THE REV. CÆSAR MALAN. 183 Thank ye, James-God bless you, James-give me your hand-you're a most admirable fellow-and there's no end to your genius. Shepherd. A man may be sair mistaen about mony things -such as yepics, and tragedies, and tales, and even lang-set elegies about the death o' great public characters, and hymns, and odds, and the like-but he canna be mistaen about a sang. As soon's it's doun on the sclate, I ken whether it's gude, bad, or middlin-if ony o' the twa last, I dight it out wi' my elbow-if the first, I copy't ower into write, and then get it aff by heart, when it's as sure o' no being lost as if it were engraven on a brass-plate; for though I hae a treacherous memory about things in ordinar, a' my happy sangs will cleave to my heart till my dying day, and I shouldna wonder gin I was to croon a verse or twa frae some o' them on my death-bed. North. Once more we thank you, my dear James. There, the chill is quite gone. - and I think I have been almost as happy in this bowl as you have been in your inimitable lyric. Tickler. What think you, Kit, of the Rev. Cæsar Malan?1 North. What think you, Timothy, of his audience? Shepherd. A French sermon in a chapel in Rose Street o' Embro' for purchasing the freedom o' a black wench in the West Indies! He maun hae been a man o' genius that first started the idea, for it's a'thegither out o' the ordinary course o' nature. Was you there, Mr Tickler? Tickler. I was. But you will pardon me, James, when I tell you how it happened. I was going to order a cheese at Mrs M'Alpine's shop, when I found myself unexpectedly walking in a hurried procession. Being in a somewhat passive mood, for the cheese had been a mere passing thought, I sailed along with the stream, and ere long found myself sitting in a pew between two very good-looking middle-aged women, in Dunstable bonnets, streaming with ribbons, and tastily enveloped in half-withdrawn green veils, that on either side descended to my shoulder. Shepherd. Mr North, did you ever ken ony chiel fa' on his feet at a' times like Mr Tickler? He never gangs out to walk in the Meadows, or doun to Leith, or roun' the Calton, or up Arthur's Seat, or out-by yonder to Duddistone, but he 1 An eminent clergyman of Geneva. 184 TICKLER DRAWN INTO THE VORTEX. is sure to forgather, as if by appointment, wi' some bonny leddy, wha cleeks his arm wi' little pressin, and then walks off wi' him, looking up and laughing sae sweetly in his face, and takin half-a-dizzen wee bit triflin fairy steps to ane o' his lang strides, till they disappear ayont the horizon. North. But let us hear about Cæsar Malan and the wench. negro Shepherd. It's the same way wi' him in the kintra—at kirk or market. The women-folk a' crowd round him like fascinated creatures North. Whom are you speaking of, James ?—the Rev. Cesar Malan? Shepherd. Na, na-the Rev. Timothy Tickler, wha'll preach a better sermon than ony Genevese Frenchman that ever snivelled. Tickler. Cæsar, to my astonishment, began to speak French, and then I remembered the advertisement. I whispered to the Dunstable Dianas, that they must be my interpreters—but they confessed themselves ignorant of the Gallic tongue. Shepherd. No ane in ten, ay twenty-forty-were able to make him out, tak my word for't. It's a very different thing parley vouing about the weather, and following out a discourse frae the poupit in a strange tongue. But I'm thinking Mr Malan 'll be a gude-looking fallow, wi' a heigh nose and gleg een, and a saft insinuatin manner Tickler. A gentlemanly-looking man enough, James, and even something of an orator, though rather wishy-washy. Shepherd. And then, och, och! the shamefu' absurdity o' the subjec! Thousan's and thousan's o' our ain white brithers and sisters literally starving in every manufacturin toun in Scotland, and a Frenchman o' the name o' Cæsar colleckin platefu's o' siller, I'se warrant, to be sent aff to the Wast Indies, to buy an abstract idea for an ugly black wench, wha suckles her weans outower her shouther! North. Why, James, that is the custom of the country. Shepherd. And an ugly custom it is, and maist disgustfu'; at least when you compare't wi' the bosoms o' our ain nursing matrons. North. An odd reason, James, for charity- I mainteen, that at the present creesis, when thousands o' bonny white COLERIDGE'S SIX MONTHS' VISIT. 185 callans are tining the roses out o' their cheeks for verra hunger and thousands o' growin lasses sittin disconsolate wi' cames sae trig in their silken hair, although they hae been obliged to sell their claes to buy bread for their parents-and thousands o' married women, that greet when they look on their unemployed and starving husbands-I mainteen, Mr North, that under such affecting, distressing circumstances o' our ain hame-condition, the he, or the she, or the it, that troubles their head about Wast India Niggers, and gangs to glower like a gawpus at a Gallic gull-grupper gollaring out geggery about some gruesome black doudy-stinking amang her piccaninnies Tickler. I plead guilty, James. Shepherd. Were there nae white slaves, sir, about the doorcheek, haudin out their hauns for an awmous? Nae sickly auld widows, wi' baskets aneath their arms, pretendin to be selling tape, and thread, and chap ballads or religious tracts, but, in truth, appealin wi' silent looks to the charity o' the ingoers and outcomers, a' gossipin about the Rev. Mr Cæsar Malan? North. What! are there slaves in Scotland, James? Shepherd. Ay-ae half o' mankind, sir, are slaves a' ower the face o' the earth. I'm no gaun to blether about the Wast Indian question to a man like you, Mr North, wha kens a' the ins and the outs o't, better than ony abolitionist that ever sacrificed the sincerity o' his soul at the shrine o' East Indian sugar. Tickler. Hear-hear-hear.