THE HUMBUG SMASHED.

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he thundered before Mr Mackay entered the lists, and that at the time might have been forgiven as the unmeasured vaunting of an enthusiast, could only be described, after his craven refusal to meet his man, as the vapouring of a bully and a braggadocio.

North. The study of languages is a great mystery-but an itinerant like Hamilton is assuredly not the man to clear it up. Why does he roam about from town to town? Can't he bring his boat to an anchor, like any other conscientious teacher, and give his system the sanction of a series of successful years?

Tickler. If it be sound it will prosper-and the High School and the New Academy will follow the example of that chickenhearted Institution at Baltimore, and shut their gates.

North. I take it upon me to give a challenge to Mr Hamilton, from two young gentlemen whom I have never had the pleasure of taking by the hand-the dux of the Rector's Class in the High School, and the dux of the Rector's class in the New Academy. If both the one and the other of those most promising boys do not beat him blind in Greek and Latin, in a public competition, I will forfeit to the Hamiltonian bugbear a barrel of oysters during every week of every month whose name contains the letter R, for the remainder of his existence.

Shepherd. He daurna do't-he daurna do't. I'll back the laddies, to the value o' a score o' gimmers, in grammar, and syntax, and parsing, and prosody, and construin, and the lave o't; and my name's no Jamie Hogg gin the great big muckle sumph doesna rin out o' the ring wi' his tail atween his legs like a lurcher, during Cæsar's Commentaries.

North. He should have had more pride and independence, more trust and confidence in himself and his system, than to come down to Edinburgh at the wagging of the little finger of the Edinburgh Review.1 There was heard in our streets the blowing of a penny trumpet, and forthwith appeared thereon the man with the gift of tongues. What made him leave Liverpool?

Tickler. Detection, discomfiture, and disgrace. There, too, he was challenged; and there, too, he took to his heels, with 1 The Rev. Sydney Smith, the sworn foe to humbugs generally, patronised the Hamiltonian humbug in the Edinburgh Review, 1826.

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MADAME DE STAEL.

such headlong precipitancy, that we have heard he had nearly plunged into one of the wet docks.

Shepherd. Is that maitter o' fact, or metaphorical?

North. Metaphorical. Two clever scribes, Verbeiensis and Cantabrigiensis, smashed him in argument all to shiversshowed up his utter ignorance and destitution of all scholarship-and hung round his neck a label inscribed with large letters-HUMBUG.

Tickler. I have the pamphlet in which the impostor is seen stripped, and flagellated, and writhing in the most ludicrous distortion of face and figure, without a leg to stand on, his tongue struck dumb in his cheek, and the vomitory of vociferation hermetically sealed. It would furnish material for a good article. Eh?1

North. James, what were you going to say about Madame de Stael?

Shepherd. That there were some things about her that I could not approve. But she was, nevertheless, what I would ca' a fine speerit, and her name will be enrolled, on account of her rare and surpassing genius, often nobly employed, among the great benefactors o' her specie.

North. Agreed. She was in many many things a noble creature. As for a certain gang of strumpets, they and their correspondence have escaped infamy in this noble island of ours, by dropping, with other outlandish filth and carrion, into the cess-pool of oblivion. Much was said, indeed, a few years ago, by writers ambitious of a reputation for acquaintance with the literature of modern France, about their wit, and their elegance, and other accomplishments of those more than demireps; and their meretricious charms, it was hinted, might even, if too fondly contemplated, have the power to eclipse the soberer lustre of the character of our British female worthies.

Tickler. Whereas their dulness was nearly equal to their profligacy; and the learned lovers, Presidents of Philosophical Societies, and so forth, whom their insatiable licentiousness disgusted, their wearisome stupidity sent asleep.

1 The Hamiltonian method of teaching languages by means of interlinear translations-the most irrational charlatanerie ever devised to obstruct the progress of education-has not found, for many years, a single advocate in its favour.

North. Eternal contempt, Tickler, in spite of all the fulsome eulogies by their friends on this side of the Channel, must pursue the memory of the few philosophers who are not already forgotten, that were not ashamed to submit their scientific speculations-ay, their moral reflections on conscience, and their inquiries into the origin of evil, and their conjectures on the mysteries of God's Providence, to the feelings, and opinions, and judgments of weak and wicked women, whose last favours were lavished with a profusion, in which freedom of choice was lost on their parts, and freedom of rejection on that of their favourites, on an endless series of grinning and grimacing Abbés, and Esprits Forts, and Academicians, all muttering, and mowing, and chattering, and scraping, and bowing, and shrugging their shoulders complacently to one another, with hatred and jealousy, and envy, and rage, and revenge, boiling or rankling in their hearts! Shepherd. Order-order-chair-chair! Tickler, tak North through hauns.

