Johnsonian Address
.“Let observation with extensive view
“Survey mankind from China to Peru”—
(And whence—permit me in parenthesis
To ask—on such historic night as this
Could one more fitly, seasonably, quote
Than from some page that Samuel Johnson wrote,
Our Godsire, in the honoured name of whom
This feast we spread, this temple we illume,
These long church wardens we)—but to resume—
“Let observation with extensive view
“Survey mankind from China to Peru,”
And judgment following observation try
Those countless multitudes to classify.
Camper, and Blumenbach, and Cuvier too,
Surveyed mankind from China to Peru,
And many a savant of more modern fame
With the same end in view has done the same
Seeking some formula that should embrace
The thousandfold divisions of the race—
And yet the theme grows more and more occult,
For each presents a different result.
Let us essay the task.—Imprimis, quit
Their uncouth jargon that but darkens wit.
What least pretence of light can mortal see
In “Dioscurian Mongolidae?”
What help in “Xanthochroic” can be found?
Is “Hyperborean Samoeid” aught but sound?
“Dolichocephalic” 's a wild guffaw,
“Orthognathous” and “Prognathous”—mere jaw.
Not ours to come to grief upon the rocks
Of groups and families and unplaced stocks,
Branches, varieties and sub-varieties
That only swell their total of dubieties—
But, as of old the Gentile and the Jew
Made up the whole world in the Hebrew view,
So we (to-night at least) will hold it true
That all mankind divides itself in two—
Two classes only form the race of man—
JOHN-SO-NI-AN and NON-JOHN-SO-NI-AN.
And we, the Hebrews of this later day—
“The Chosen People,” one might fitlier say—
We, too, have wandered in the wilderness
For many a year without a fixed address—
(I do not say “the Wilderness of Sin;”
The cases are sufficiently akin
Without that detail being counted in)—
We, too, from shifting stage to shifting stage
[...] Read more
poem by James Brunton Stephens
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