186

LOOK ON THAT PICTURE AND ON THIS.

sweet solitary pipe is drowned in the clangour of many trumpets.

Shepherd. I'm easy. Mine'll aye continue to be heard at intervals, like the sang o' the linty amang the broom in the season o' spring,-and them that loves to listen to Allan Ramsay, and Robbie Burns, and Allan Kinninghame, 'ill never forget a'thegither the Ettrick Shepherd. That thocht's aneuch for me and I'm content wi' my fame, sic as it is, amang my native braes.

North. Right. Your name will never die.

Shepherd. Thank you, sir,-here's your health. You've been suffering under a sair hoast, I hear; but thae lozenges maun be Crichton's best, for though last week as hoarse as a craw, your vice is noo musical as that o' the nichtingale.

North. Now, James, look on this picture, and then on this, -from the Quarterly turn to Maga, and exclaim with Wordsworth's lover

"Oh!

The difference to me!"

From the Chaldee to the Winter Rhapsody,' she never has been weary of singing your praise. She scorned to flatterto butter you, James, though well she knew that never yet was flattery lost on poet's ear, nor butter lost on poet's cheek; but she gained and kept for you a clear field and no favour, on which you had elbow-room, James, to contend with all your rivals, and on which you had perpetual opportunities of appearing, with your best foot foremost, before the Pensive Public. Her pages were always open to your genius; and how often, by your genius, have they been illuminated! What if, since the 1817, when Maga first effulged on a benighted world, she had treated you as the Quarterly did, who now, somewhat late in life, has assured the Royal Society of Literature, that in spite of these wicked Noctes Ambrosianæ which have "frighted the isle from her propriety," the Ettrick Shepherd is a loyal subject? Why, let me not hesitate to say, James, that bright as your genius is, the shades of obscurity or of oblivion would long ere now have fallen over it in the Forest.

1 Republished, from Blackwood's Magazine, in the Recreations of Christopher North, under the title of "Soliloquy on the Seasons."

THE WISEACRE IN THE QUARTERLY IDENTIFIED.

187

Shepherd. May be. Burns himsel was little thocht o' in Embro' when he was leevin in Dumfries.

North. After your death, my dear James, your fame would have revived, for genius is imperishable; but Maga, and Christopher North, and Yourself, my incomparable Shepherd, by our united power, strong in steadiest friendship, kept the flame of your genius, and the fame of your name, alive during your life, which is better far than that it should have been left, after flickering or going out while its possessor was above ground, to be rekindled on your grave.

Shepherd. Posthumous fame's a wersh thocht without a preein1 o' the present; for oh, sir! what a difference atween the quick and the dead!

Tickler. Did this Censor

Shepherd. Hear till Mr Tickler-dinna interrupt Mr Tickler. -Mr Tickler, what was ye ettlin to say when Mr North took the word out o' your mouth?

Tickler. Did the old gentleman who drawls about the boozing buffoonery of the Noctes, every hear of a celebrated lawyer, one Pleydell, who, in his leisure hours, was strenuously addicted to High Jinks ?2

Shepherd. I daursay never-he'll prove to be the individual that never heard o' Sir Walter Scott. My freen, Mr Cadell, ance telt me o' either himsel or an acquaintance forgatherin, on the tap o' a cotch, wi' a weel-informed man, in black claes, wha had never heard o' Sir Walter, o' Abbotsford, or the Scotch Novels. He maun be the contributor.

North. How he came not only to hear of you, James, but to be among the number, if we believe him, of your familiars, is as puzzling as his ignorance of the existence of the greatest man alive; yet, in his simplicity, he supposes the Royal Society of Literature to stand in need of some recondite information from his pen, about the life and character, and genius of a Bard, whose name-the Ettrick Shepherd-has long been a household word all over Britain.

Tickler. In what unknown cave do these seers abide, supposed to be thus unacquainted with all the ongoings of the upper world?

North. They live in London

Shepherd. And me in the Forest.

1 Preein-tasting.

Fowre hunder miles,

2 See Guy Mannering.

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THE SHEPHERD'S OBLIGATIONS TO HIM.

aften o' mist and snaw, intrudes between them and me- -and I'm muckle obleeged, after a', to the honest gentleman, for remindin them o' my existence, and for clearin my character, aboon a' things, frae the stain o' disloyalty contracted frae the traitors wha hae sae lang been plottin against Church and King at the Noctes Ambrosianæ. I thank him also for telling their worships that I'm a sober man-though I canna quite agree wi' him in conceivin't to be ony proof to the contrar, that some sax times a-year I indulge in a gaudeamus in the Snuggery. Thank him, too, for assuring the Society, that our meetings here are no purely imaginary, as some coofs jalouse -and that this Glenlivet-oh! but it outdoes itsel the nicht -is no mere pented air, sic as ane endeavours unavailingly to drink in his dreams. He has removed the Noctes frae the shadowy and unsubstantial realms o' Faery, intil the solid world o' reality, established for perpetuity "their local habitation and their name" in the minds of all the people of Britain and elsewhere-yea, embalmed their remembrance in the more than Egyptian wisdom o' his ain genius—

Tickler. A pair of mummies, that, when countless generations have passed away, and left no memorial of their being, will be preserved in the museums of the curious and scientific, and poetry penned upon them by the wonder of bards flourishing during the Millennium.

