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In 1885, New Jersey Senator James M.

Scovel published a puff piece, Walt Whitman at Camden, under Whitmans own pseudonym George Selwyn, in The Critic. In that context, the following 1873 satire is very interesting, because it quotes Scovel as claiming that his private manhood springs eternal in the human heart. The likeness to Whitmans Calamus poems is positively uncanny.

Mitchell Santine Gould, curator, LeavesOfGrass.Org --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Mr. Scovels Manhood. New York Times (1857-1922); Apr 19,1873, 6. A week or two since, Mr. JAMES M. SCOVEL engaged in a little argument with two New-Jersey Assemblymen in the lobby of the House. One of these Assemblymen, Mr. COLE, was speedily punched into a sense of the error of his ways by the convincing fist of SCOVEL, but his colleague, Mr. CARSE, who subsequently took part in the discussion, is reported to have thrown SCOVEL down, and from the safe position of a seat upon his opponents stomach, to have continued the debate until SCOVEL was ready to modify his original views of the easy malleability of all New-Jersey Assemblymen. And now comes Mr. SCOVEL with a letter, in his own defense, which is published in another column, from which it appears that he regards THE TIMES account of the matter as an injustice to himself. In what this fancied injustice consists it is not easy to perceive. Mr. SCOVEL does not deny that he pummeled COLE, or that he was subsequently sat upon and pummeled at much length by CARSE. He merely claims that he did not begin either fight, and that he is one of the most peaceable of men. By education and inclination, remarks Mr. SCOVEL, I am a Presbyterian, fed on the Shorter Catechism, and early learned in the ten commandments. Has any one asserted the contrary? THE TIMES, at all events, has not cast any suspicion upon the soundness of his Presbyterianism, by charging him with having fought Mr. COLE with Methodist enthusiasm, or with having received the blows of Mr. CARSE with Unitarian coolness. That the Shorter Catechism, contains rules for the regulation of rough-and-tumble fightsas Mr. SCOVEL seems to implywe were not

previously aware, but nevertheless THE TIMES has not alleged that those rules, or the rules of the modern prize-ring, were in any way violated by Mr. SCOVEL. That gentleman has needlessly permitted himself to feel aggrieved at a simple and unprejudiced statement of facts. There is no danger that the public will do him injustice if it be true, as he asserts, that his private manhood springs eternal in the human heart. It is true that this phenomenon has not hitherto been generally known. At all events, few persons outside of New-Jersey have felt Mr. SCOVEL's personal manhood perpetually springing in their individual hearts. It would be rash, however, to make any positive assertions as to the condition of the average New-Jersey heart. Very probably Mr. SCOVELs manhood does conduct itself in the singular manner mentioned by him, so far as the hearts of his fellow Jersey men are concerned; and if so, he may be sure that no suspicions of his want of faith in Presbyterian doctrines, or of his lack of education in all the mysteries of the Shorter Catechism, will find place in hearts so curiously tenanted.

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