162 163 TICKLER AS A PREACHER. the gloom o' an artificial religion that owns. heart, looks as ugly at fourty as that o' a gescore. deuce is the meaning of all this vitupera tak me gin I ken. But I fin' mysel gettin angry at something or ither, and could abuse maist nybody. Wha was't that introduced the toppic o' kirks? I'm sure it wasna me. It was you, Mr Tickler. Tickler. Me introduce the top of kirks? Shepherd. Yes; you said "What think you of the theatre - preaching — politics - magazines and reviews, and the threatened millennium ?" I'll swear to the verra words, as if I had taen them down wi' the keelivine. North. James, don't you think Tickler would have been an admirable preacher? Shepherd. I canna say; but I could answer for he's being a good precentor." Tickler. Why not a preacher? Your Shepherd. You wadna hae been to be depended on. discourses, like your ain figure, wad hae wanted proportion; and as for doctrine, I doubt you wad hae been heterodox. Then, you wad hae been sic a queer-lookin chiel in the poupit! Tickler. Don't you think I would have been an admirable Moderator ?2 Shepherd. You're just best as you are-a gentleman at large. You're scarcely weel adapted for ony profession-except maybe a fizician. You wad hae fan's a pulse wi' a true Esculawpian solemnity; and that face o' yours, when you look'd glum or gruesome, wad hae frichtened families into fees, and held patients down to sick-beds, season after season. O man! but you wad hae had gran' practice. Tickler. I could not have endured the quackery of the thing, Hogg. Shepherd. Haud your tongue. There's equal quackery in a' things alike. Look at a sodger-that is, an offisher-a' wavin wi' white plumes, glitterin wi' gowd, and ringin wi' iron-gallopin on a grey horse, that caves the foam frae its 1 The "precentor" in the Presbyterian service corresponds to the "clerk" in the Episcopalian. 2 Moderator, or president of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. 3 Fan'-felt. 4 Caves-tosses. PICTURE OF FOZIE TAM. 165 fiery nostrils, wi' a mane o' clouds, and a tail that flows like a cataract; mustachies about the mouth like a devourin cannibal, and proud fierce een, that seem glowerin for an enemy into the distant horrison-his long swurd swinging in the scabbard wi' a fearsome clatter aneath Bellerophon's belly —and his doup dunshin1 down among the spats o' a teeger's skin, or that o' a leopard-till the sound o' the trumpet gangs up to the sky, answered by the rampaugin Arab's "ha, ha" -and a' the stopped street stares on the aid-de-camp o' the stawf,-writers' clerks, bakers, butchers, and printers' deevils, a' wushin they were sodgers,—and leddies frae balconies, where they sit shooin silk purses in the sunshine, start up, and, wi' palpitatin hearts, send looks o' love and languishment after the Flyin Dragon. North. Mercy on us, James, you are a perfect Tyrtæus. Shepherd. O! wad you believ't-but it's true that at school that symbol o' extermination was ca'd Fozie2 Tam? North. Spare us, James-spare us. The pain in our side returns. He Shepherd. Every callant in the class could gie him his licks; and I recollec ance a lassie geein him a bloody nose. durstna gang into the dookin3 aboon his doup, for fear o' drownin, and even then wi' seggs; and as for speelin trees, he never ventured aboon the rotten branches o' a Scotch fir. He was feared for ghosts, and wadna sleep in a room by himsel; and ance on a Halloween, he swarfed at the apparition o' a lowin turnip. But noo he's a warrior, and fought at Waterloo. Yes-Fozie Tam wears a medal, for he overthrew Napoleon. Ca' ye na that quackery, wi' a vengeance? 5 North. Why, James, you do not mean surely thus to characterise the British soldier? Shepherd. No. The British army, drawn up in order o' battle, seems to me an earthly image of the power of the right hand of God. But still what I said was true, and nae ither name had he at school but Fozie Tam. Oh, sirs! when I see what creturs like him can do, I could greet that I'm no a sodger. Tickler. What the deuce can they do, that you or I, James, cannot do as well, or better? 1 Dunshin. There seems to be no English word for this except "bumping;" yet how feeble ! 2 Fozie soft as a frost-bitten turnip. 3 Dookin-bathing. * Seggs-sedges, answering the purpose of a cork-jacket, 5 A turnip lanthorn. Shepherd. I wonder to hear you askin. Let you or me gang into a public room at ae door, amang a hunder bonny lassies, and Fozie Tam in full uniform at anither, and every star in the firmament will shine on him alone-no a glint for ane o' us twa-no a smile or a syllable-we can only see the back o' their necks. Tickler. And bare enough they probably are, James. Shepherd. Nae great harm in that, Mr Tickler, for a bonny bare neck can do naebody ill, and to me has aye rather the look o' innocence-but maun a poet or orator Tickler. Be neglected on account of Fozie Tam? Shepherd. And by mony o' the verra same creturs that at a great leeterary sooper the nicht afore were sae affable and sae flatterin, askin me to receet my ain verses, and sing my ain sangs, drinkin the health o' the Author o' the Queen's Wake in toddy out o' his ain tumbler-shakin hauns at partin, and in the confusion at the foot o' the stairs, puttin their faces sae near mine, that their sweet warm breath was maist like a faint, doubtfu' kiss, dirlin' to ane's verra heart—and after a’ this, and mair than this, only think o' being clean forgotten, overlooked, or despised, for the sake o' Fozie Tam! Tickler. We may have our revenge. Wait till you find him in plain clothes-on half-pay, James, or sold out-and then, like Romeo, when the play is over, and the satin breeches off, he walks behind the scenes, no better than a tavern-waiter, or a man-r -milliner's apprentice. Shepherd. There's some comfort in that, undoubtedly. Still, I wish I had been a "soldier in my youth." I wadna care sae muckle about shoemakers; but let even a tailor enlist, and nae sooner has he got a feather on his head, than he can whussle out the proudest lass in the village. North. Somewhat too much of this. None of us, perhaps, have had any great reason to complain-and really, at our time of life Tickler. Agreed.