66 A SOBER MAN AND LOYAL SUBJECT" IN THE QUARTERLY. 181

some other Periodicals-has the spunk to imitate Maga in her Double Numbers. The last was, in general, admirable, and is to be followed immediately-next time I hope the two will appear simultaneously-by another, which I doubt not will be worthy of its predecessor, now justly making a distinguished figure in the world.

North. The Quarterly Review is a great national work, and may it live for ever. Notwithstanding his not unfrequent oversights, not a man alive could edit it in such a style as Mr Lockhart.

North. The wiseacre, James, has been pleased to inform the Royal Society of Literature, that, in spite of the Noctes, the Ettrick Shepherd is a sober man, and a loyal subject. Shepherd. Hoo kens he that?

North. He also says, James, that Altrive is as melancholy a solitude as can be imagined

Shepherd. What? and wee Jamie there!

North. And speaks of you as a fit object, not only of patronage, but of pity.

Shepherd. Pity I spurn-patronage I never asked; but for the patronage of enlightened men, if it ever be bestowed upon me, I hope that I shall hae deserved it.

North. James, let us for a moment be serious on this subject. All Britain—and many other lands besides — have delighted in the Noctes Ambrosianæ, of which you are the Life and the Soul. Ours has been ever "weel-timed daffin;" our mirth

"On the wan cheek of sorrow has waken'd a smile,

And illumined the eye that was dim with a tear!"

Shepherd. Aften, sir-I ken aften

North. In our higher moods, we have opened our hearts to one another, nor concealed one secret there that ought to be divulged in the sacred intercourse of friendship between man and man.

Shepherd. Aften, sir, aften.

North. We have unburdened to one another our hearts of cares and sorrows, which we share in common with all our brethren of mankind;

"All our secret hoards of unsunn'd griefs"

182

THE NOCTES AS THEY ARE IN THEMSELVES.

have-as far as might and ought to be-been laid out in the light of confident affection, and been aired by the gracious gales of heaven.

Shepherd. Now and then sic has indeed been the case.

North. We have looked over the fields of human life, and we have made our reflections on the ongoings there, sometimes, perhaps, in no unlearned spirit, not seldom in a spirit which I do not fear to call religious, and almost always in a spirit of humanity-blaming none but the worthless-honouring the good-and celebrating the great-whatever tongues they speak, whatever climes they inhabit.

Shepherd. We hae dune that, sir, to the best o' our abeelity -and our abeelity's no sma', unless the warld be a leear.

North. Seldom do we talk about politics at all here, James; but when we do, assuredly not about party politics, as I said a moment ago; but about such measures of the Ministry or Government as affect the well-being of the State. Occasionally we have taken a glance at the Continent, where revolutions are brewing, or have burst, and where the deafest ear may hear, like subterranean music, a hubbub foretelling war. Now and then, when excursively disposed, we

"Survey mankind from China to Peru;"

and more than once, embarking in our Ship of Heaven, with Imagination at the helm, we have doubled Cape Horn. Shepherd. Circumnavigawtors!

North. Nor have we feared, James, at times

"to pierce

The caves obscure of old Philosophy."

Tickler. And to bring up in a bucket Truth from the bottom of her well.

North. In short, James, there is no subject which, at our Noctes, we have not touched; and none have we touched that we did not adorn; making

"Beauty still more beauteous."

Shepherd. And ugliness mair ugsome, till the stamack o' the universe scunnered at vice.

North. And of such Dialogues, diviner than those of Plato-yea, even than his Banquet our friend presumes

THE NOCTES AS REPRESENTED IN THE QUARTERLY.

183

to say that the staple is boozing buffoonery, and party politics!

Shepherd. He's wrang there.

North. Now, James, what were the politics of the Quarterly Review I speak of a period previous to its present management—during, perhaps, the most perilous crisis in which this country had ever been placed! I ought rather to say where were its politics? Why, according to a tardy confession in the last Number, they were kept sealed up by Mr Canning, with his official impress, in the conscience of Mr Gifford.' Shepherd. Eh? What? Hoo?

North. While we, James,—while Maga, James,—while the Noctes, James, were defending the principles of the British constitution, bearding its enemies, and administering to them the knout, the Quarterly Review was mute and mum as a

mouse

Tickler. Afraid to lose the countenance and occasional assistance of Mr Canning!

North. There indeed, James, was a beautiful exhibition of party politics-a dignified exhibition of personal independence

Tickler. Of Tory-truckling enough to make the Collector of the Jacobite Relics a Whig.

North. The old gentleman informs the Royal Society of Literature, that they must not suffer themselves to be deluded by the Noctes into a belief that the Ettrick Shepherd is not a "loyal subject!" Do traitors compose new King's anthems? Set loyal songs to their own music? Rout and root out radicals? Baste the Blue-and-Yellow till it is black in the back? And, while the lips of hirelings are locked, chant hymns

"To the pilot that weathered the storm ?"

