(NOVEMBER 1832.)

The Library in the Lodge. Time,-Seven o' Clock.

NORTH and TICKLER.

North. No-I have not left the Lodge for ten miles, or two hours, during the whole summer.

Tickler. Domestic Devil!

North. Say rather, bird in a cage, that keeps perpetually hopping about, up and down, from turf to twig, now and then with loving bill nibbling the wires of its beloved imprisonment, occasionally picking a little seed, and not seldom on the spur of the moment drawing up its tiny bucket, and sipping a drop of the mountain dew, to clear its song and brighten its plumage.

Tickler. Liker a cock on his own

North. Hush! or Bird of Paradise, who

Tickler. Whew! or Bubbly-Jock erecting his tail in proud persuasion of his being a peacock; or

North. Woodlark, Scotia's Nightingale, who, unfatigued by day-songs, poured around the grassy nest, where sits his mate assiduous o'er callow brood or chirping shells, prolongs his ditties far into the night, and by the homeward shepherd on the hill is heard, not seen, sweet-singing midst the stars. Tickler. Blanks! by all that is musical. But "say, sweet warbling woodlark, say," what mysterious meaning lies enveloped in the image of "mate assiduous" sitting on eggs? I devoutly trust Mrs Gentle is not in the fam-—

North (rising up in great indignation). Sir, the honour of that lady is dearer to me than a million lives, nor shall the villain who dares to insinuate the remotest hint

342

MRS GENTLE.—THE READING AND WRITING PUBLIC.

Tickler. Be not so furious, my dear sir mote hint

;

I insinuated no re

North. She has been in Switzerland, sir, for more than nine months

Tickler. Not another word, North. Your explanation is perfectly satisfactory; but why did not you accompany her and her lovely daughter to Lake Constance?

North. For fear of a censorious world, that will not suffer even old age to escape its slanders, with one foot in the grave. Tickler. She is indeed a sad gossip, old Madam Public; yet there are some good points about her; and let me whisper in your ear, North, you are a prodigious favourite with the Frow -in her eyes a perfect Dutchman.

North. Her affection for me, Tickler, is, I assure you, of the most spiritual sort.

Tickler. And yours for her, as becomes a philosopher, Platonic. Yet human nature is weak; and be advised by me, North, to trust yourself alone with her as seldom as possible; for what, were you some day to declare with the Public a private marriage?

North. The reading Public! I well remember the days when she could spell with difficulty a simple dissyllable-when she lost herself in a complicated Polly, like a benighted nymph wandering through a wood.

Tickler. A complicated Polly! What is that?

North. Nebuchadnezzar.

Tickler. Chrononhotonthologos.

North. Methinks I see her, Tickler, in her Little Primer! Tickler. Conning her "Reading made Easy."

North. Leaning her rosy cheek on a rosier arm with elbow rosier still

Tickler. Peony of Peonies!

North. Now, alas! like a yellow lily that seems, in lieu of dew, to be fed with lamp-oil!

Tickler. And she has become the writing Public too?

North. That is the melancholy part of the concern, Tickler. She is now-to her shame and sorrow-a confirmed scribbler. Tickler. And appears, without a blush on her brazen face, in print.

North. Yes-with my own eyes have I seen her absolutely in capitals.

EDUCATION.-A GENERATION OF IDIOTS.

Tickler. Worse than in kilts.

343

North. Kilts! Kilts are but petticoats of a smaller size; but it goes well-nigh to the breaking of my heart to see the reading, writing, ranting Public (an old woman too) in wire-wove hot-pressed paper printed breeches-in shorts, Tickler.

Tickler. Nay, in tights, which show her shapes to the worst advantage; for, as you observed, she is well stricken in years, and time tells on the figure even of a Diana.

North. Let's be serious. 'Twould seem as if reading and writing were the chief occupation now, in this once happy island, of human life. The constant cry or croak is-Education, Education. The People will sink under this eternal tuition-the next age will be a generation of Idiots. The invention of printing is a blessing which, by "busy Meddling Intellect," has been abused into a curse.

Tickler. Among the lower orders reading has grown into a dull disease, that dries up the sap, and slackens the sinews of life.

