16 and partiality in favor of an officer of our own Commonwealth. This is fearful odds against Putnam; but, in his long warfare for his country, he came off triumphant in many a desperate conflict while living ; and his hard-earned reputation may suffice to gain him one victory more, though he is dead. In the fable of the lion painted by man, the lion complains that man is the painter instead of himself. Putnam, the lion of Connecticut, might well complain that we men of Massachusetts are drawing a picture of him in Bunker Hill Battle. But happily for the moral of that fable, three other lions of Connecticut, Stiles, Dwight, and Whitney, have done the same; and their picture of him is much more life-like than Frothinsffiam’s. o We are delighted to discover, at last, something amusing in one of the author’s mistakes, to relieve this dry and dolorous discussion. He says, Putnam had the command of a regiment, because he was complimented with the empty title of colonel of a particular regiment, or rather the regiment was complimented by bearing the name of the nominal colonel according to the etiquette and fashion of that day. But this gave the nominal colonel no more right of command over it, than my signing myself the author’s humble servant gives him a right to call on me for menial service. The regiment, in these cases, had a full compliment of officers in command, exclusive of the nominal colonel. The King of Prussia paid the same compliment to the King of France, by making him a colonel of one of his regiments ; and even the Virgin Mary was appointed by Louis XI. the colonel of a regiment. We are at a loss to account for the author’s hallucination: perhaps, being an antiquarian, he has adopted the odd notion of our ancestors, that some men are born for perdition, whose good deeds are filthy rags, and all efforts to save them useless ; in fact, that Putnam was one of those culprits described in our common-law code as outlaws, who wear wolves’ heads, “ caput hipinum” and whose brains it is the duty of every one to beat out. He seems to imagine, that the head of the wolf Putnam slew in the cavern may by
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