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is sure to forgather, as if by appointment, wi' some bonny leddy, wha cleeks his arm wi' little pressin, and then walks off wi' him, looking up and laughing sae sweetly in his face, and takin half-a-dizzen wee bit triflin fairy steps to ane o' his lang strides, till they disappear ayont the horizon.

North. But let us hear about Cæsar Malan and the negro wench.

Shepherd. It's the same way wi' him in the kintra-at kirk or market. The women-folk a' crowd round him like fascinated creatures

North. Whom are you speaking of, James ?-the Rev. Cesar Malan?

Shepherd. Na, na—the Rev. Timothy Tickler, wha'll preach a better sermon than ony Genevese Frenchman that ever snivelled.

Tickler. Cæsar, to my astonishment, began to speak French, and then I remembered the advertisement. I whispered to the Dunstable Dianas, that they must be my interpreters-but they confessed themselves ignorant of the Gallic tongue.

Shepherd. No ane in ten, ay twenty-forty-were able to make him out, tak my word for't. It's a very different thing parleyvouing about the weather, and following out a discourse frae the poupit in a strange tongue. But I'm thinking Mr Malan 'll be a gude-looking fallow, wi' a heigh nose and gleg een, and a saft insinuatin manner

Tickler. A gentlemanly-looking man enough, James, and even something of an orator, though rather wishy-washy.

Shepherd. And then, och, och! the shamefu' absurdity o' the subjec! Thousan's and thousan's o' our ain white brithers and sisters literally starving in every manufacturin toun in Scotland, and a Frenchman o' the name o' Cæsar colleckin platefu's o' siller, I'se warrant, to be sent aff to the Wast Indies, to buy an abstract idea for an ugly black wench, wha suckles her weans outower her shouther!

North. Why, James, that is the custom of the country.

Shepherd. And an ugly custom it is, and maist disgustfu'; at least when you compare't wi' the bosoms o' our ain nursing matrons.

North. An odd reason, James, for charity

Shepherd. Nae odd reason at a', Mr North. I mainteen, that at the present creesis, when thousands o' bonny white

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185

callans are tining the roses out o' their cheeks for verra hunger—and thousands o' growin lasses sittin disconsolate wi' cames sae trig in their silken hair, although they hae been obliged to sell their claes to buy bread for their parents-and thousands o' married women, that greet when they look on their unemployed and starving husbands-I mainteen, Mr North, that under such affecting, distressing circumstances o' our ain hame-condition, the he, or the she, or the it, that troubles their head about Wast India Niggers, and gangs to glower like a gawpus at a Gallic gull-grupper gollaring out geggery about some gruesome black doudy-stinking amang her piccaninnies

Tickler. I plead guilty, James.

Shepherd. Were there nae white slaves, sir, about the doorcheek, haudin out their hauns for an awmous? Nae sickly auld widows, wi' baskets aneath their arms, pretendin to be selling tape, and thread, and chap ballads or religious tracts, but, in truth, appealin wi' silent looks to the charity o' the ingoers and outcomers, a' gossipin about the Rev. Mr Cæsar Malan?

North. What! are there slaves in Scotland, James?

Shepherd. Ay-ae half o' mankind, sir, are slaves a' ower the face o' the earth. I'm no gaun to blether about the Wast Indian question to a man like you, Mr North, wha kens a' the ins and the outs o't, better than ony abolitionist that ever sacrificed the sincerity o' his soul at the shrine o' East Indian sugar.

Tickler. Hear-hear-hear.-Encore-" The shrine o' East Indian sugar!"

North. Speaking of the West India question, there is a great deal too much impertinence in Mr Coleridge's Six Months' Visit.1 An old man like myself may with some difficulty be excused for occasionally drivelling about his rheumatism, all the world knowing his martyrdom; but who can endure this conceited mannikin, apparently because he is the nephew of a bishop, prating, in print, of his bodily infirmities, in a style that might sicken a horse or an apothecary?

Tickler. Scotch and English puppies make a striking contrast. The Scotch puppy sports philosophical, and sets to

1 Six Months' Visit to the West Indies. By HENRY COLERIDGE, a nephew of S. T. Coleridge.

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SCOTCH AND ENGLISH PUPPIES.

rights Locke, Smith, Stewart, and Reid. In his minority he is as solemn as a major of two-score-sits at table, even during dinner, with an argumentative face, and in a logical position-and gives out his sentences deliberately, as if he were making a payment in sovereigns.

Shepherd. Oh, man, how I do hate sic formal young chiels— reason, reason, reasoning on things that you maun see whether you will or no, even gin you were to shut your een wi' a' your force, and then cover them wi' a bandage-chiels that are employed frae morning to nicht colleckin facks out o' books, in that dark, dirty dungeon the Advocates' Leebrary, and that'll no hesitate, wi' a breach o' a' gude manners, to correct your verra chronology when you're in the middle o' a story that may hae happened equally weel ony day frae the flood to the last judgment-chiels that quote Mr Jeffrey and Hairy Cobrun, and even on their first introduction to Englishers, keep up a clatter about the Ooter-House-chiels that think it a great maitter to spoot aff by heart an oraution on the corn laws, in that puir puckit Gogotha, the Speculative Society, and treat you, ower the nits and prunes, wi' skreeds o' College Essays on Syllogism, and what's ca'd the Association o' Ideas -chiels that would rather be a Judge o' the Court o' Session that the Great Khan o' Tartary himsel-and look prouder, when taking their forenoon's airing, alang Princes Street, on a bit shachlin ewe-necked powney, coft frae a sportin flesher, than Saladin, at the head of ten thousand chosen chivalry, shaking the desert-chiels

1

North. Stop, James-just look at Tickler catching flies.