Tickler. What? James!

Shepherd. Ae flash o' your ee sets me richt. Oh, sirs! what a glorious galaxy o' female genius and virtue have we to gaze on, with admiration pure and unreproved, in our native hemisphere. There-that star is the large and lustrous star o' Joanna Baillie; and there are the stars o' Hamiltonand Edgeworth—and Grant-and Austen-and Tighe—and Mitford and Hemans! Beautiful and beloved in all the relations of Christian life, these are the WOMEN, Mr North, maids, wives, or widows, whom the religious spirit of this Protestant land will venerate as long as the holy fires of a pure faith burn upon her altars. These are the LADIES, Mr Tickler-and thank God we have many like them, although less conspicuous-whom to guard from insult of look, whisper, or touch, what man, English, Scotch, or Irish, but would bare his breast to death? And why? Because the union o' genius, and virtue, and religion, and morality, and gentleness, and purity, is a soul-uplifting sight, and ratifies the great bond of Nature, by which we are made heirs of the immortal sky. North. Timothy, you and I had really better be mum till morning.

Tickler. He beats us both at our own weapons—and I begin to think I stutter.

272

OYSTERS.

(Mr AMBROSE enters.)

This is

Shepherd. As sure's death, there's the oysters. O man, Awmrose, but you've the pleasantest face o' ony man o' a' my acquaintance. Here's ane as braid's a mushroom. Saturday nicht, and they've a' gotten their bairds shaved. There's a wee ane awa down my wrang throat; but deil a fears, it'll find its way into the stamach. A waught' o' that porter gars the drums o' ane's lugs crack and play dirl.

Tickler. They are in truth precious powldowdies. More boards, Ambrose, more boards.

Shepherd. Yonner are half-a-dizzen fresh boards on the side-tables. But more porter, Awmrose-more porter. Canna ye manage mair than twa pots at a time, man, in ilka haun? For twunty years, Mr North, I used aye to blaw aff the froth, or cut it smack-smooth across wi' the edge o' my loof; but for the last ten or thereabouts, indeed ever since the Magazine, I hae sooked in froth and a', nor cared about diving my nose in't. Faith, I'm thinkin that maun be what they ca' BROON STOOT; for Mr Pitt and Mr Fox are nearing ane anither on the wa' there, as gin they were gaun to fecht; and either the roof's rising, or the floor fa'in, or I'm hafflins fou!

Tickler. Mr Pitt and Mr Fox!—why, James, you are dreaming. This is not the Blue Parlour !

North. A Psychological Curiosity!

Shepherd. Faith it is curious aneuch, and shows the power o' habit in producing a sort o' delusion on the ocular spectrum. I wad hae sworn I saw the lang, thin, lank feegur, and cocked-up nose o' Pitt, wi' his hand pressed down wi' an authoritative nieve, on a heap o' Parliamentary papers; and the big, clumsy carcass, arched een, and jolly chops o' Fox, mair like a master coal-merchant than an orator or a statesman;—but they've vanished away, far aff, and wee, wee like atomies, and this is not the Blue Parlour sure aneuch.

North. To think of one of the Noctes Ambrosianæ passing away without ever a single song!

Shepherd. It hasna past awa yet, Mr North. It's no eleven, man; and to hinner twal frae strikin untimeously,-and on a Saturday nicht I hate the sound o't-Mr Awmrose, do you put back, ae round, the lang hand o' the knock. Yese hae a

1 Waught a large draught.

THE CLOCK PUT BACK.

273

sang or twa afore we part, Mr North; but, even without music, hasna this been a pleasant nicht? I sall begin noo wi' pepper, vinegar, and mustard, for the oysters by theirsels are getting a wee saut. By the tramping on the stairs I jalouse the playhouse is scalin. Whisht, Mr North! keep a calm sugh, or ODoherty will be in on us, and gar us break the Sabbath morning. Noo, let's draw in our chairs to the fireside, and, when a's settled in the tither parlours, I'll sing you