A CALCULATION. Tickler. James, what do you think of that, eh? 153 Shepherd. Didna ye pity the taids and paddocks, and asks and beetles, and slaters and snails and spiders, and worms and ants, and catterpillars and bumbees, and a' the rest o' the insect-world, perishin in the flamin nicht o' their last judg ment? North. In another season, James, what life, beauty, and bliss over the verdant wilderness! There you see and hear the bees busy on the white clover-while the lark comes wavering down from heaven, to sit beside his mate on her nest! Here and there are still seen the traces of fire, but they are nearly hidden by flowers-and Shepherd. For a town-chiel, Mr North, you describe the kintra wi' surprisin truth and spirit; but there's aye something rather wantin about your happiest pictures, as if you had glowered on everything in a dream or trance. North. Like your own Kilmeny, James, I am fain to steal away from this everyday world into the Land of glamoury. Shepherd. Hoo mony volumms o' poetry, think ye, the Incremawtor has thrust, just noo, intil the fire ? North. I should think about some score, or so, of crown octavo-350 pages-twenty lines to the page. Calculate that, James. Shepherd. Here's my keelivine. multiply by Maist equal to a "farther portion" o' the "Excursion! Surely, surely, there maun hae been twa-three1 thousan' gude lines amang sic a multitude! Tickler. Devil the one-all fudge and flummery. More meaning in any one paragraph of Pope than in the whole skuttleful. Shepherd. A skuttlefu' o' poetry! I canna thole either the sicht or the soun'. It's degrawdin to the divine art. Get out o' my reach, ye wee wicked weezen'd devil, or I'll clour your pow2 for you. And as for thae Incremawtors 1 Twa-three-two or three. 2 Pow-poll, or head. North. Why, James, would you believe it, that Stoic with the black whiskers is himself a poet; and has even now, with his inexorable poker, in all probability, thrust into nothingness a quire of his own versified MSS. ! Shepherd. Oh! wae's me! that poetry should be siccan a drog! Is there nae chance, think ye, sir, o' its lookin up? North. None, James. Not till new men effulge. All your old stagers are done up. Scott has done his best in verseso has Southey-so Moore-so Wordsworth-so Crabbe-so Campbell-so Hogg. Tickler. And really, Mr North, after all, what have they done? Sir Walter has versified a few old stories, and is at the head of all modern ballad-mongers. What more? Southey has written one wild and wondrous tale, Thalaba; but all his other attempts are abortive-and the last spark of inspiration within him has been for years extinct. Many of Moore's songs will live-but a man cannot be song-singing all his days; and as for Wordsworth, take him out of the Lake country, and his prattle is tedious. Crabbe, and Campbell, and Hogg North. Come, come, don't be silly, Tickler. A man looks like a ninny the moment he begins even to think about versemen. Tickler. There it goes up the chimney-An Ode to the Moon-pursued by The Sleeping Infant-The Horned OwlThe late Elephant-and General Bolivar. Shepherd. O, sirs! the room's gettin desperate warm. I pity the poor Incremawtors-they maun be unco dry. Beelzebub, open the window, man, ye ugly deevil, and let in a current o' cool air. Mr North, I canna thole the heat; and I ask it as a particular favour, no to burn the prose till after supper. At a' events, let the married Incremawtor gang hame to his bride-and there's five shillings to him to drink my health at his ain ingle. (Incremator, Devil, Clerk of the Balaam-box, Porters, and Mr Ambrose retire.) North. Who are the wittiest men of our day, Tickler? Tickler. Christopher North, Timothy Tickler, and James Hogg. North. Poo, poo-we all know that-but out of doors? CANNING.- -BROUGHAM. -SYDNEY SMITH. 155 North. I fear it is so. Canning's wit is infallible. It is never out of time or place, and is finely proportioned to its object. Has he a good-natured, gentlemanly, well-educated blockhead-say of the landed interest-to make ridiculous, he does it so pleasantly, that the Esquire joins in the general smile. Is it a coarse calculating dunce of the mercantile school, he suddenly hits him such a heavy blow on the organ of number, that the stunned economist is unable to sum up the total of the whole. Would some pert prig of the profession be facetious overmuch, Canning ventures to the very borders of vulgarity, and discomfits him with an old Joe. Doth some mouthing member of mediocrity sport orator, and make use of a dead tongue, then the classical Secretary1 runs him through and through with apt quotations, and before the member feels himself wounded, the whole House sees that he is a dead man. Tickler. His wit is shown in greatest power in the battles of the giants. When Brougham bellows against him, a Bull of Bashan, the Secretary waits till his horns are lowered for the death-blow, and then stepping aside, he plants with graceful dexterity the fine-tempered weapon in the spine of the mighty Brute. Shepherd. Whish!