Imagens das páginas
PDF
ePub

284

MARTIN THE PAINTER.-SCOTT'S NAPOLEON.

hair, and seaweed and barnacles stickin to my hurdies, like the keel o' a veshel wi' Sir Humphrey Davy's preservers against the dry-rot. Better to remain inland,—a silly shepherd piping to his flock.

North. I was glad to see some fine lines of yours, James, in Mr Watts' Souvenir.

Shepherd. Oh, sir, but yon's a bonny byuck! What for didna ye notice the Prent o' Martin's Alexander and Diogenes? That Martin, to my fancy, 's the greatest painter o' them a', and has a maist magnificent imagination. I'm nae great classical scholar; but aiblins I ken as muckle about Alexander the Great, his character and his conquests, as mony bred in a College. What a glorious gloom and glitter o' battlements hanging ower the crested head o' the Macedonian monarch, marching afore his body-guard, while a' the laigh. distance is a forest o' spears and lances! And then Diogenes, like a tinkler at the door o' his bit blanket-tent, geein a lesson, which he was weel able to do, to the son o' Jupiter Ammon. The Tent's far better than a tub-for historical truth canna be said to be wranged, when it is sacrificed to the principles of a lofty art. A fountain playing close at hand in the shade and the builder's and the sculptor's skill beautifying every quiet place with pensive images! My copy, wi' Mr Watts' respectful compliments, in large paper, wi' proof impressions; and I wadna sell't for five guineas, even although I had coft it mysel for twal shillings.

North. Jozey Hume would not scruple to sell, at a profit, a presentation-copy of a work of Sir Walter's.

Shepherd. Hoot, you sumph!-Beg pardon, sir,-Hoo do you think that a presentation-copy frae Sir Walter could ever get into such slippery hauns? But, gin ane could suppose sic a supposition, nae doubt Joe wadna be lang o' sellin't; for ye ken he doesna like to see interest on siller losing itsel, and it's very expensive keeping byucks lying idle, even although they dinna eat muckle in their shelfs. I wadna sell a presentationcopy o' the warst o' Sir Walter's warks, if it were to keep me and mine frae starvation.-When's his Napoleon to be out? North. In a month or two,1 I hear. It is a noble perform

ance.

Shepherd. You dinna say that you've seen't.

1 Scott's Life of Napoleon was published in June 1827.

CUNNINGHAM'S PAUL JONES,

285

North. Hem!-Mum, James. His other works are Tales; but this is a History, and a History worthy both the Men.

Shepherd. I canna doubt it. He's up to onything.—Oh, sir, but it's sickening to hear the anticipatory criticism o' the Whiglings on the Life of Napoleon. Wull Sir Walter, they ask, do justice to his character-wull he not show his politics? What for no?-Whan did he ever deny glory to a great man? Never.

North. Mere malice. Why, James, the Whigs used formerly to say, and even now they hint as much, that Wellington is not a great General. Neither is Scott a great Author.

Shepherd. I can thole a hantle o' nonsense-for I like to speak nonsense mysel-but heartless, malignant, envious nonsense, I never could thole; and were ony ass to point his ears with a bray at Sir Walter, in my sicht, or hearing, I would just get up, even if it was at a board o' oysters, when ODoherty was clearin a' before him, and kick the donkey down stairs.

North. Have you seen Allan Cunningham's1 Paul Jones? Shepherd. No me. It'll no be verra gude.

North. What, James! Don't you think Allan a man of genius?

Shepherd. Yes, sir, I do think him a man of genius. But mayna a man of genius write a byuck that's no verra gude? Read ye ever a Romance ca'd the Three Perils o' Man?

North. Bravo, my dear Shepherd. Paul Jones, James, is an amusing, an interesting Tale, and will, on the whole, raise Allan's reputation. It is full of talent.

Shepherd. Let's hear it's chief merits first, and then its chief defects. They'll be geyan equally balanced, I jalouse.

North. Even so. There are many bold and striking incidents and situations; many picturesque and poetical descriptions; many reflections that prove Allan to be a man of an original, vigorous, and sagacious mind.

Shepherd. I dinna doubt it. Say away.

North. The character of Paul Jones is, I think, well conceived.

Shepherd. But is't weel executed? That's everything.

1 Author of Lives of British Painters, and some very spirited poems. He was the secretary and foreman of Chantrey the sculptor. See ante, p. 204.

286

PRONOUNCED A FAILURE,

North. No, James, that's not everything. Much may be forgiven in imperfect execution to good conception. In bringing out his idea of Paul Jones, Allan has not always been successful. The delineation wants light and shade; there is frequent daubing-great-or rather gross exaggeration, and continual effort after effect, that sometimes totally defeats its purpose. On the whole, the interest we take in the Pirate is but languid. But the worst fault of the book is that it smells not of the ocean. There are waves-waveswaves-but never a sea,-battle on battle, but as of ships in a painted panorama, where we feel all is the mockery of imitation and almost grudge our half-crown at each new ineffectual broadside and crash of music from a band borrowed from a caravan of wild beasts.

Shepherd. If I had said all that, you would have set it down to jealousy o' Kinnigham's genius.