Shepherd. Sound asleep, as I'm a Contributor. Oh! man— I wush we had a saut herring to put intil the mooth o' him, or a burned cork to gie him mistashies, or a string o' ingans to fasten to the nape o' his neck by way o' a pigtail, or

North. Shamming Abraham.

Shepherd. Na-he's in a sort o' dwam-and nae wonner, for the Lodge is just a verra Castle o' Indolence. Thae broad vine-leaves hingin in the veranda in the breathless heat, or stirrin when the breeze sughs by, like water-lilies tremblin in the swell o' the blue loch-water, inspire a dreamin somnolency that the maist waukrife canna a'thegither resist; and the bonny twilight, chequering the stane floor a' round 1 Shachlin-shuffling. 2 Waukrife-watchful.

2

EXTRACTS FROM THE SIX MONTHS' VISIT.

187

and round the shady Lodge, keeps the thochts confined within its glimmerin boundaries, till every cause o' disturbance is afar off, and the life o' man gets tranquil as a wean's rest in its cradle, or amang the gowans on a sunny knowe; sae let us speak lown and no wauken him, for he's buried in the umbrage o' imagination, and weel ken I what a heavenly thing it is to soom doun the silent stream o' that haunted world.

North. What say you to that smile on his face, James? Shepherd. It's a gey wicked ane— e-I'm thinkin he's after some mischief. I'll put this raisin-stalk up his nose. Mercy on us, what a sneeze!

Tickler (starting and looking round). Ha! Hogg, my dear fellow, how are you? Soft-soft-I have it-why that hotchpotch, and that afternoon sun- -But-but-what of Master Coleridge, is he a Prig?

North. Besides the counterfeited impertinence of my rheumatism, he treats the ladies and gentlemen who peruse his Six Months' Visit with eternal assurances that he is a young man-that his stomach is often out of order-and that he always travels with a medicine-chest-and that he is a very sweaty young gentleman.

Shepherd. That's really a disgustfu' specie o' yegotism. But is't true?

North. May I request you, James, to get me the volume. That's it beside Juno

There at the foot of yonder nodding bitch,
That wreathes her old fantastic tail so low.

Shepherd. Nine and saxpence for a bit volumm like that, and a' about the state o' the author's stomach and bowels! But let's hear some extracks.

North. "I was steamed by one, showered by another, just escaped needling by a third, and was nearly boiled to the consistency of a pudding for the love of an oblong gentleman of Ireland," &c.

Shepherd. That's geyan stupid, but excusable aneuch wut in a verra young lad. Anither extrack.

North. "I went simply and sheerly on my own account, or rather on account of the aforesaid rheumatism; for as every other sort of chemical action had failed, I was willing to try if fusion would succeed."—" If Yorick had written after me, he

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SENTENCE PASSED UPON IT.

would have mentioned the Rheumatic Traveller."-"This book is rheumatism from beginning to end."—"I rarely argue a matter unless my shoulders or knees ache."-"I trust they will think it is my rheumatism that chides."

Shepherd. I'm afraid that's geyan puppyish; but still, as I said before, I can excuse a laddie anxious to be enterteenin. Anither extrack.

North. "I sat bolt upright, and for some time contemplated, by the glimmering of the lantern, the huge disarray of my pretty den. I fished for my clothes, but they were bathing; I essayed to rise, but I could find no resting-place for the sole of a rheumatic foot."

Tickler. Curse the whelp!-fling the book over the laburnums.

North. There it goes. Go where he will-do what he will -Master Coleridge is perpetually perspiring during his whole Six Months' Visit to the West Indies. He must have been very unpleasant company-especially as he was a valetudinarian. Had he been in fine fresh health, it might have passed; but what a nuisance a cabin passenger with the sallow and the sweating sickness!

Shepherd. Is he dead noo?

North. Not at all.

Shepherd. That's maist inexcusable.

North. He tells the world upwards of fifty times that he was at Eton-and

Tickler. What the devil is the meaning of all this botheration about the Diary of an Invalid? Let the puppy keep his own kennel.

2

North. I believe my temper was a little ruffled just now by the recollection of an article in the Quarterly Review,' of which this poor prig's performance was the text-book. All the quotations were most loathsome. Fowell Buxton is no great witch, but he has more sense, and knowledge too, in his little finger than this most perspiring young genius has in all his cranium. The Six Months' Visit should have been a book of Colburn's. Tickler. Colburn has published many valuable, interesting,

1 No. LXVI., for March 1826, p. 490.

2 Afterwards Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, sometime member of Parliament, and a zealous advocate for the abolition of slavery in our West Indian colonies. He died in 1845.