JAMES GLOVER BALDWIN
Baldwin s "Flush Times in Alabama and Mississippi," from which this selection is taken, is a volume of humorous sketches drawn from the writer s experiences in the " Shinplaster Era " a time when in the recently opened Southwest business flourished upon the fictitious basis of universal credit and indefinite extension. Of these " flush times " Baldwin was himself a part, and he gives a very vivid interpre tation of it.
OVID BOLUS, ESQ. (PAGE 176)
This extract from the sketch with the same title presents very meagerly a piece of humor held by some to equal Mark Twain at his best. Prince Hal . . . Falstaff: characters in Shakespeare s "King Henry IV." belles-lettres: polite or elegant literature. nati consumer e fruges: born to consume the fruits of the earth. D Orsay: a leader of society in Paris and London in the early nineteenth century. manage: horsemanship. Murat: a celebrated cavalry leader in Napoleon s army. How THE FLUSH TIMES SERVED THE VIRGINIANS (PAGE 180) This extract forms a portion of the sketch entitled " How the Times served the Virginians. Virginians in a New Country. The Rise, Decline, and Fall of the Rag Empire " as brilliant a piece of social character ization as can be found anywhere. verdant Moses: the reference is to an episode in Goldsmith s "The Vicar of Wakefield," chap. xii. resolutions of 98: a set of resolu tions drafted by Madison which were passed by the Virginia legislature as a protest against the extension of the powers of the federal govern ment at the expense of the states, as a result of the liberal interpreta tion the Federalists were placing upon the Constitution, and in particular by the enactment of the Alien and Sedition Acts. Martha: one of the characters in Scott s "The Fortunes of Nigel." She was the daughter of old Trapbois, a miser and usurer. saws of Poor Richard: maxims of prudence and thrift contained in Benjamin Franklin s "Poor Richard s Almanac." Webster: Daniel Webster, the American ora tor. University: the University of Virginia. Greene: a county in Alabama.
