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laughter) upon it, and of interest upon that interest (loud laughter), he could put it to all such reasoners," &c.

Shepherd. Weel dune, Hairy,-weel dune, Hairy. You're an ambitious chiel yoursel, and wad do muckle to gain the object of your ambition; but you never were avaricious-you have a sowl aboon that, and I could forgie ye a' your sins for that noble disdain of the meanest member of the legislative body. He can never haud up the head o' him after that. Weel dune, Hairy. Mr North, let's drink Mr Brumm's

health in a cauker.

North. Here he goes.-Heavens! James, is that a brilliant among the hair of your little finger?

Shepherd. O' the first water. But you've seen't afore a thousand and a thousand times.. I got it frae his Grace the late Duke of Buccleuch.

North. Are you not afraid of losing it, my dear Shepherd? Shepherd. Faith, there's nae fear o' that; for it has indented itsel intil my finger sae deep, that naebody can steal't frae me unless they saw or file't aff. It is indeed "a gem of purest ray serene;" and mony a mirk nicht hae I seen my way hame by its wee clear star o' lustre. The fairies ken't when they see't far aff twinkling through the mist, and the Shepherd hears the soun' o' their wings wavering roun' his head sae near, that he often thinks he could grup ane o' the creturs by her grass-green cymar. But the air-woven garment is impalpable to the touch; and, wi' sweet shrill laughter, the Aerials fade, chiming away outower the hills down by the towers o' Newark to holy Melrose, and the auld Abbey o' Dryburgh. North. Oh why, my dearest James, why is thy mountainlyre mute?

Shepherd. You're a bonny fellow to ask that question; you that's aye abusing poetry, and wunna leave ony ane o' a' the Nine Muses the likeness o' a dowg!

North. The sea of song hath its ebbs and flows; and now, methinks, there is a wide shore of sand.

Shepherd. Alang which you see, noo and then, a straggling poetaster picking up a few shells-mere buckies! North. Sinking in treacherous quicksands,

or swallowed up when the flow of tide returns from the ocean.

Shepherd. I hae nae wush either to be drowned, or picked up by some critical cobble a' drookin wat, wi' sand in my

284

MARTIN THE PAINTER.-SCOTT'S NAPOLEON.

hair, and seaweed and barnacles stickin to my hurdies, like the keel o' a veshel wi' Sir Humphrey Davy's preservers against the dry-rot. Better to remain inland,-a silly shepherd piping to his flock.

North. I was glad to see some fine lines of yours, James, in Mr Watts' Souvenir.

Shepherd. Oh, sir, but yon's a bonny byuck! What for didna ye notice the Prent o' Martin's Alexander and Diogenes! That Martin, to my fancy, 's the greatest painter o' them a', and has a maist magnificent imagination. I'm nae great classical scholar; but aiblins I ken as muckle about Alexander the Great, his character and his conquests, as mony bred in a College. What a glorious gloom and glitter o' battlements hanging ower the crested head o' the Macedonian monarch, marching afore his body-guard, while a' the laigh distance is a forest o' spears and lances! And then Diogenes, like a tinkler at the door o' his bit blanket-tent, geein s lesson, which he was weel able to do, to the son o' Jupiter Ammon. The Tent's far better than a tub-for historical truth canna be said to be wranged, when it is sacrificed to the principles of a lofty art. A fountain playing close at hand in the shade and the builder's and the sculptor's skill beauti fying every quiet place with pensive images! My copy, wi' Mr Watts' respectful compliments, in large paper, wi' proof im pressions; and I wadna sell't for five guineas, even although I had coft it mysel for twal shillings.

North. Jozey Hume would not scruple to sell, at a profit, a presentation-copy of a work of Sir Walter's.

Shepherd. Hoot, you sumph!-Beg pardon, sir,-Hoo do you think that a presentation-copy frae Sir Walter could ever get into such slippery hauns? But, gin ane could suppose sic a supposition, nae doubt Joe wadna be lang o' sellin't; for ye ken he doesna like to see interest on siller losing itsel, and it's very expensive keeping byucks lying idle, even although they dinna eat muckle in their shelfs. I wadna sell a presentationcopy o' the warst o' Sir Walter's warks, if it were to keep me and mine frae starvation.-When's his Napoleon to be out? North. In a month or two,' I hear. It is a noble perform

ance.

Shepherd. You dinna say that you've seen't.

1 Scott's Life of Napoleon was published in June 1827.

CUNNINGHAM'S PAUL JONES,

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North. Hem!-Mum, James. His other works are Tales; but this is a History, and a History worthy both the Men.

Shepherd. I canna doubt it. He's up to onything.—Oh, sir, but it's sickening to hear the anticipatory criticism o' the Whiglings on the Life of Napoleon. Wull Sir Walter, they ask, do justice to his character-wull he not show his politics? What for no?-Whan did he ever deny glory to a great man? Never.

North. Mere malice. Why, James, the Whigs used formerly to say, and even now they hint as much, that Wellington is not a great General. Neither is Scott a great Author.

Shepherd. I can thole a hantle o' nonsense-for I like to speak nonsense mysel-but heartless, malignant, envious nonsense, I never could thole; and were ony ass to point his ears with a bray at Sir Walter, in my sicht, or hearing, I would just get up, even if it was at a board o' oysters, when ODoherty was clearin a' before him, and kick the donkey down stairs.