Shepherd. Ma poem on Pitt's prime.

Tickler. Maga has been the mouthpiece of constitutional monarchy

Shepherd. Ever sin' the Chaldee.

North. Methinks that, with respect to politics, either party

1 Mr Gifford was the editor of the Quarterly Review from its commencement in 1809 until 1824. In the short interval between his retirement and Mr Lockhart's appointment to the editorship, it was superintended by Mr H. N. Coleridge.

184

THE TRUCKLING OF THE QUARTERLY.

or national, the Quarterly Review, of bygone days at least, ought not thus to take such high ground above Maga, seeing that it has, by its own voluntary acknowledgment, hitherto occupied the lowest ever assigned to servility; and that the mutes of Mr Canning's mute should remain mute still about Maga, who never suffered Prime Minister or Foreign Secretary to shut her mouth, although Christopher North loved and admired George Canning as well as ever William Gifford did, they being, I do not fear to say it, far more congenial spirits; though, to be sure, there was no debtor and creditor account between them, except such as may be kept open between independent men, and closed by either party at pleasure.

Tickler. He was a fine-a noble spirit.

North. He was. But though his smiles charmed, his frowns quailed not Maga; and can it be questioned by the gentlemen of England, that the Quarterly should have deserted Canning rather than the country, at a time that seemed to be alike the crisis of either, and that gratitude to a friend, had he been a bosom-brother, should have yielded to love of one's fatherland? 1

Shepherd. I'm in the dark, like Moses when the candle went out, about this, my boy. What are ye talkin about?

Tickler. Change the subject, Kit. Yet one word, if you please, on the Quarterly's benefactions to the Ettrick Shepherd. Has she all along shown the same fiery zeal in defence, support, and exculpation of our friend, now exhibited in thoughts that breathe and words that burn" by this Curious Antique ?

North. James, nearly twenty years have elapsed since the publication of the Queen's Wake. The Edinburgh Review did justice to the genius that shines in that poem. But because you turned out to be a loyal Tory, instead of a disloyal Whig, never again did Mr Jeffrey do honour to the Shepherd's plaid. Nay, a poor creature attacked you personally in an article on your Jacobite Relics-and as a proof of your total want of taste, and your utter unfitness for the task, quoted as the best of all these old ballads, Donald M'Gillivray, not one of the worst of your own; his ignorance neutralising his malice, and his stupidity paying unconsciously the highest tribute to your genius.

2

1 See ante, vol. i. p. 370.

2 See ante, vol. i. p. 265.

INJUSTICE TO SHEPHERD IN THE QUARTERLY.

185

Shepherd. I had the blockhead on the hip there, sir, and in Maga I gied him his licks till his hips were like indigo.

North. You did. But during all these twenty years, when you were nobly struggling on, swimming against the stream, with bold heart and sinewy arms, giving buffet for buffet, and though sometimes losing way, yet recovering it by your own. energies, and like a water-dragon cresting the spate, pray what assistance or encouragement gave the Quarterly to the bard, seemingly about, at times, to be carried down into the waters of oblivion? None.

Shepherd. Nane, indeed, or a sma' share waur than nane. North. A sneering article on your Poetic Mirror, "damning with faint praise," was all her generosity could afford, all her justice could grant; and I hope you were thankful for the largesse.

Shepherd. I remember naething about it.

North. Seeing that you were known to be such a loyal subject, why was not the Ettrick Shepherd cheered in the Forest by the voice of praise, which would have at least soothed, if it could not relieve his virtuous poverty?

Shepherd. I surely deserved better at their hauns, for I'm willing to pitch the Queen's Wake again' ony Oxford poem that ever was wrote by ony Oxford Professor.

Tickler. No sneers at Milman-the most imaginative of all our poets of the classical school.

Shepherd. Is't a sneer at the Fa' o' Jerusalem, to offer to compare wi't, in pint o' genie-for I gie up the polish o' the feenishin o' the execution-wi' the Queen's Wake? Ma certes !

North. Each successive poem of that beautiful writer was highly-not too highly-praised in the Quarterly Review, to which he has been one of the most powerful contributors. On every account he deserved such eulogies. But why were you forgotten, James? First, because a Scotchman-and, secondly, because you were a shepherd.

Shepherd. And a shepherd's as gude ony day as a shoemaker -though Bloomfield was ane;-as for Gifford, I jalouse he was never mair nor a cobbler.

North. James, in this age, genius often lives the life, and dies the death of a slave. True devotion is lost in idol worship, a shepherd has no chance against a lord - his