SOUTHEY.-COLERIDGE.

349

Tickler. He was so. Why did not the writer of that most excellent article about him in the Quarterly, give us a quotation from Sir Charles Grey's1 beautiful funeral oration over his illustrious friend?

North. That is a question I cannot answer; but such an omission was most unpardonable. Neither could it have been from ignorance-it must have been intentional.

Tickler. Perhaps he feared that Sir Charles Grey's pathetic oration would have made his own eulogy seem dull.

North. He need not have feared that-for they would have naturally set off each other-the reviewer, whoever he may be, being a man of fine talents, and a forcible writer.

Tickler. For all that, he may be capable of

Shepherd. Mr Soothey's the author o' that article, in my opinion; and Mr Soothey's no capable o' onything that's no just perfectly richt. There's no a man leevin that I think mair o' than Mr Soothey-and if ever I forget his kindness to me at Keswick, may I die in a strait-waistcoat.

Tickler. What an idea!

Shepherd. Tak Mr Soothey in prose and verse, I ken nane but ane that's his equal.

North. Who's that?

Shepherd. No you, sir-for you canna write verse. As for your prose, nane bangs it, serious or comic, ludicrous or shublime-but what can be the maitter wi' thae eisters? Mr Gurney! are you there again, sir, ye gentleman o' the press? For if you be, you may step out, now that the Noctes is drawin to a close, and partake o' the eisters.

North. James, you don't know S. T. Coleridge-do you? He writes but indifferent books, begging his pardon; witness his "Friend," his "Lay Sermons," and, latterly, his "Aids to Reflection;" but he becomes inspired by the sound of his own silver voice, and pours out wisdom like a sea. Had he a domestic Gurney, he might publish a Moral Essay, or a Theological Discourse, or a Metaphysical Disquisition, or a Political Harangue, every morning throughout the year during his lifetime.

Tickler. Mr Coleridge does not seem to be aware that he

1 Sir Charles Grey was Chief Justice in Bengal, and afterwards Governor of Jamaica. He was a fellow-student and intimate associate of Professor Wilson's at Magdalen College, Oxford.

cannot write a book, but opines that he absolutely has written several, and set many questions at rest. There's a want of some kind or another in his mind; but perhaps when he awakes out of his dream, he may get rational and soberwitted, like other men, who are not always asleep.

Shepherd. The author o' "Christabel," and the "Auncient Mariner," had better just continue to see visions, and to dream dreams-for he's no fit for the wakin world.

North. All men should be suffered to take their own swing -for, divert them from their natural course, and you extinguish genius, never to be rekindled.

Shepherd. Are thae eisters never gaun to come ben!

North. James, who do you think will be the First Lord of the Treasury?

Shepherd. Come here, sir, and lay your lug close to mine— but swear you won't blab it. (Whispers.)

North. Right, James, you have hit it.—HE IS TO BE THE ΜΑΝ.

1

Tickler. Who? Canning, or Peel, or Robinson, or Bathurst, or Wellington-or

Shepherd. I'll communicate the secret, vivâ voce, to nae ither man but Mr North; but if you like, I'll write the name doun wi' my keelivine pen, and seal up the paper wi' waux, no to be opened till after the nation has been informed o' the King's choice.

Tickler. Whew! what care I who's Prime Minister? The country has got into a way of going on by and of itself, just as comfortably without as with a ministry. A government's a mere matter of form.

North. Just so with Maga. On she goes, and on she would go, if editor and contributors were all asleep, nay, all dead and buried.

Tickler. No yawning, James,-a barn-door's a joke to such jaws.

North. Give us a song, my dear Shepherd-"Paddy o' Rafferty," or "Low doun i' the Broom," or "O Jeanie, there's naething to fear ye," or "Love's like a Dizziness," or Rule Britannia," or "Aiken Drum," or

Tickler. Beethoven, they say, is starving in his native

1 Canning was the man. He was Premier from February 1827 until his death on the 8th of August 1827.

ENTER THE OYSTERS.

351

country, and the Philharmonic Society of London, or some other association with music in their souls, have sent him a hundred pounds to keep him alive-he is deaf, destitute, and a paralytic.-Alas! alas!

Shepherd. Whisht! I hear Mr Awmrose's tread in the transe! "His verra foot has music in't

As he comes up the stair."

(Enter Mr AMBROSE and Assistants.)