North. Have you seen Allan Cunningham's' Paul Jones? Shepherd. No me. It'll no be verra gude.

North. What, James! Don't you think Allan a man of genius?

Shepherd. Yes, sir, I do think him a man of genius. But mayna a man of genius write a byuck that's no verra gude? Read ye ever a Romance ca'd the Three Perils o' Man?

North. Bravo, my dear Shepherd. Paul Jones, James, is an amusing, an interesting Tale, and will, on the whole, raise Allan's reputation. It is full of talent.

Shepherd. Let's hear it's chief merits first, and then its chief defects. They'll be geyan equally balanced, I jalouse.

North. Even so. There are many bold and striking incidents and situations; many picturesque and poetical descriptions; many reflections that prove Allan to be a man of an original, vigorous, and sagacious mind.

Shepherd. I dinna doubt it. Say away.

North. The character of Paul Jones is, I think, well conceived.

Shepherd. But is't weel executed? That's everything.

1 Author of Lives of British Painters, and some very spirited poems. was the secretary and foreman of Chantrey the sculptor. See ante, p. 204.

He

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PRONOUNCED A FAILURE.

North. No, James, that's not everything. Much may be forgiven in imperfect execution to good conception. In bringing out his idea of Paul Jones, Allan has not always been successful. The delineation wants light and shade; there is frequent daubing-great-or rather gross exaggeration, and continual effort after effect, that sometimes totally defeats its purpose. On the whole, the interest we take in the Pirate is but languid. But the worst fault of the book is that it smells not of the ocean. There are waves-waveswaves-but never a sea,-battle on battle, but as of ships in a painted panorama, where we feel all is the mockery of imitation—and almost grudge our half-crown at each new ineffectual broadside and crash of music from a band borrowed from a caravan of wild beasts.

Shepherd. If I had said all that, you would have set it down to jealousy o' Kinnigham's genius.

North. It is evident that Allan never made a cruise in a frigate or line-of-battle ship. He dares not venture on nautical terms-and the land-lubber is in every line. Paul Jones's face is perpetually painted with blood and gunpowder, and his person spattered with brains. The description of the

battle between the Shannon and the Chesapeake, in James's Naval History, is worth, ten thousand times over, all the descriptions in Allan's three volumes. Sadly inferior, indeed, is he to Mr Cooper, the truly naval author of the Pilot, who writes like a Hero.

Shepherd. As a tale of the sea, then, Paul Jones is a failure?

North. A most decided one. Still a bright genius like Allan's will show itself through darkest ignorance—and there are occasional flashes of war poetry in Paul Jones. But he manœuvres a Ship as if she were on wheels, and on dry land. All the glory of the power of sail and helm is gone—and the reader longs for an old number of The Naval Chronicle, for a Gazette letter from the Admiralty, from Lord Exmouth, or Lord Cochrane, or Sir Richard Strachan, or Keates, or Mylne, or Seymour, or Brisbane. But as I shall probably review Allan's book, you will see my opinion of its beauties and its deformities at great length in an early number. The article shall be a good one, depend on't-perhaps a leading one; for it is delightful to have to do with a man of genius; and our

ANKLES IN BLUE STOCKINGS.

287

readers will rise from its perusal with a far higher opinion of Allan's powers, than from any base and paid-for panegyric in any unprincipled Edinburgh radical newspaper, where the fear or the hope of a few advertisements withheld or bestowed, will prompt a panegyric fulsome as the smell of rankest ewes or nanny-goats, that, to the nostrils of a proud Peasant, like Allan Cunningham, must be sufficient, James, to make his stomach "just perfectly scunner." By the way, I cannot say, James, that I feel that disgust towards literary ladies that you used to express so strongly by that excellent word scunner. To my aged eyes a neat ankle is set off attractively by a slight shade of cerulean-and

Shepherd. A nate ankil! Saw ye ever in a' your born days a nate ankil in a blue stockin? A' the leddies o' my acquaintance that write byucks hae gotten a touch o' the elephanteasis in their legs. If they grow thicker and thicker a' the way up, safe us! but they maun

North. Stop, James. Some of our most justly popular female authors are very handsome women.

Shepherd. I'll just thank ye to name twa or three o' the handsomest-and I'll bet you what you like that I'se produce a lassie frae Yarrow or Ettrick, in worsted huggers,1 that just kens her letters and nae mair, that'll measure sma'er roun' the ankils than your picked madam in the blue stockins, although she may hae written volumm upon volumm baith in prose and metre, and aiblins dedicated them, with a "Sire" in great big capitals, to his Majesty the King.

North. Stuff, James, stuff. Of all the huge, hulky, bulky, red, distempered ankles, that ever petrified my astonished gaze, the most hideous have I seen wading the tributary streams of the Tweed. In humble life, no such thing exists as a neat ankle.

Shepherd. Puir chiel, I pity you.

North. The term Literary Ladies (who, by the by, are charming Literary Souvenirs) is uniformly used by the dregs of both sexes-and only by the dregs. For my own part, I never yet felt or understood the full beauty of any pathetic passage in a poem, till I had heard it read, or recited, or breathed of by lady's lips-or wept or smiled over by lady's eyes-God bless them! They are celestial critics and I

1 Huggers-stockings without feet.