a different airt1-the bit bairnies come tripping alang in opposite directions-noo a harebell scents the air-noo sweet-briar -noo heather bank-here is a gruesome quagmire, there a plat o' sheep-nibbled grass smooth as silk, and green as emeralds-here a stony region of cinders and lava-there groves o' the lady-fern embowering the sleeping roe-here the hillside in its own various dyes resplendent as the rainbow, and there woods that the Druids would have worshippedhark, sound sounding in the awfu' sweetness o' evening wi' the cushat's sang, and the deadened roar o' some great waterfa' far aff in the very centre o' the untrodden forest. A' the warks o' ootward natur are symbolical o' our ain immortal souls. Mr Tickler, is't not just even sae ?

Tickler. Sheridan-Sheridan-what was Sheridan's talk to our own Shepherd's, North?

2

North. A few quirks and cranks studied at a looking-glass -puns painfully elaborated with pen and ink for extemporaneous reply-bon-mots generated in malise prepense-witticisms jotted down in short-hand to be extended when he had put on the spur of the occasion-the drudgeries of memory to be palmed off for the ebullitions of imagination-the coinage of the counter passed for currency hot from the mint of fancy -squibs and crackers ignited and exploded by a MerryAndrew, instead of the lightnings of the soul darting out forked or sheeted from the electrical atmosphere of an inspired genius.

Shepherd. I wish that you but saw my monkey, Mr North. He would make you hop the twig in a guffaw. I hae got a pole erected for him, o' about some 150 feet high, on a knowe ahint Mount Benger; and the way the cretur rins up to the knob, lookin ower the shouther o' him, and twisting his tail roun' the pole for fear o' playin thud on the grun', is comical past a' endurance.

North. Think you, James, that he is a link?

Shepherd. A link in creation? Not he, indeed. He is merely a monkey. Only to see him on his observatory, beholding the sunrise! or weeping, like a Laker, at the beauty o' the moon and stars!

1 Airt-point of the compass.

2 How carefully Sheridan's impromptus were prepared beforehand, may be learned from Moore's Life of that celebrated wit, just published at the date of this number of the Noctes.

74

THE SHEPHERD'S MONKEY.

North. Is he a bit of a poet?

Shepherd. Gin he could but speak and write, there can be nae manner o' doubt that he would be a gran' poet. Safe us! what een in the head o' him! Wee, clear, red, fiery, watery, malignant-lookin een, fu' o' inspiration.

Tickler. You should have him stuffed.

Shepherd. Stuffed, man! say, rather, embalmed. But he's no likely to dee for years to come-indeed, the cretur's engaged to be married; although he's no in the secret himsel yet. The bawns' are published.

Tickler. Why, really, James, marriage, I think, ought to be simply a civil contract.

Shepherd. A civil contract! I wuss it was. But oh! Mr Tickler, to see the cretur sittin wi' a pen in's hand, and pipe in's mouth, jotting down a sonnet, or odd, or lyrical ballad! Sometimes I put that black velvet cap ye gied me on his head, and ane o' the bairns's auld big-coats on his back; and then, sure aneugh, when he takes his stroll in the avenue, he is a heathenish christian.

North. Why, James, by this time, he must be quite like one of the family?

Shepherd. He's a capital flee-fisher. I never saw a monkey throw a lighter line in my life. But he's greedy o' the gude linns, and canna thole to see onybody else gruppin great anes but himsel. He accompanied me for twa-three days in the season to the Trows, up aboon Kelso yonner; and Kersse allowed that he worked a salmon to a miracle. Then, for rowing a boat!

Tickler. Why don't you bring him to Ambrose's? Shepherd. He's sae bashfu'. He never shines in and the least thing in the world will mak him blush.

company;

Tickler. Have you seen the Sheffield Iris, containing an account of the feast given to Montgomery the poet, his longwinded speech, and his valedictory address to the world as abdicating editor of a provincial newspaper?

2

Shepherd. I have the Iris-that means Rainbow-in my pocket, and it made me proud to see sic honours conferred on

1 Bawns-banns.

2 Kersse, a celebrated Kelso salmon-fisher. 3 James Montgomery, author of The World before the Flood, and other esteemed poems, was born in 1771, and died in 1854.

JAMES MONTGOMERY.

75

genius. Lang-wunded speech, Mr Tickler! What, would you have had Montgomery mumble twa-three sentences, and sit down again, before an assemblage o' a hundred o' the most respectable o' his fellow-townsmen, with Lord Milton at their head, a' gathered thegither to honour with heart and hand One of the Sons of Song?

North. Right, James, right. I love to hear one poet praise another. There is too little of that nowadays. Tantæne animis celestibus irœ?

Shepherd. His speech is full of heart and soul-amang the best I hae read; and to them that heard and saw it, it must have been just perfectly delightful.

Tickler. Perhaps he spoiled it in the delivery; probably he is no orator.