Hoo mony hunder eisters are there on the brod, Mr Awmrose? - Oh! ho! Three brods! One for each o' us! - A month without an R has nae richt being in the year. Noo, gentlemen, let naebody speak to me for the niest half-hour. Mr Awmrose, we'll ring when we want the rizzers and the tosted cheese-and the deevil'd turkey-Hae the kettle on the boil, and put back the lang haun o' the clock, for I fear this is Saturday nicht, and nane o' us are folk to break in on the Sabbath. Help Mr North to butter and bread,—and there, sir,-there's the vinnekar cruet. Pepper awa, gents.

(JUNE 1827.)

Scene I.-Porch of Buchanan Lodge. Time,-Evening.

1

MRS GENTLE, MISS GENTLE, NORTH, SHEPHERD, COLONEL CYRIL THORNTON, TICKLER.

Shepherd. I just ca' this perfec' Paradise. Oh! Mem! but that's the natest knitting ever blessed the een o' man. Is't for a veil to your dochter's bonny face? I'm glad it's no ower deep, sae that it winna hide it a'thegither -for sure amang sic a party o' freens as this, the young leddy 'll forgie me for saying at ance, that there's no a mair beautifu' cretur in a' Scotland.

Mrs Gentle. See, Mr Hogg, how you have made poor Mary hang down her head-but you Poets

Shepherd. Breathe and hae our beings in love, and delight in the fair and innocent things o' this creation. Forgie me, Miss Gentle, for bringing the blush to your broo-like sunlight on snaw-for I'm but a simple shepherd, and whiles says things I sudna say, out o' the very fulness of my heart. Mrs Gentle. Mary, fetch my smaller shuttle from the parlour - it is lying, I believe, on one of the cushions of the yellow sofa. [Miss GENTLE retires.

Shepherd. Oh! Mem! that my ain dochter may grow up,

1 Mrs and Miss Gentle are purely fictitious characters.

2 Captain Thomas Hamilton, an early contributor to Blackwood's Magazine, and author of the admirable novel The Youth and Manhood of Cyril Thornton, was the younger brother of Sir William Hamilton, Bart., Professor of Logic and Metaphysics in the University of Edinburgh. His other works are Men and Manners in America, and Annals of the Peninsular Campaigns. He died at Florence in 1842.

A LADY TO THE RESCUE.

353

under the blessing o' God, sic a flower! I've often heard tell o' you and her-and o' Mr North's freenship o' auld for her father

North. Hallo, James-there's a wasp running along your shoulder in the direction of your ear.

Shepherd. A wasp-say ye? Whilk shouther? Ding't aff, some o' ye. Wull nane o' ye either speak or stir? Whilk shouther, I say? Confoun' ye, Tickler-ye great heigh neerdoweel, wunna ye say whilk shouther? Is't aff?

Tickler. Off! No, James, that it isn't. How it is pricking along, like an armed knight, up the creases of your neckcloth. Left chin-Shepherd.

Mrs Gentle. Allow me, Mr Hogg, to remove the unwelcome visitor. (MRS GENTLE rises and scares the wasp with her handkerchief.)

Shepherd. That's like a leddy, as you are. kindness like kindness frae the haun o' a woman.

There's nae

Tickler. He was within an inch o' your ear, Hogg, and had made good his entrance, but for the entanglement of the dusty whisker.

Shepherd. That's no a word, sir, to speak afore a leddy. It's coorse. But you're wrang again, sir, for the wasp cudna hae made gude his entrance by that avenue, for my left lug's stuffed wi' cotton.

North. How happens it, my dear James, that, on coming to town, you are never without a cold? That country will kill you-we shall be losing you, James, some day, of a brainfever.

Shepherd. A verra proper death for a poet. But it's just your ain vile, vapoury, thick, dull, yellow, brown, dead, drizzling, damned (beg your pardon, Mem) easterly haur o' Embro' that gies me the rheumatics. In the kintra I think naething o' daunderin awa to the holms, without my bannet, or onything round my chafts-even though it sud be raining—and the weather has nae ither effec' than to gar my hair grow.

North. You must have been daundering about a good deal lately then, my dear James, for I never saw you with such a crop of hair in my life.

Shepherd. It's verra weel for you that's bald to tauk about a crap o' hair. But the mair hair a man has on his head the better, as lang's it's touzy-and no in candle-wick fashion.