North. It is evident that Allan never made a cruise in a frigate or line-of-battle ship. He dares not venture on nautical terms-and the land-lubber is in every line. Paul Jones's face is perpetually painted with blood and gunpowder, and his person spattered with brains. The description of the battle between the Shannon and the Chesapeake, in James's Naval History, is worth, ten thousand times over, all the descriptions in Allan's three volumes. Sadly inferior, indeed, is he to Mr Cooper, the truly naval author of the Pilot, who writes like a Hero.

Shepherd. As a tale of the sea, then, Paul Jones is a failure?

North. A most decided one. Still a bright genius like Allan's will show itself through darkest ignorance-and there are occasional flashes of war poetry in Paul Jones. But he manœuvres a Ship as if she were on wheels, and on dry land. All the glory of the power of sail and helm is gone-and the reader longs for an old number of The Naval Chronicle, for a Gazette letter from the Admiralty, from Lord Exmouth, or Lord Cochrane, or Sir Richard Strachan, or Keates, or Mylne, or Seymour, or Brisbane. But as I shall probably review Allan's book, you will see my opinion of its beauties and its deformities at great length in an early number. The article shall be a good one, depend on't—perhaps a leading one; for it is delightful to have to do with a man of genius; and our

ANKLES IN BLUE STOCKINGS.

287

readers will rise from its perusal with a far higher opinion of Allan's powers, than from any base and paid-for panegyric in any unprincipled Edinburgh radical newspaper, where the fear or the hope of a few advertisements withheld or bestowed, will prompt a panegyric fulsome as the smell of rankest ewes or nanny-goats, that, to the nostrils of a proud Peasant, like Allan Cunningham, must be sufficient, James, to make his stomach "just perfectly scunner." By the way, I cannot say, James, that I feel that disgust towards literary ladies that you used to express so strongly by that excellent word scunner. To my aged eyes a neat ankle is set off attractively by a slight shade of cerulean-and

Shepherd. A nate ankil! Saw ye ever in a' your born days a nate ankil in a blue stockin? A' the leddies o' my acquaintance that write byucks hae gotten a touch o' the elephanteasis in their legs. If they grow thicker and thicker a' the way up, safe us! but they maun

North. Stop, James. Some of our most justly popular female authors are very handsome women.

Shepherd. I'll just thank ye to name twa or three o' the handsomest and I'll bet you what you like that I'se produce a lassie frae Yarrow or Ettrick, in worsted huggers,' that just kens her letters and nae mair, that'll measure sma'er roun' the ankils than your picked madam in the blue stockins, although she may hae written volumm upon volumm baith in prose and metre, and aiblins dedicated them, with a "Sire" in great big capitals, to his Majesty the King.

North. Stuff, James, stuff. Of all the huge, hulky, bulky, red, distempered ankles, that ever petrified my astonished gaze, the most hideous have I seen wading the tributary streams of the Tweed. In humble life, no such thing exists as a neat ankle.

Shepherd. Puir chiel, I pity you.

North. The term Literary Ladies (who, by the by, are charming Literary Souvenirs) is uniformly used by the dregs of both sexes-and only by the dregs. For my own part, I never yet felt or understood the full beauty of any pathetic passage in a poem, till I had heard it read, or recited, or breathed of by lady's lips-or wept or smiled over by lady's eyes-God bless them! They are celestial critics-and I

1 Huggers-stockings without feet.

288

A SLIM ROTUNDITY COMMENDED.

could often kiss the sweet creatures, so silvery sweet the music of their tongues! Believe it not, James-believe it not, James, that their ankles are ever one hair's-breadth in circumference more than he could wish them to be, when kneeling lover makes obeisance to their feet.

Shepherd. Weel, weel, then-I daursay I'm wrang. I'm wullin to believe, in spite o' the evidences of my senses, that the leddy I saw the day comin intil a circulation leebrary to ax for the Secrets o' Sensibility, in four volumes, had ankles nae thicker than my wrist-bane, although at the time I could hae taen my bible oath that they were about the thickness of my cawve.

North. Besides, James, it is altogether a mistake to think that thinness is necessarily neatness in an ankle. An ankle ought not on any account to be either thick or thin, but of a moderate roundness; any approach to the bony-or what you would call the "skranky," is death to my devoirs. Many elderly-young ladies are partial to short petticoats, on the score of their thin, bony, skranky ankles, which they stick out upon the public like sheep's trotters. Commend me, James, slim rotundity which long-fingered Jack could spanand scarcely span. Such an ankle, in the words of Burns, betrays fair proportion. The skranky ankle bespeaks skranky neck and bosom, James, and

Shepherd. There's nae endurin them-I alloo that lassies should aye be something sonsie.

North. So with waists.

Women are not wasps.

Shepherd. I'm no just quite sae sure about that, sir; but I agree wi' you in dislikin the wasp-waist. You wunner what they do wi' their vittals. They canna be healthy-and you'll generally observe, that siclike hae gey yellow faces, as if something were wrang wi' their stamach. There should be moderation in a' things. A waist's for puttin your arm round, and no for spannin wi' your hauns-except it be some fairy o' a cretur that's no made to be married, but just to wonder at, and aiblins admire, as you wud a bonny she-dwarf at a show. There should aye be some teer and weer about a lassie that's meant for domestic life.

North. With regard to dress, I am willing to allow considerable latitude. The bosom is the blessed seat of innocence as

well as love.

« AnteriorContinuar »