil than the late Samuel Patch never cumbered this fair earth; but he is already embalmed in verse, and by one whose name cannot soon die. A cunning pen has engrossed the record of his deeds, and perfected his judgment-roll of fame. He is a co-heir in glory with the boy of Crete the one flew, and the other leaped, into immortality. There is one name connected with the annals of our city, which should be snatched from oblivion. Would that a strong hand could be found to grasp it, for it is a feeble clutch that now seeks to drag it by the locks from the deep forgetfulness in which it is fast sinking. Scarcely ten years have passed, since the last bell of the last of the bellmen was rung, since the last joke of the joke-master general of our goodly metropolis was uttered, since the last song of our greatest street-minstrel was sung, and the last laugh of the very soul of laughter was pealed forth. Scarcely ten years have passed, and the public recollection of the man who made more noise in the world than any other of his time, is already dim and shadowy and unsubstantial. A brief notice of this extraordinary man has found admittance into the ephemeral columns of a newspaper. We will endeavor to enter his immortality of record in a place where future ages will be more likely to find it. As Doctor Johnson would have said, "of Pot Pie Palmer, let us indulge the pleasing reminiscence." The character of Pot Pie Palmer was a kindly mingling of the elements of good-nature, gentleness of spirit, quickness and delicacy of perception, an intuitive knowledge of mankind, and an ambition, strange and peculiar in its aspirations, but boundless. There were sundry odd veins and streaks, VOL. II. 22 which ran through and wrinkled this goodly compound, in the shape of quips and quirks and quiddities, which crossed each other at such strange angles, and turned round such short corners, that few were able to analyze the moral anatomy of the man. It is not strange then, that his character should have been generally misunderstood. He was a jester by profession, but he was no mime. Unlike a clown at a country fair, who grins for half-pence, he asked no compensation for his services in the cause of public mirth. He was a volunteer in the business of making men merry, for it was no part of his calling to put the world in good humor, and it has never been hinted that he received a shilling from the corporation for his extra services in the cause of happiness and contentment. He might have been as serious as his own cart-horse, without the slightest risk of losing his place. If he had preserved a becoming gravity, he might have aspired to a higher office than that of the chief of the corporation scavengers; for a long face has ever been a passport to preferment. But he disdained to leave his humble calling as long as he was sure he could remain at its head. He knew full well that there were few who could chime with him, and he would play second to no man's music. He was mirthful, partly from a spirit of philanthropy, and partly because he was so filled with gleeful and fantastic associations, that they overflowed in spite of him. He was not merely a passive instrument that required the cunning touch of |