North. Ay, Tickler the poor man's fireside was, I verily believe, in general, far happier in former times than nowwith himself resting, after his day's darg, in an elbow-chair —if the house happened to hold one-his wife fistling1 about in eager preparation of supper-and the brats on stools forming perhaps an octagon, each with a horn-spoon in its hand expectant of the coming crowdy

Tickler. A pleasant picture. No boy or girl, from four to fourteen years of age, knows the extent of his or her mouth's capaciousness, till it gradually opens to its utmost width, in order to admit with unruffled surface, a huge horn spoonful

North. Of crowdy. True. Now, crowdy is crowdy still, though with more difficulty procured than in the days I speak of; and poor people are still happy in supping it, for sacred hunger is the solace of life.

Tickler. Ay-the Pigot Diamond would be a poor price for a good appetite from a palate-palsied king to a yaup2 beggar. North. But, nowadays, reading is placed on the list of necessaries before eating.

Tickler. A greasy-
North. Say-creeshy.

1 Fistling-bustling.

2 Yaup-hungry.

344

KNOWLEDGE IS POWER.

Tickler. A creeshy periodical, price a penny, takes precedence of a black-pudding of strong bull's blood and the generous suet

North. The age of Haggis is gone!

Tickler. And Journeymen Tailors having discovered that "Knowledge is Power," starve on half-commons of this earth's cabbage, that they may feed on celestial custocks from a circulating library. Yes, North, Knowledge is Power. He who knows to cut out and stitch, and sew, and with unbaffled art, in defiance of nature's spite, to make a fit of it even on my amiable and most ingenious friend Sheridan Knowles's Hunchback-he-tailor though he be-is a MAN of Power, and is entitled at a Jubilee to unfold, emblazoned with that illustrious motto, the Standard of the Snips, to all the winds of heaven.

North. It is leze majestie now to speak of the "lower orders." But that is their right name, and they hold it from heaven. The "labouring classes" is a foolish form of speech. All that live labour.

Tickler. The Mite-the Mouse-and the Monarch.

North. The very Drone labours-in his own vocation-for soon as the Queen Bee is impregnated in the sunny air-all her stingless paramours are put to death.

Tickler. The Bee is a most inexplicable creature.

North. Who labours harder than I?

Tickler. I.

North. You-you Dragon-Fly?

Tickler. Yes-I-you Midge.

North. Whereas "lower" expresses the everlasting posi tion of the classes to which it is in all honour applied; and he who pales or reddens at the epithet is a radical and a slave.

Tickler. Bravo!

North. And to them what knowledge is power? Of themselves and their duties, and where they shall find it?

Tickler. Why, in our farthing-and if our more ambitious modern circulating medium did not disdain that coin diminutive-in our doit political literature, that through lanes and alleys flutters its ephemeral life away on wings of whiteybrown.

North. Such are the means which sage philosophy doth

IMPORTANCE OF MORAL AND RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 345

now employ for the regeneration of fallen man! The lower classes-I love the word-for it carries with it a calm humble meaning that speaks of Christian contentment-may still read the Bible if they will-Heaven forbid that the philosophers should prevent or dissuade them from so doing as often as they choose!-for the philosophers are occasionally of opinion that the Bible should be included in the School of Useful and Entertaining Knowledge.

Tickler. Are they?

North. But the Bible, according to their creed, is not in itself an all-in-all. The poor creature that reads but it, or even it chiefly, must be miserably ignorant-and all unfit to walk with anything like the dignity of a Reformer in a processional jubilee.

Tickler. Nor must he hope ever to rise into a Ten-Pounder.1 North. And millions on millions never can-nor could they though all the rags of all the beggars in Ireland were manufactured into paper, and when printed, strewed over the entire earth as thick as leaves in Vallambrosa.

Tickler. The forced-pumped waters will subside.

North. And leave the soil unenriched by any deposit. Tickler. But not unencumbered with sand, gravel, and stones. North. Which, however, will in good time be cleared away; and flowers and herbage, under a better system of culture, will be reinduced over the land.

Tickler. The people of Scotland-I leave you to speak of the English-are not more intelligent, and they certainly are less moral and religious, than they were even a quarter of a century ago.

North. I would fain hope that education with us is in much improved, though I fear in not a little deteriorated; but the people themselves, except in our large towns, or our small manufacturing ones, are still deeply impressed with a belief of the paramount importance of moral and religious instruction over every other kind; and while that is the case, let every other kind be encouraged in due subordination to that, without which no man's soul is safe, and the heart within him, overcome by this world's troubles, pines and dies.

Tickler. The object of almost all the paltry preaching about

1 Householders who paid £10 a-year in rent had the elective franchise conferred on them by the Reform Bill of 1832.