104 AMBROSE RECITETH. tell the cook to singe yon. The turkey, you know. Let us have supper precisely at twelve. Mr Ambrose (receiving the poetry from Tickler). Might I be allowed, gentlemen, to preserve a few fragments? English gentlemen are always speaking of the Magazine; and there are two very genteel gentlemen, indeed, and excellent customers of mine, Mr Hogg,-one of them from Newcastle, and the other all the way from Leeds,-one in the soft, and the other in the hard line,-who would esteem a fragment of manuscript from the Balaam-box an inestimable trea sure. Shepherd. Certainly, Ambrose, certainly. Keep that little whitey-brown article; but mind now you give all the rest to the kyuck. Mr Ambrose (inspecting it). O yes, the whitey-brown article will do admirably. Shepherd. You think so, do you, Ambrose? What is it about? Pray, read it up. MR AMBROSE recites. TUNE-" To all you Ladies now at Land." For once in sentimental vein My doleful song must flow, For melancholy is the strain, It is a song of woe! Ah! he who holds the monthly pen Is most accurst of mortal men! With a fa, la, la, &c. From month to month 'tis still his doom To drag the hopeless chain, For fair or foul, in mirth or gloom, He shares the curse of Cain; It is a woeful thing to see A sight like this among the free! The devil comes at break of day, The hapless wretch to dun,- With heavy heart and aching head He sends a hearty curse instead. With a fa, la, la, &c. THE SHEPHERD ON WILSON. But Christopher is not the man His failings to excuse, He must bestir as best he can, Oh! cheerless day and dreary night With a fa, la, la, &c. But ah! when Here he blithely sits, How altered is his lot! He clears his brow, unbends his wits,- He sings his song, his bumper fills, And laughs at life and all its ills, With a fa, la, la, &c. 105 Shepherd. Dog on it, if I don't believe you are the author of the Whitey-brown yourself, Mr Ambrose. Ambrose. No, Mr Editor. I could not take that liberty. In Mr North's time, I did, indeed, occasionally contribute an article. The foreign gentleman is ringing his bell; and, as he is very low-spirited since the death of Alexander,' I must attend him. Pardon me, gentlemen, whisky or Hollands? Shepherd. Baith. What's the name of the Russian gentleman? Ambrose. I believe, sir, it is Nebuchadnezzar. Shepherd. Ay, ay, that is a Russian name; for they are descended, I hear, from the Babylonians. (Exit MR AMBROSE.) -Mr Tickler, here's a most capital article, entitled "Birds."" I ken his pen the instant I see the scart o't. Naebody can touch aff these light, airy, buoyant, heartsome articles like him. Then there's aye sic a fine dash o' nature in them— sic nice touches o' description-and, every now and then, a bit curious and peculiar word-just ae word and nae mair, that lets you into the spirit of the whole design, and makes you love both the writer and the written.-Square down the edges with the paper-folder, and label it "Leading Article." Tickler. I wish he was here. Shepherd. He's better where he is—for he's a triflin creatur when he gets a bit drink; and then the tongue o' him never lies.-Birds-Birds!-I see he treats only o' singing birds ; -he maun gie us afterhend, Birds o' Prey. That's a grand 1 Alexander, the Emperor of Russia, died in November 1825. 2 This article, written by Professor Wilson, appeared in Blackwood's Magazine, vol. xix. p. 105. subject for him. Save us! what he would mak o' the King o' the Vultures! Of course he would breed him on Imaus. His flight is far, and he fears not famine. He has a hideous head of his own-fiendlike eyes-nostrils that woo the murky air—and beak fit to dig into brain and heart. Don't forget Prometheus and his liver. Then dream of being sick in a desert place, and of seeing the Vulture-King alight within ten yards of you-folding up his wings very composedly—and then coming with his horrid bald scalp close to your ear, and beginning to pick rather gently at your face, as if afraid to find you alive. You groan-and he hobbles away, with an angry shriek, to watch you die. You see him whetting his beak upon a stone, and gaping wide with hunger and thirst. Horror pierces both your eyelashes before the bird begins to scoop; and you have already all the talons of both his iron feet in your throat. Your heart's-blood freezes; but notwithstanding that, by-and-by he will suck it up; and after he has gorged himself till he cannot fly, but falls asleep after dinner, a prodigious flock of inferior fierce fowl come flying from every part of heaven, and gobble up the fragments. Tickler. A poem-a poem-a poem !-quite a poem ! Shepherd. My certes, Mr Tickler, here's a copy of verses that Ambrose has dropped, that are quite pat to the subject. Hearken-here's the way John Kemble used to read. StopI'll stand up, and use his action too, and mak my face as like his as I can contrive. There's a difference o' features, but very muckle o' the same expression. O to be free, like the eagle of heaven, That soars over valley and mountain all day, To her eyrie on high, No net of the fowler her wings can ensnare : May live in the bush, But the eagle's domain is as wide as the air! O to be fleet, like the stag of the mountain, That starts when the twilight has gilded the morn; THE SHEPHERD AS JOHN KEMBLE. Then forward he bounds, While horses and hounds Follow fast with their loud-sounding yell and halloo; But the stag bounds afar when the hunters pursue. O to be strong like the oaks of the forest, 107 That wave their green tops while the breezes blow high, In gardens and bowers, May sicken, when mildew has tainted the field; As the pride of our land, And to none but the arm of the lightning will yield. Then, free in the world as the far-soaring eagle, And swift as the stag, when at morning awoke, From goblet and pail, And we'll drink to the health of our comrades so dear; We'll fill up again; And thus live without sorrow, and die without fear. Tickler. I used sometimes to think that North gave us too little poetry in the Magazine. I hope you will improve that department, notwithstanding your order of incremation. People like poetry in periodicals, even although they abuse it. Here's a little attempt of my own, Mr Editor-if I thought it could pass muster. Shepherd. Up with it. But don't, like Wordsworth, "murmur near the living brooks a music sweeter than their own." That is to say, no mouthing and singing like a Methodist minister. The Lake-poetry may require it—for it is a' sound, and nae sense; but yours is just the reverse o' that-Spout away, Southside. Tickler. You know Campbell's fine song of the "Exile of Erin?"-I had it in my mind, perhaps, during compo sition. 108 POEM BY TICKLER. TUNE-" Erin Go Bragh." There stood on the shore of far distant Van Diemen Where the housebreaker thrives, and the pickpocket reigns; Oh! hard is my fate, said the much-injured felon ; I envy those haunts where no bloodhounds pursue ! Oh! much-loved St Giles, even here in my sorrow, To the scenes of my youth, and the friends that deplore me, Where are my picklocks, my much-loved possession ? Yet even in my grief I would still give a trifle, Could I only obtain but a glass of The Blue, |