-Nae personality the nicht. Michty Brute-Do you ca' Hairy Brumm a michty Brute? He's just a maist agreeable enterteenin fallow, and I recollect sitten up wi' him a' nicht, for three nichts rinnin, about thretty years syne, at Miss Ritchie's hottle, Peebles. O man, but he was wutty wutty-and bricht thochts o' a maist extraordinary kind met thegither, frae the opposite poles o' the human understanding. I prophesied at every new half-mutchkin, that Mr Brumm would be a distinguished character; and there he is, you see, Leader o' the Opposition! Tickler. His Majesty's Opposition! North. Sydney Smith is a wit. I Shepherd. No him- perpetually playin upon words. canna thole to hear words played upon till they lose their natural downright meaning and signification. It was only last week that a fallow frae Edinburgh came out to the south for orders o' speerits amang the glens (rum, and brandy, and Hollands), and I asked him to dine at Mount Benger. He 1 At this time Canning was Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. had hardly put his hat on a peg in the transe,' afore he began playin wi' his ain words; and he had nae sooner sat down, than he began playin wi' mine too, makin puns o' them, and double-entendres, and bits o' intolerable wutticisms, aneuch to make a body scunner. Faith, I cut him short, by tellin him that nae speerit-dealer in the kingdom should play the fule in my house, and that if he was a wut, he had better saddle his powney and be aff to Selkirk. He grew red red in the face; but for the rest o' the evening, and we didna gang to bed till the sma' hours, he was not only rational, but clever and weel-informed, and I gied him an order for twenty gallons. Tickler. Yes Sydney Smith has a rare genius for the grotesque. He is, with his quips and cranks, a formidable enemy to pomposity and pretension. No man can wear a big wig comfortably in his presence; the absurdity of such enormous frizzle is felt; and the dignitary would fain exchange all that horse-hair for a few scattered locks of another animal. North. He would make a lively interlocutor at a Noctes. Indeed, I intend to ask him, and Mr Jeffrey, and Cobbett, and Joseph Hume, and a few more choice spirits, to join our festive board Shepherd. O man, that will be capital sport. Sic conversation! Tickler. O my dear James, conversation is at a very low ebb in this world! Shepherd. I've often thought and felt that, at parties where ane micht hae expeckit better things. First o' a' comes the wather-no a bad toppic, but ane that town's folks kens naething about. Wather! My faith, had ye been but in Yarrow last Thursday. Tickler. What was the matter, James, the last Thursday in Yarrow? 2 Shepherd. I'se tell you, and judge for yoursel. At four in the mornin, it was that hard frost that the dubs were bearin, and the midden3 was as hard as a rickle o' stanes. We couldna plant the potawtoes. But the lift was clear. Between eight and nine, a snaw-storm came down frae the mountains about Loch Skene, noo a whirl, and noo a blash, till the grun' was whitey-blue, wi' a sliddery sort o' sleet, and the Yarrow began to roar wi' the melted broo, alang its frost-bound 1 Transe-a passage within a house. 2 Dubs-puddles. A SNOW-STORM IN YARROW. 157 borders, and aneath its banks, a' hanging wi' icicles, nane o' them thinner than my twa arms. Weel then, about eleven it began to rain, for the wund had shifted-and afore dinnertime, it was an even-doun pour. It fell lown about sax-and the air grew close and sultry to a degree that was fearsome. Wha wud hae expeckit a thunder-storm on the eve o' sic a day? But the heavens, in the thundery airt, were like a dungeon-and I saw the lightning playing like meteors athwart the blackness, lang before ony growl was in the gloom. Then, a' at ance, like a wauken'd lion, the thunder rose up in his den, and shakin his mane o' brindled clouds, broke out into sic a roar that the very sun shuddered in eclipse-and the grews and collies that happened to be sittin beside me on a bit knowe, gaed whinin into the house wi' their tails atween their legs, just venturin a hafflin glance to the howling heavens noo a' in low, for the fire was strong and fierce in electrical matter, and at intervals the illuminated mountains seemed to vomit out conflagration like verra volcanoes. Tickler. Επεα πτερόεντα ! Shepherd. Afore sunset, heaven and earth, like lovers after a quarrel, lay embraced in each other's smile! North. Beautiful! Beautiful! Beautiful! Tickler. Oh! James-James-James ! Shepherd. The lambs began their races on the lea, and the thrush o' Eltrive (there is but a single pair in the vale aboon the kirk) awoke his hymn in the hill-silence. It was mair like a mornin than an evenin twilight, and a' the day's hurly-burly had passed awa into the uncertainty o' a last week's dream! North. Proof positive that, from the lips of a man of genius, even the weather Shepherd. I could speak for hours, days, months, and years, about the wather, without e'er becoming tiresome. O man, a cawm ! North. On shore, or at sea? Shepherd. Either. I'm wrapped up in my plaid, and lyin a' my length on a bit green platform, fit for the fairies' feet, wi' a craig hangin ower me a thousand feet high, yet bright and balmy a' the way up wi' flowers and briars, and broom and birks, and mosses maist beautifu' to behold wi' half-shut ee, and through aneath ane's arm guardin the face frae the cloudless sunshine! North. A rivulet leaping from the rock |