AN ODE TO SIMEON DE WITT, ESQ.,
SURVEYOR-GENERAL OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK.
When the Western District was surveyed, the power of naming its townships was intrusted to the Surveyor-General. Fancying the Indian appellations too sonorous and poetical, and conscious that his own ear was not altogether adapted for the musical combination of syllables, this gentle man hit upon a plan which for laughable absurdity has never been paralleled, except by the “Philosophy,” “Philanthropy,” and “Big Little Dry” system of Lewis and Clarke. It was no other than selecting from Lemprière and the “British Plutarch,” the great names which those works commemorate. This plan he executed with the most ridiculous fidelity, and reared for himself an everlasting monument of pedantry and folly.
f, on the deathless page of Fame,
The warrior’s deeds are writ,
If that bright record bear the name
Of each whose hallowed brow might claim
The wreath of wisdom or of wit;
If even they, whose cash and care
Have nursed the infant arts, be there,
What place remains for thee,
Who, neither warrior, bard, nor sage,
Has poured on this benighted age
The blended light of all the three?
Godfather of the christened West!
Thy wonder-working power
