SUCCESSFUL LOVE-VERSE MAKERS 111 fair sex-Cupid sneers at them-Venus jeers-and Hymen weeps, like a crocodile, with his hands in his breeches pockets. Shepherd. Haw! haw! haw! North. Breathe the tender passion as they may, not a young lady in the land who would not prefer to the best of them, any undeformed ensign in a marching regiment, either of the foot or the dragoons. Shepherd. The sex has been aye desperate fond o' the army. North. It is fortunate for some of the old bards that they have wives. Crabbe, Bowles, Wordsworth, Southey, Moore, and others-fourscore-threescore-and-ten-and threescore― have long been happily provided with that leading article. So are Milman and Barry Cornwall, and most of "the rest between forty and fifty; two or three are widowers—and the remainder likely to remain bachelors for life. Not a female bosom beats, with a pulsation worthy the name of beating, at this moment, for any British bard. Shepherd. I'm no sae sure o' that, sir. But prate awa. North. The sex regard all the bachelors as so many old foggies-as so many uncles; and the idea would be too much for the gravity of any of the dear creatures, of the celebration of her marriage rites with the prettiest and most popular poet, seeing that he is aged, either by a bishop or a blacksmith. Shepherd. Prate awa, sir-prate awa. North. The truth is, that, in modern times at least, poets, whatever their time of life, have been held rather cheap by the fair sex. I suspect it was the same in the ancient worldand in the days of chivalry and romance, singing certainly was less esteemed by young ladies than fighting, and a poet with his pen had no chance whatever against a knight with his lance. Shepherd. Prate awa, sir-prate awa. North. There are reasons for all this lying deep in human nature. Shepherd. Lying deep in human nature! Doun wi' the bucket, and then roun' wi' the windlass, and up wi't again fu' o' the clear waters frae the well o' truth. North. Making love, and making love-verses, are two of the most different things in the world; and I doubt if both accomplishments were ever found highly united in the same gifted individual. Few Irishmen, in the first, excel Tom Moore; in 1 Foggie-properly an invalid soldier; generally, a drone. 112 ARE SELDOM SUCCESSFUL LOVE-MAKERS. the second, millions. Lord Byron, in lyrical measures, was a formidable wooer; but in plain matter-of-fact courtship, he had to stoop his anointed head to Corporal Casey. Shepherd. Wha was he? North. Apollo himself, god though he was of light, and music, and medicine, setting aside two or three trivial amours, was a harmless sort of a body; while there were other deities who could not have tagged together two rhymes, before whom goddesses and nymphs fell flat as flounders. Shepherd. Prate awa, sir-prate awa. North. Inspiration, in short, is of little avail either to gods or men in the most interesting affairs of life-those of the heart. To push your way in them, there is nothing, in the long-run, like good plain prose. Now, though it must be granted that, in much that passes for poetry, there is no inconsiderable mixture of that useful commodity, yet it is so diluted as no longer to be strong drink; and repeated doses of it administered to a maiden in the shade, fail to produce the desired effect-the intoxication of love. The pretty dear seems to sip the philtre kindly; and the poet doubts not that she is about to fall into his arms. But she merely "Kisses the cup, and passes it to the rest," and next morning, perhaps, is off before breakfast in a chaiseand-four to Gretna Green, with an aide-de-camp of Wellington, as destitute of imagination as his master. Shepherd. Prate awa, sir-prate awa. North. If such have been often the fate even of young bards —and Sir Walter, with his usual knowledge of human nature, has charmingly illustrated it in the story of Wilford'—how much more to be pitied must they be, who have served the Muses, till the crow-feet are blackening below their eyes, and who are labouring under symptoms, not to be concealed, of incipient pot-bellies! Shepherd. Let's return to the smashin o' Mister Muir. North. There is no need to knock the nail on the head any longer with our sledge-hammers, James. Yet I cannot help expressing my wonder at the confusion of Mr Moore's ideas, as well as at the weakness of his argument. He wishes to prove, that "men of the higher order of genius" are seldom 1 See Scott's Rokeby. MORE SMASHING OF MR MOORE. 113 good domestic characters; and yet he huddles and jumbles them all together,-poets, philosophers, and so forth,-making his reasoning the most miscellaneous and heterogeneous hotch-potch that ever was set down on a table. Shepherd. Are you dune wi' cuttin him up, or only gaun to begin? North. I am somewhere about the middle, James. Shepherd. Ony mair bear-paws in the house, think ye, sir? North. To prove that men of the higher order of geniusno matter what kind-are unfitted for the calm affections and comforts that form the cement of domestic life, Mr Moore observes, that "one of the chief causes of sympathy and society between ordinary mortals being their dependence on each other's intellectual resources, the operation of this social principle must naturally be weakened in those whose own mental stores are most abundant and self-sufficing, and who, rich in such materials for thinking within themselves, are rendered so far independent of the external world.” Shepherd. Would you repeat that again, sir, for it soun's sae sonorous, that the words droon the ideas? 