Robert Southey to Bertha, Kate, and Isabel Southey-Mode of making a Doctor of Law. line, into the middle of the area, the people first making a lane for them. The professor of civil law, Dr. Phillimore, went before, and made a long speech in Latin, telling the vice-chancellor and the dignissimi doctores what excellent persons we were who were now to be ell-ell-deed. Then he took us one by one by the hand, and presented each in his turn, pronouncing his name aloud, saying who and what he was, and calling him many laudatory names, ending in issimus. The audience then cheered loudly to show their approbation of the person; the vice-chancellor stood up, and repeating the first words in issime, ell-elldeed him; the beadles lifted up the bar of separation, and the new made doctor went up the steps and took his seat among the dignissimi doctores. Oh, Bertha, Kate, and Isabel, if you had seen me that day! I was like other issimis, dressed in a great robe of the finest scarlet cloth, with sleeves of rose-colored silk, and I had in my hand a black velvet cap like a beef-eater, for the use of which dress I paid one guinea for that day. Dr. Phillimore, who was an old school-fellow of mine, and a very good man, took me by the hand in my turn, and presented me; upon which there was a great clapping of hands and huzzaing at my name. When that was over, the vice-chancellor stood up and said these words, whereby I was ell-ell-deed: "Doctissime et ornatissime vir, ego, pro auctoritate med et totius universitatis hujus, admitto te ad gradum doctores in jure civili, honoris causâ." These were the words which ell-ell-deed me; and then the bar was lifted up, and I seated myself among the doctors. Little girls, you know it might be proper for me now to wear a large wig, and to be called Dr. Southey, and to become very severe, and leave off being a comical papa. And if you find Sir Walter Scott to Mrs. Walter Scott-How to treat a Bore. that ell-ell-deeing has made this difference in me, you will not be surprised. However, I shall not come down in a wig; neither shall I wear my robes at home. God bless you all! Your affectionate father, R. SOUTHEY. the XLIII. - HOW TO TREAT A BORE. Sir Walter Scott to Mrs. Walter Scott. ABBOTTSFORD, March 23d, 1825. MY DEAREST JANE: I am afraid you will think me a merciless correspondent, assailing you with so close a fire of letters; but having a frank I thought it as well to send you an epistle, though it can contain nothing more of interest excepting that we are all well. I can, however, add more particularly than formerly, that I learn from Mrs. Bayley that Mrs. Jobson's health is not only good but her spirits are remarkably so, so as to give greatest pleasure to all friends. I can see, I think, a very good reason for this; for after the pain of the first separation from so dear án object, and after having brought her mind to believe that your present situation presented to you a fair chance for happiness, I can easily suppose that her maternal anxiety is greatly relieved from fears and apprehensions which formerly distressed her. Nothing can be more kind and more handsome than the way in which Mrs. Jobson speaks of Walter, which I mention because it gives me sincere pleasure, and will, I am sure, afford the same to you, or rather much more. My troops here are sadly diminished. I have only Anne to parade for her morning walk, and to domineer over for going in thin slippers and silk stockings through dirty paths, and in lace veils through bushes and thorn brakes. I think Jane sometimes Sir Walter Scott to Mrs. Walter Scott-How to treat a Bore. came in for a share of the lecture on these occasions. So I walk my solitary round-generally speaking-look after my laborers, and hear them regularly inquire, "If I have heard from the Captain and his Leddy!" I wish I could answer them yes, but have no reason to be impatient. This is the 23d, and I suppose Walter will be at Cork this evening to join the 15th, and that you are safe at Edgeworthstown to spend your first short term of widowhood. I hope the necessary hospitality to his mess will not occasion his dissipating too much; for, to be a very strong young man, I know no one with whom hard living agrees so ill. A happy change in the manners of the times fortunately renders such abuse of the good creature, wine, much less frequent and less fashionable than it was in my days and Sir Adam's. Drinking is not now the vice of the times, whatever vices and follies they may have adopted in its stead. I had proceeded thus far in my valuable communication, when, lo! I was alarmed by the entrance of that