I

North. I should be sorry, my dear James, to let the world believe, with the lacrymose eulogist of your sobriety and loyalty-virtues as native to your orb as light and heat to that of the sun,-a luminary, by the by, which he ought forthwith to vindicate from the generally credited calumny, that he seldom goes to bed, or rises from it, without drinking an unconscionable draught of the sea,—I should be sorry, say, James, to let the world believe that you are a melancholy man, living in a melancholy place, the victim of unmerited misfortunes, and the misunderstood and misrepresented Interlocutor in these our Dialogues, at once the disgrace and the delight of the age-countenanced though they be by Kings on their thrones, Bishops and Judges by their benches, Peers and Peasants in hall and hut, Ladies in silk, and Lassies in grogram

Tickler. By "Laughter holding both his sides."

North. And by Il Penseroso, "under the shade of melan

THE SHEPHERD'S TRUE FRIENDS-WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. 189

choly boughs," feeling himself gradually growing into L'Allegro

Tickler. Or coming out of the Cave of Trophonius, with "nods and becks and wreathed smiles," so potent the magic of Maga, folded in a Double Number across his fortified heart. North. Most musical thou art, O Shepherd, but not most melancholy; nor hast thou cause, any more than the nightingale, to be other than a merry Bird of Song. True, that with all thy skill and science-witness "Hogg on Sheep"-thy pastoral farm has not been more prosperous than those of thy compeers; but during all thy struggles, thou didst preserve an unspotted name, nor was there wanting one stanch friend to stand by thee in thy difficulties, whether a new edition of the Wake was deemed advisable, or the publication of Queen Hynde, or a collection of thy matchless Songs, many of them first chanted in this Snuggery, James-and how vocal its roof!—or if thy racy articles, beloved by Maga, were sent in from the Forest to brave the Balaam-Box-that tomb of so many Capulets-one stanch friend, James, whom none but the base abuse

Shepherd. WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. The Bailie' has aye been a gude freen to me-but let me say, sir, that I aye gied as gude's I got—and that we staun on the same level o' mutual obligation.

80

North. He is your debtor, James-and is proud to be

Shepherd. Na-he's no. But in a' his dealings wi' me, he's been the gentleman, which is something mair nor I can say o' some that ance held their head sae high, and far mair than I can say o' ithers, who, while they trumpet their payment, are as penurious in their poverty as the blusterin wund that, amidst a glint o' seeming sunshine, brings naething but a cauld blash o' sleet.

North. Your works, my dear James, in prose and verse, most of them full of the inspiration of true genius, and none of them without its breath, have been, with few months'

1 Mr Blackwood was one of the bailies of Edinburgh at this time. To his enterprise the world is indebted for the projection of the Magazine which has made his name so universally known; and, assisted as he was in its management by able advisers, and in particular by Professor Wilson, to his own judgment he always ultimately trusted, and on him really rested the editorial labour and responsibility. He died in 1834.

190

NORTH-MAGA-LOCKHART-SCOTT.

intermission, appearing before the world, often in Maga, for upwards of twenty years-and during all that time, your character has been known to thousands of your admiring and affectionate countrymen. Should any Society, whose noble object it is to reward genius and virtue by solid pudding, and not by empty praise, befriend you in the calm and bright afternoon of your life-for 'tis not yet the gloaming, the evening is still far off, and long, long may it be ere cometh to thee the night in which no man can work-there will be a blessing in their bounty-not on you only, but on themselves.

Shepherd. Whisht, sir, whisht. Poor as I am, I'm independent-at least I'm no idle; and conscious o' my integrity, I'm as happy as a bird,—though often, you ken sir, the happiest bird wull sit mute and pensive on the bough, aside its nest, when its loving mate is cowerin ower their young anes, as if it was thinkin within itsel what wad become o' them, if it fell aneath the fowler, and the grun' were to be a' covered wi' spring snaw!

North. God bless you, my dear James, such melancholy moments but serve to brighten sunshine and gladden song. Shepherd. Oh! but I was cheerfu' at the curlin!

Tickler. The beef and

greens.

North. We have put, I think, this matter in the proper light-removed from it all misapprehension-and courteously and kindly reminded the Quarterly, that should the genius and virtues of the author of the Queen's Wake and the Ettrick Shepherd receive their due and dignified reward from any enlightened patronage, whether of an individual or a society, no praise can, in that case, by possibility, be deserved by that rich but rather stingy periodical; because that, whatever merit may belong to any one besides the poet himself and those who may prove his benefactors, it most assuredly does belong to William Blackwood, Christopher North, and Maga-to whom

Shepherd. I beg leave to add, wi' a heart fu' o' everlastin gratitude, John Gibson Lockhart, and Sir Walter Scott.

North. On whom, now and ever, be all blessings poured from heaven-and may the light of their hearths burn bright as that of their fame!

Shepherd. Amen,-Hurraw! hurraw! hurraw! Noo, I'll sing you a bit sang, out o' the colleckshun