Shepherd. Gude faith, Mr Tickler, I suspec you're really no very weel the nicht, for you're desperate stupid. Nae orator, aiblins! But think you it was naething to see the man in his glory, and to hear him in his happiness? Yes, glory, sir, for what do poets live for but the sympathy of God's rational creatures? Too often we know not that that sympathy is ours -nor in what degree, nor how widely we have awakened it. But here Montgomery had it flashed back upon his heart by old familiar faces, and a hundred firesides sent their representatives to bless the man whose genius had cheered their light for thirty winters.

Tickler. Hear, hear! Forgive me, my dear Shepherd; I merely wished to bring you out, to strike a chord, to kindle a spark, to spring a mine

Shepherd. Hooly and fairly. There's no need o' exaggeration. But my opinion-my feeling o' Montgomery is just that which he himself, in this speech-there's the paper, but dinna tear't--has boldly and modestly expressed. "Success upon success in a few years crowned my labours-not, indeed, with fame and fortune, as these were lavished on my greater contemporaries, in comparison of whose magnificent possessions on the British Parnassus my little plot of ground is as Naboth's vineyard to Ahab's kingdom; but it is my own: it is no copyhold; I borrowed it, I leased it from none. Every foot of it I enclosed from the common myself; and I can say, that not an inch which I had once gained here have I ever lost."

North. On such an occasion, Montgomery was not only entitled, but bound to speak of himself—and by so doing he "has graced his cause." His poetry will live, for he has heart and imagination. The religious spirit of his poetry is affecting and profound. But you know who has promised to give me an "Article on Montgomery;" so meanwhile let us drink his health in a bumper.

Shepherd. Stop, stop, my jug's done. But never mind, I'll drink't in pure speerit. (Bibunt omnes.)

Tickler. Did we include his politics?

Shepherd. Faith, I believe no. Let's tak anither bumper to his politics.

North. James, do you know what you're saying?—the man is a Whig. If we do drink his politics, let it be in empty glasses.

Shepherd. Na, na. I'll drink no man's health, nor yet ony ither thing, out o' an empty glass. My political principles are so well known, that my consistency would not suffer were I to drink the health o' the great Whig leader, Satan himsel; besides, James Montgomery is, I verily believe, a true patriot. Gin he thinks himself a Whig, he has nae understanding whatever o' his ain character. I'll undertak to bring out the Toryism that's in him in the course o' a single Noctes. Toryism is an innate principle o' human nature-Whiggism but an evil habit. O, sirs, this is a gran' jug!

Tickler. I am beginning to feel rather hungry.

Shepherd. I hae been rather sharp-set ever sin' Mr Ambrose took awa the cheese.

North. 'Tis the night of the 21st of October-The battle of Trafalgar—Nelson's death-the greatest of all England's

heroes

"His march was o'er the mountain-wave,

His home was on the deep."

Nelson not only destroyed the naval power of all the enemies of England, but he made our naval power immortal. Thank God, he died at sea.

Tickler. A noble creature; his very failings were oceanborn.

Shepherd. Yes-a cairn to his memory would not be out of place even at the head of the most inland glen. Not a sea

ENGLAND ON THE OCEAN, A POEM.

77

mew floats up into our green solitudes that tells not of Nel

son.

North. His name makes me proud that I am an islander. No continent has such a glory.

Shepherd. Look out o' the window-What a fleet o' stars in Heaven! Yon is the Victory-a hundred gun-ship-I see the standard of England flying at the main. The brichtest luminary o' nicht says in that halo, "England expects every man to do his duty."

North. Why might not the battle of Trafalgar be the subject of a great poem? It was a consummation of national prowess. Such a poem need not be a narrative one, for that at once becomes a Gazette, yet still it might be graphic. The purport of it would be, England on the Ocean; and it would be a Song of Glory. In such a poem the character and feelings of British seamen would have agency; and very minute expression of the passions with which they fight, would be in place. Indeed, the life of such a poem would be wanting, if it did not contain a record of the nature of the Children of the The character of

Ocean—the strugglers in war and storm. sailors, severed from all other life, is poetical.

Tickler. Yes-it would be more difficult to ground a poem under the auspices of the Duke of York.

North. The fleet, too, borne on the ocean, human existence resting immediately on great Elementary Nature; and connected immediately with her great powers; and ever to the eye single in the ocean-solitudes.

Tickler. True. But military war is much harder to conceive in poetry. Our army is not an independent existence, having for ages a peculiar life of its own. It is merely an arm of the nation, which it stretches forth when need requires. Thus though there are the highest qualities in our soldiery, there is scarcely the individual life which fits a body of men to belong to poetry.

North. In Schiller's Camp of Wallenstein there is individual life given to soldiers, and with fine effect. But I do not see that the army of Lord Wellington, all through the war of the Peninsula, though the most like a continued separate life of anything we have had in the military way, comes up to poetry. Tickler. Scarcely, North. I think that if an army can be