terrific animal, a two-legged boar-one of the largest size and most tremendous powers. By the way, I learned, from no less an authority than George Canning, what my own experience has since made good, that an efficient bore must always have something respectable about him, otherwise no one would permit him to exercise his occupation. He must be, for example, a very rich man (which perhaps, gives the greatest privilege of all)-or he must be a man of rank and condition too important to be treated sans ceremonie-or a man of learning (often a dreadful bore)-or of talents undoubted, or of high pretensions to wisdom and experi ence, or a great traveller; in short, he must have some tangible privilege to sanction his profession. Without something of this kind one would treat a bore as you do a vagrant mendicant, and Sir Walter Scott to Mrs. Walter Scott-How to treat a Bore. send him off to the workhouse if he presuined to annoy you. But when properly qualified the bore is more like a beggar with a badge and pass from his parish, which entitles him to disturb you with his importunity whether you will or no. Now, my bore is a complete gentleman and an old friend, but, unhappily for those who know him, master of all Joe Miller's stories of sailors and Irishmen, and full of quotations from the classics as hackeneyed as the post-horses of Melrose. There was no remedy; I must either stand his shot within doors or turn out with him for a long walk, and for the sake of elbow-room I preferred the last. Imagine an old gentleman, who has been handsome, and has still that sort of pretension which leads him to wear tight pantaloons and a smart half-boot, neatly adapted to show off his leg; suppose him as upright and straight as a poker, if the poker's head had been by some accident bent to one side; add to this that he is as deaf as a post; consider that I was writing to Jane, and desired not to be interrupted by much more entertaining society. Well, I was had, however fairly caught-and out we sallied to make the best we could of each other. I felt a sort of necessity to ask him to dinner; but the invitation, like Macbeth's amen, stuck in my throat. For the first hour he got the lead, and kept it; but opportunities always occur to an able general, if he knows how to make use of them. In an evil hour for him and a happy one for me, he started the topic of our intended railroad; there I was a match for him, having had, on Tuesday last, a meeting with Harden, the two Torwoodlees, and the engineer, on this subject, so that I had at my finger-end every cut, every lift, every degree of elevation or depression, every pass in the country, and every possible means of crossing them. So I kept the whip-hand of him completely, and never Sir Walter Scott to Mrs. Walter Scott-How to treat a Bore. permitted him to get off the railway again to his own ground. In short, so thoroughly did I bore my bore that he sickened and gave in, taking a short leave of me. Seeing him in full retreat I then ventured to make the civil offer of a dinner. But the railroad had been breakfast, luncheon, dinner, and supper to boot; he hastily excused himself and left me at double-quick time, sick of railroads, I dare say, for six months to come. But I must not forget that I am perhaps abusing the privilege I have to bore you, being that of your affectionate рара. How nicely we could manage without the said railroad, now the great hobby of our Teviotdale lairds, if we could, by any process of conjuration, waft to Abbottsford some of the coal and lime from Lochore; though, if I were to wish for such impossibilities, I would rather desire Prince Houssein's tapestry in the Arabian Nights, to bring Walter and Jane to us now and then, than I would wish for "Fife and all the lands about it."* By the by, Jane, after all, though she looks so demure, is a very sly girl, and keeps her accomplishments to herself. You would not talk with me about planting and laying out ground; and yet, from what you had been doing at Kochore, I see what a pretty turn you have for these matters. I wish you were here to advise me about the little pond which we passed, where, if you remember, there is a new cottage built. I intend to plant it with aquatic trees, willows, alders, poplars, and so forth, and put trouts and perches into the water, and have a preserve of wild ducks on the pond, with Canadian geese and some other waterfowl. I am to get some eggs from Lord Traquair of a curious species of half-reclaimed wild ducks which abound near his solitary old chateau, and nowhere else in Scotland that I know of; *A song of Dr. Blacklock's. |