'Tis like the murmur o' a bit waterfa', or a hive o' bees, which the indolent mind loves to listen to, and at times amaist deludes itsel intil the belief that there's a meanin in the murmur-as if the stream soleeloqueezed and the insects deealogueezed wisdom in the desert. Would you repeat that again, sir? North. Be shot if I do. Why, James, all that is Shepherd. Drivel. Dungeons o' learning there are—leevin dungeons o' dead learning-in wham the operation o' the social principle is weak indeed-less than the life that's in a mussel. The servant lass has to gang in upon him in his study, and rug him aff his chair by the cuff o' the neck, when the kail's on the table, and the family hae gien the first preliminary flourish o' the horn-spoons. North. Picture drawn from the life. Shepherd. Aiblins. But "men o' the higher order o' genius," sir, I mainteen, are in general impatient o' solitude, though dearly do they love it; and sae far frae their mental stores being abundant and self-sufficing, why, the mair abundant they are, the less are they self-sufficing; for the owners, "rich in such materials for thinking within themsels," would think and feel that they were in a worse condition than that VOL. III. H 114 THE CENTRAL SHRINE OF GENIUS. o' the maist abjeck poverty and powperism, gin they werena driven by a sense and an instinck, fierce and furious aften as a fivver, to pour their pearls, and their jewels, and their diamonds, and their gold and silver, out in great glitterin heaps afore the astonished, startled, and dazed een o' their fellowcreatures less prodigally endowed by nature, and then wi' a strange mixture o' pride and humbleness, to mark the sudden effeck on the gazers,-inwardly exclaiming, "I did it !” North. Did what? Shepherd. Why, by inspiring them with a sense of beauty, elevated their haill moral and intellectual being, and enabled their fellow-creatures to see farther into their ain hearts, and into the heart o' the haill creation! North. Good, James, good. But to pitch our conversation on a lower key, allow me to say, that "thinking within themselves," when too long pursued, is of all employments the most wearisome and barren to which men can have recourse—and that " 'men of the higher order of genius," knowing that well, so far from feeling that they "are independent of the external world," draw thence their daily bread, and their daily water, without which their souls would speedily perish of inanition. Shepherd. Ca' ye that pitchin your talk on a laigh key? It's at the tap o' the gawmut. North. The materials for thinking within ourselves are gathered from without; in the gathering, we have enjoyed all varieties of delight; and is it to be thought that the gardens where these flowers grew, and still are growing, are to be forsaken by us, after we have, during a certain number of seasons, culled garlands wherewith to adorn our foreheads, or plucked fruit wherewith to sustain and refresh our souls? Shepherd. Ca' ye that pitchin your talk on a laigh key, sir? It's at the tap o' the gawmut. North. No, James-Men of the higher order of genius never long forsake the Life-Region, and is not its great Central Shrine, James, the Hearth? The soul that worships not there, my dear Shepherd-and true worship cannot be unfrequent, but is perennial, because from a source that the dews of heaven will not let run dry-will falter, fail, and faint in the midst of its song, and will know, ere that truth invades, one after another, its many chambers, that the wing that soareth highest in the sun must have slowly waxed in the shade THE DOMESTIC SQUALLS OF GENIUS. 115 Shepherd. Ca' ye that pitchin your talk on a laigh key? It's at the tap o' the gawmut. North. That the Bird of Jove, sun-starer and cloud-cleaver though he be Shepherd. Storm-lover North. Glorying in the storm, and enamoured of the tempest Shepherd. Yet is happy to sink doun frae heaven, and fauld up his magnificent wings at the edge o' his eyry, fond o' the twa unfledged cannibals sleepin wi' fu' stammacks there, cosy in the middle o' a mighty nest, twenty feet in circumference, and covering the haill platform o' the tap o' the cliff, ay, as fond, sir, though I alloo a hantle fiercer, as ony cushie-doo on her slight and slender "procreant cradle," you can see through't, ye ken, sir, frae below, and discern whether she hae eggs or young anes,-in the green gloom o' some auld pine central in the forest. North. Yes, James, all great poets are great talkers Shepherd. Tiresome aften to a degree-though sometimes, I grant to Mr Muir, that they are a sulky set, and as gruffly and grimly silent as if they had the toothache, or something the matter wi' their inside. Far be it frae me to deny, that "men o' the higher order o' genius" are aften disagreeable deevils. They maun aften be a sair fash1 to their wives and their weans—and calm as the poet's cottage looks, upon the hill or in the dell, mony a rippet2 is there, sir, beyond the power o' the imagination o' ony mere proser to conceive. Ou ay, sir! mony a fearfu' rippet, in which, whether appellant or respondent, defender or pursuer, the "man o' the higher order o' genius" wishes, wi' tears in the red een o' him, no that his wife and weans were a' dead and buried-for nae provocation in their power can drive the distrackit fallow to that but that he himsel had never been kittled, or, if kittled, instead o' ha'in been laid in the cradle by Apollo, and tended on by the Muses-nine nurses, and nae less-which o' them wat and which o' them dry it's no easy for me at this distance o' time to remember-he had been sookled like ither honest men's bairns, at the breist o' his nain3 mither, had shown nae precocious genius in his leading-strings,-but, blessed lot! had died booby o' the lowest form, and been buried amang 2 Rippet-disturbance. 1 Fash-trouble. 3 Nain-own. |