334

A GENTLEMAN OF THE PRESS.

Wha are ye, my man, that's here hearkenin to a conversation that I'm thinking, fra the face o' you, you're no very able to understand the drift o'?-wha are ye, my man, wi' cheeks like potty, and tautied hair, and a coat sae desperate short in the sleeves? But dinna be sae feared, I'm no gaun to put ye to death, only what was ye chrissend? or are you a Pagan wi' some outlandish name, and a mother-tongue unintelligible in this quarter o' the habitable globe? I'll haud ye, sir, by the cuff o' the neck, till ye speak-Are ye dumb, sir?

North. James, James-my dear Shepherd, relax your hold, he is a short-hand writer.

Shepherd. A short-hand writer! a short-hand writer! and that's the way o't-that's the way o't-that the Noctes Ambrosianæ are gotten up for that Magazine o' yours, Mr North!!! How durst you, sir, sit in that press takin down my words? A pretty gentleman o' the press, indeed! Gude faith! a wee thing would mak me fling you out o' the window! There's anither shake for you, sir, to mak your blood circulate.

North. Mr Gurney, don't mind the Shepherd, it is his way. -James, James, he is not one of the enemy-and as worthy a fellow as lives: moderate your fury, James.

Shepherd. Now the cat's out o' the bag. Never could I comprehend how a haill night's conversation, on to the sma' hours, could get itsel a' prented word for word in the Magazine, doun to my verra spellin, afore-and there, for thae sax years past, hae ye been writin in the press, my man, takin doun the conversation in hieroglyphics, and at hame extendin your notes, as they ca't, ower your sooens1 and sma' beer afore gaun to sleep on caff.2

Tickler. Come, James, you are getting personal and abusive. Mr Gurney is a most excellent fellow-a man of education, and a small private fortune of his own on the death of his grandmother.

North. Sit down, Mr Gurney, and take a glass of toddy. Shepherd. What for will you no speak, sir? Open your mouth and speak.

North. Mr Gurney, James, is no speaker.

Shepherd. What, is he dumb?

North. Rather so, Shepherd. It would be a long story to

tell you how he lost his tongue early in life in Persia.

1 Sooens-a sort of flummery made of the dust of oatmeal.

2 Caff-chaff.

A COLLOQUIAL LUMINARY.

335

Shepherd. He's aff-he's aff-out at the door like a shot. He may be a short-haun writer, but he's a lang-legged ane. See, yonner he's jinkin round the corner o' Union Place already, never doutin that I'm at his tails! There's no anither gentleman o' the press, is there, in ahint that ither door, on the richt cheek o' the fire?

Tickler. Well, the world must just content itself without any record of this meeting. Nor does it much matter, for I have seen the Shepherd much brighter.

Shepherd. I hate to see ony man ower bricht, as it is ca'd, in company. Commend me to the man that's just like a star amang ither stars-only noos and thans a wee thocht brichter than the luminaries around him, as if something internal glanced out frae within his verra core, and after a few fitfu' flashes, let him relapse back again into his former sober radiance.

Tickler. A new image, James, or something like it-Go on -I'll follow thee.

Shepherd. Or haply, sir, not that he was ony brichter than afore-but that the rest had grown somewhat dimmer, or mair obscure, as a cloud, or the shadow o' a cloud, had tamed their lustre, and made some o' them indeed amaist disappear frae the heavens a'thegither!

North. O! better and better, James. You speak like an absolute Coleridge.

Shepherd. Or suppose we liken a man, that in company is just what he ought to be, to a good fire-made o' Scotch coals, wi' a sprinklin o' English-no bleezin as if soot had fa'en doun the chimley, and then flingin out reek amaist to chock you, and also to blear your een, at the same time makin the room so insufferably hot that water would pabble in a dish; but a calm, composed fire, bold as the sun, yet mild almost as the moon, shinin and warmin all it looks upon with a summery spirit, till all our feelings expand in the glow like flowers, and the circle o' humanity round it becomes, in the best sense o' the word, Christianised by the gracious light!

North. That man, Tickler, flings away as much poetry in the course of an afternoon's crack, as would serve the Pet Poet of a Cockney coterie all his lifetime.

Shepherd. What's that you were sayin, sir, to Mr Tickler? I'm rather deafish. It's maist a pity the short-haun writer

336

CRUELTY TO ANIMALS.

ran aff; but aiblins he's gotten intil the press again through a back-door; and if sae, I shanna disturb him; for I carena, for my ain pairt, although every single syllable that ever was uttered by me within these four wa's was prented in capitals, and circulated to the remotest corners o' the Earth.

North. Did you go t'other day, James, to hear Mr Somerville of Currie's' sermon against cruelty to animals? I don't remember seeing your face in the throng. It was an elegant discourse.

Shepherd. I dinna doubt that, for he's a clever chieland as gude a man and as humane as ever used a doublebarrelled gun.

Tickler. What! Is he a sportsman, and yet preaches about cruelty to animals ?

North. Did not you know, Tickler, that Mr Somerville invented a gun-lock, for which he ought to have got a patent? Tickler. In that case he ought just to have allowed a brother clergyman to preach the Gibsonian Sermon.-For although, for my own part, I see no cruelty in field-sports, no man in the pulpit can possibly defend them; and if he omits all mention of them, he leaves his argument incomplete-and when the preacher is a notorious good shot, slaughtering right and left, to a dead certainty, there is room for the scoffers to treat the entire sermon with derision.

