A SALMON FROM THE AWE. 51 -and though we left twa dizzen at this house-and four dizzen at that house-and a gross at Henderland-on countin them at hame in the kitchen, Leezy made them out forty dizzen, and Girzzy forty-twa, aught; sae a dispute ha'in arisen, and o' coorse a bet, we took the census ower again, and may these be the last words I sall ever speak, gin they didna turn out to be Forty-Five! North. The heaviest Fish I ever killed was in the river Awe-ninety pound neat. I hooked him on a Saturday afternoon-and had small hopes of killing him- -as I never break the Sabbath. But I am convinced that, within the hour, he came to know that he was in the hands of Christopher North -and his courage died. I gave him the but so cruelly, that in two hours he began to wallop; and at the end of three he lay dead at my feet, just as "The star of Jove, so beautiful and large,” tipped the crest of Cruachan. Shepherd. Hoo lang? North. So beautifully proportioned, that, like that of St Peter's or St Paul's, you did not feel his mighty magnitude till after long contemplation. Then, you indeed knew that he was a sublime Fish, and could not choose but smile at the idea of any other salmon. Tickler. Mr De Quincey, now that these two old fools have got upon angling Shepherd. Twa auld fules! You great, starin, Saracenheaded Langshanks! If it werena for bringin Mr North intil trouble, by ha'in a dead man fun' within his premises, deil tak me gin I wadna fractur your skull wi' ane o' the cutcrystals! [MR NORTH touches the spring, and the Bower is in darkness. Tickler "But such a chief I spy not through the host- But let me perish in the face of day!" 52 32 "NOW CAME STILL EVENING ON." Shepherd. Haw! haw! haw! The speech o' Awjax, in Pop's Homer. North. Gentlemen, let us go to supper in the Lodge. Shepherd. What'n a sky! North Omnes surgunt. "Now glow'd the firmament Apparent Queen! unveil'd her peerless light, XXVI. (NOVEMBER 1830.) Scene,-Blue Parlour. Time,-Eight o'Clock. Present,NORTH, SHEPHERD, and Jug. Shepherd. Which o' us three, I wonner, looks best at the settin in o' another wunter? I suspeck it's me-for to say naething o' the jug, wha has lost his nose, you're getting mair and mair spinnle-shankit, sir, ilka year-as for your hauns, ane may see through them—and a'thegither you're an interesting atomy o' the auld schule. I fear we're gaun to lose you, sir, during the season. But dinna mind, sir-ye sall hae a moniment erected to you by a grateful nation on the Calton Hill— and ships comin up the Firth-steamers, smacks, and ithers -amang them now and then a man-o'-war-will never notice the Parthenon, a' glowerin through telescopes at the mausoleum o' Christopher North. North. I desire no other monument, James, than a bound set of the Magazine in the library of every subscriber. Yesmy immortal ambition is to live in the libraries and liberties of my native land. Shepherd. A noble sentiment, sir, beautifully expressed. Oh! but you're a curious cretur-a Great Man! North. James, I KNOW MYSELF. I am neither a great nor a small-but a middle-sized man Shepherd. What the deevil! dinna ye belang to the Sax Feet Club.1 North. No. The Fine Fellows invite me to their Feasts and Festivals-and I am proud to be their guest. But my stature 1 A Society of young Scottish athletes. 54 THE AMPHITHEATRE OF LIFE. is deficient the eighth part of an inch; and I could not submit to sit at any board below either the Standard or the Salt. Shepherd. A noble sentiment, sir, beautifully expressed. Oh! but you're a curious cretur-a Great Man! North. I am not a curious creature, James, but a commonplace Christian. As to my intellectual stature-and of that I spoke when I said that I am but a middle-sized man—it is, I am satisfied, the stature best adapted for the enjoyment of tranquil happiness in this world. I look along the many levels of life-and lo! they seem to form one immense amphitheatre. Below me are rows, and rows, and rows of well-apparelled people-remember I speak figuratively of the mind-who sometimes look up-ungrudgingly and unenvyingly-to where I am sitting, smiling on me as on one belonging to their own order, though placed by Providence-august Master of these august Ceremonies—a little loftier in the range of seats in a half-moon circling the horizon, and crowded to overflowing with the whole human race. Shepherd. A noble sentiment, sir, beautifully expressed. Oh! but you're a curious cretur-a Great Man. North. I beg your pardon-but I did not hear you, Jameswill you repeat that again? Shepherd. Na. I makes a pint o' never sayin the same thing twice ower for ony man-except a deaf ane—and only to him gin he uses a lug-trumpet. North. Then looking right and left, James, I behold an immense multitude sitting, seemingly on the same altitude with myself-somewhat more richly robed than our brethren beneath -till, lifting up my eyes, lo! the Magnates, and Potentates, and Princes, and Kings of all the shadowy worlds of mind, magnificently arrayed, and belonging rather to the heavens than to the earth! Shepherd. A noble sentiment, sir, beautifully expressed. Oh! but you're a curious cretur-a Great Man! (Aside.) I micht din thae words intil his lug fifty times without his catchin their meanin-for whan the auld doited body begins haverin about himsel, he's deaf to a' things else in the creawtion. North. Monuments! Some men have been so glorious, James, that to build up something in stone to perpetuate that glory, seems of all futile attempts the most futile, and either MONUMENTS.-THE WEATHER. 55 to betray a sinful distrust of their immortality, or a wretched ignorance of the "Power divine of sacred memories," which will reign on earth, in eternal youth, ages and ages and ages after the elements have dissolved the brass or marble, on which were vainly engraven the consecrated and undying names! Shepherd. A noble sentiment, beau North. A monument to Newton! a monument to Shakespeare! Look up to Heaven look into the Human Heart. Till the planets and the passions—the affections and the fixed stars are extinguished-their names cannot die. Shepherd (starting up.) A moniment to Sir William Wallace! A moniment to William Tell! Look at the mountains of Scotland and Switzerland-listen to their cataracts-look to the light on the foreheads-listen to the music on the lips of the Free 66 Kings of the Desert, men whose stately tread North. A noble sentiment, James, beautifully expressed. Oh! but you're a curious cretur—a Great Man! Shepherd. What! You've been sookin in my flattery a' the time, ye auld sinner-and noo turn intil a banter on mysel the compliment I paid you frae the verra bottom o' my heart? You're a queer deevil.-Hoo hae ye stood the weather this season, sir? North. Weather! It never deserved the name of weather, James, even during that muddy and mizzly misnomer-Summer; while the Autumn Shepherd. Weel, do ye ken, sir, that I never saw in a' my born days, what I could wi' a safe conscience hae ca'd-bad weather? The warst has aye had some redeemin quality about it that enabled me to thole it without yaumerin. Though we mayna be able to see, we can aye think o' the clear blue lift. Weather, sir, aiblins no to speak very scientially in the way o' meteorological observation—but rather in a poetical, that is, religious spirit-may be defined, I jalouse, "the expression o' the fluctuations and modifications o' feeling in the heart o' 1 From Professor Wilson's Poem "On reading Mr Clarkson's History of the Abolition of the Slave Trade." |