-Encore-"The shrine o' East Indian sugar! North. Speaking of the West India question, there is a great deal too much impertinence in Mr Coleridge's Six Months' Visit.1 An old man like myself may with some difficulty be excused for occasionally drivelling about his rheumatism, all the world knowing his martyrdom; but who can endure this conceited mannikin, apparently because he is the nephew of a bishop, prating, in print, of his bodily infirmities, in a style that might sicken a horse or an apothecary? Tickler. Scotch and English puppies make a striking contrast. The Scotch puppy sports philosophical, and sets to 1 Six Months' Visit to the West Indies. By HENRY COLERIDGE, a nephew of S. T. Coleridge. 186 SCOTCH AND ENGLISH PUPPIES. rights Locke, Smith, Stewart, and Reid. In his minority he is as solemn as a major of two-score-sits at table, even during dinner, with an argumentative face, and in a logical position-and gives out his sentences deliberately, as if he were making a payment in sovereigns. Shepherd. Oh, man, how I do hate sic formal young chielsreason, reason, reasoning on things that you maun see whether you will or no, even gin you were to shut your een wi' a' your force, and then cover them wi' a bandage-chiels that are employed frae morning to nicht colleckin facks out o' books, in that dark, dirty dungeon the Advocates' Leebrary, and that'll no hesitate, wi' a breach o' a' gude manners, to correct your verra chronology when you're in the middle o' a story that may has happened equally weel ony day frae the flood to the last judgment-chiels that quote Mr Jeffrey and Hairy Cobrun, and even on their first introduction to Englishers, keep up a clatter about the Ooter-House-chiels that think it a great maitter to spoot aff by heart an oraution on the corn laws, in that puir puckit Gogotha, the Speculative Society, and treat you, ower the nits and prunes, wi' skreeds o' College Essays on Syllogism, and what's ca'd the Association o' Ideas -chiels that would rather be a Judge o' the Court o' Session that the Great Khan o' Tartary himsel—and look prouder, when taking their forenoon's airing, alang Princes Street, on a bit shachlin' ewe-necked powney, coft frae a sportin flesher, than Saladin, at the head of ten thousand chosen chivalry, shaking the desert-chiels North. Stop, James-just look at Tickler catching flies. Shepherd. Sound asleep, as I'm a Contributor. Oh! manI wush we had a saut herring to put intil the mooth o' him, or a burned cork to gie him mistashies, or a string o' ingans to fasten to the nape o' his neck by way o' a pigtail, or North. Shamming Abraham. Shepherd. Na-he's in a sort o' dwam-and nae wonner, for the Lodge is just a verra Castle o' Indolence. Thae broad vine-leaves hingin in the veranda in the breathless heat, or stirrin when the breeze sughs by, like water-lilies tremblin in the swell o' the blue loch-water, inspire a dreamin somnolency that the maist waukrife canna a'thegither resist; and the bonny twilight, chequering the stane floor a' round 1 Shachlin-shuffling. 2 Waukrife-watchful. 2 EXTRACTS FROM THE SIX MONTHS' VISIT. 187 and round the shady Lodge, keeps the thochts confined within its glimmerin boundaries, till every cause o' disturbance is afar off, and the life o' man gets tranquil as a wean's rest in its cradle, or amang the gowans on a sunny knowe; sae let us speak lown and no wauken him, for he's buried in the umbrage o' imagination, and weel ken I what a heavenly thing it is to soom doun the silent stream o' that haunted world. North. What say you to that smile on his face, James? Shepherd. It's a gey wicked ane-I'm thinkin he's after some mischief. I'll put this raisin-stalk up his nose. Mercy on us, what a sneeze! Tickler (starting and looking round). Ha! Hogg, my dear fellow, how are you? Soft-soft-I have it—why that hotchpotch, and that afternoon sun- -But-but-what of Master Coleridge, is he a Prig? North. Besides the counterfeited impertinence of my rheumatism, he treats the ladies and gentlemen who peruse his Six Months' Visit with eternal assurances that he is a young man-that his stomach is often out of order—and that he always travels with a medicine-chest-and that he is a very sweaty young gentleman. Shepherd. That's really a disgustfu' specie o' yegotism. But is't true? North. May I request you, James, to get me the volume. That's it beside Juno There at the foot of yonder nodding bitch, Shepherd. Nine and saxpence for a bit volumm like that, and a' about the state o' the author's stomach and bowels! But let's hear some extracks. North. "I was steamed by one, showered by another, just escaped needling by a third, and was nearly boiled to the consistency of a pudding for the love of an oblong gentleman of Ireland," &c. Shepherd. That's geyan stupid, but excusable aneuch wut in a verra young lad. Anither extrack. North. "I went simply and sheerly on my own account, or rather on account of the aforesaid rheumatism; for as every other sort of chemical action had failed, I was willing to try if fusion would succeed."—" If Yorick had written after me, he |