-You were at the Professional Concert, James, t'other night, I think? Shepherd. Faith no. Catch me at a Professional Concert again, and I'll gie a sooper to the haill orchestra. Tickler. These fiddlers carry things with a very high hand indeed; and the amateurs, as they call themselves, are even 1 Dirlin-thrilling. EDINBURGH FIDDLERS. 167 more insufferable. There they go off at score, every wrist wrigglin in some wretched concerto, and the face of every scraper on catgut as intent on the miscreated noise, as if not only his own and his family's subsistence depended on it, but also their eternal salvation! Shepherd. And they ca' that music! It may be sae to them, for there's nae sayin what a man's lugs may be brought to by evil education; but look at the puir audience, and the hardest heart maun pity them, for they're in great pain, and wad fain be out. But that maunna be-they maun sit still there on the verra same bit o' the hard bench-without speakin or even whisperin-for twa-three-four hours-the room het and close-not a drap o' onything to drink-nae air but the flirt o' a fan-the cursed concertos gettin louder and louder-the fiddlers' faces mair intolerably impudent the stronger they strum North. Concerts are curses, certainly. The noise made at them by persons on fiddles, and other instruments, ought to be put down by the public. Let Yaniewicz, and Finlay Dun, and Murray, play solos of various kinds-divine airs of the great old masters, illustrious or obscure-airs that may lap the soul in Elysium. Let them also, at times, join their eloquent violins, and harmoniously discourse in a celestial colloquy they are men of taste, feeling, and genius. Let the fine-eared spirits of Italy, and Germany, and Scotland, enthral our : Shepherd. Haud your tongue, Mr North, you're gettin ower flowery. What I say's this-that, wi' the exception o' some dizzen, ae half o' whom are mere priggish pretenders, every ither leevin soul at a concert sits in a state o' sulky stupefaction. And to pay five shillings, or seven, or aiblins half a guinea, for tickets to be admitted, for a long winter's nicht, into purgatory-or without offence, say at ance, into hell! Tickler. The fiddling junto should be kicked to the devil. Let the public absent herself from such concerts, and then we may have music—but not till then. The performers must be starved out of their insolent self-sufficiency. Nothing else will do. North. We deserve it. We must needs be Athenians in all things; and, in fear of being reckoned unscientific, hundreds of people, not generally esteemed idiots, will crowd to a concert, at which they know that, before they have sat half-an 168 MEASURES FOR THEIR SUPPRESSION. hour, they will most devoutly desire that fiddles had never been found out, and the arm of every fiddler palsied beyond the power of future torments. Shepherd. Why dinna' ye gie them a dressin in the Magazine? North. Perhaps, James, they are beneath print Shepherd. Na, na; gie them a skelp or twa-for they're as sensitive as skinned paddocks." North. I must have some talk with my friend Sandy Ballantyne3-with whom, by the by, I have not smoked a cigar for some moons bygone-for he knows I love music, and that I could sit from sunset to sunrise beneath the power of his matchless violin. But says I, my dear Sandy—My dear Sandy, says I Shepherd. You may just as weel at ance haud your tongue, as to speak to him, or the like o' him, on the subject. He's far ower gran' a sceeantific player to mind ae word that you say; and him, and George Thamson, and George Hogarth, and the lave o' the yamatoors, will just lauch at ye as an ignoramus, that kens naething o' acowstics, or the dooble-dooble baiss, or Batehoven, or Mowsart, or that Carle Weber. Tickler. I have better hopes, James. The feeling, taste, knowledge of the majority must be consulted. Science must not be sacrificed, for without science what would be a concert? But whenever five hundred human beings are collected in one room, not for punishment but enjoyment, they are entitled, on the score of their humanity, to some small portion of pleasure; and none but directors, with black hearts, will consign them all up to unmitigated torments. I am confident, therefore, that Mr Alexander Ballantyne 4 Shepherd. He'll cry "whish," if you sae much as whisper, and wull rouse to the skies thae cursed concert-chiels in the orchestra coming out wi' a crash that crushes in the drums o' your lugs, pierces the verra ceiling, and dumfounders the understanding by a confused noise o' naethingness, frae which a' sense is banished; and that has nae mair claim to be ca'd music than the routin o' ten thousand kye at Fakirk Tryst. North. It is many years, James, since I have been so much 1 Dinna-do not. 2 Paddocks-frogs. 3 Alexander Ballantyne, the brother of Sir Walter Scott's familiars, James and John Ballantyne. 4 Rouse-extol. |