Shepherd. I dinna see that ava. Real cruelty to animals canna be defined, but everybody kens what it is-for example, thumpin wi' a rung a puir auld, tremblin, staggerin, worn-out, starved horse, reesting at a steep pull in the trams aneath a ton o' coals, a' the time the carter swearing like Cloots-that's cruelty, and should be preached against, and also punished by Act o' Parliament.

Tickler. But there is no cruelty, you think, James, in the Rev. Mr Somerville shooting at a hare on her form, who carries off into the brake her poor wounded withers full of No. 34 or 35, and there continues dying by inches all through the week-expiring, perhaps, within the tinkle of the Sabbath bell of Currie kirk?

Shepherd. It's just a' a dounricht sophism, Mr Tickler, and you ken it is—but I hate a' argling and hargarbargling o' argument ower ane's toddy-or indeed onywhere else, except 1 Currie is a village near Edinburgh.

SIR JOHN MALCOLM.-BOADEN.

337

at the Bar when Jeffrey or Cobrun's speaking—and there, to be sure, it's a treat to hear the tane threeping and the tither threeping, as if not only their verra lives depended on't, but the haill creation; whereas the dispute was only about some abstract consideration o' a point o' law in the way o' preliminary form anent the regulation o' the Court, kittle enough to be understood, nae doubt, sin' the introduction o' the new system; but as to the real intrinsic maitter o' equity and justice, nae mair than a preliminary that might hae been gien against either the ae party or the ither, without detriment to the patrimonial interests either o' the plaintiff or defendant, the respondent or appellant, in sic a cause no easy o' being discriminated by a hearer like me, no verra deeply versed in the laws.

North. An Annual Sermon against any one particular vice, —and none more odious than cruelty of disposition,—is a foolish Institution. Let people go regularly to church, and hear good sermons, of which there is no lack either in the city or the country, and they will be merciful to their beasts, I hope, through the spirit of Christianity thus fanned and

fostered in their hearts.

Shepherd. That is verra true.-Cruelty to animals is no a gude subject for a haill sermon,—and it's only clever men, like Chalmers and Somerville, that can prevent it from becoming even absurd in the pulpit, when formally treated of, and at great length-whereas

North. Put these two little volumes, James, in your pocket, that you are ogling on the side-table.-Sketches of Persia,a few pages of it is a cheering recreation for a leisure hour. Sir John1 tells a story admirably, and is a man of keen and incessant observation. I had no idea he could have written anything so light and vivacious, so elegant even, and so full of character. The volumes must be popular, and I hope he will give us more of them, a couple more at the least. Murray has published nothing so good of the kind for years. Shepherd. Hae ye read Boaden's Life o' Siddons, sir? North. I have, James-and I respect Mr Boaden for his intelligent criticism. He is rather prosy occasionally—but why not? God knows, he cannot be more prosy than I am 1 Sir John Malcolm, G. C.B., for some time envoy at the court of Persia, died in 1833.

VOL. I.

Y

now at this blessed moment-yet what good man, were he present now, would be severe upon old Christopher for havering away about this, that, or t'other thing, so long as there was heart in all he said, and nothing contra bonos mores? Sarah was a glorious creature. Methinks I see her now in the sleep-walking scene!

Shepherd. As Leddy Macbeth! Her gran' high straichtnosed face, whiter than ashes! Fixed een, no like the een o' the dead, yet hardly mair like them o' the leevin; dim, and yet licht wi' an obscure lustre through which the tormented sowl looked in the chains o' sleep and dreams wi' a' the distraction o' remorse and despair,-and oh! sic an expanse o' forehead for a warld o' dreadfu' thochts, aneath the braided blackness o' her hair, that had nevertheless been put up wi' a steady and nae uncarefu' haun before the troubled Leddy had lain doun, for it behoved ane so high-born as she, in the middle o' her ruefu' trouble, no to neglect what she owed to her stately beauty, and to the head that lay on the couch of ane o' Scotland's Thanes-noo, likewise about to be, during the short space o' the passing o' a thunder-cloud, her bluidy and usurping King.

North. Whisht-Tickler-whisht-no coughing.

Shepherd. Onwards she used to come-no Sarah Siddons— but just Leddy Macbeth hersel-though through that melancholy masquerade o' passion, the spectator aye had a confused glimmerin apprehension o' the great actress-glidin wi' the ghostlike motion o' nicht-wanderin unrest, unconscious o' surroundin objects, -for oh! how could the glazed, yet gleamin een, see aught in this material world?-yet, by some mysterious power o' instinct, never touchin ane o' the impediments that the furniture o' the auld castle micht hae opposed to her haunted footsteps,-on she came, wring, wringin her hauns, as if washin them in the cleansin dews frae the blouts o' blood, but wae's me for the murderess, out they wad no be, ony mair than the stains on the spat o' the floor where some midnicht-slain Christian has groaned out his soul aneath the dagger's stroke, when the sleepin hoose heard not the shriek o' departing life.

Tickler. North, look at James's face. Confound me, under the inspiration of the moment, if it is not like John Kemble's! Shepherd. Whether a' this, sirs, was natural or not, ye see I