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avarice, and impiety! You,-in a strong attempt made to hold up to execration the nature of Byron as deformed by all those hideous vices,-you, my friend, reverently unveiled the countenance of the mighty dead, and the lineaments struck remorse into the heart of every asperser. You wrote a noble

prose commentary on those verses of my friend Charles Grant1 -although, perhaps, you never saw them-but congenial spirits speak one language on all great themes, in every age and in every country, separated though they may be by lands or seas, or by the darkness of centuries. Beautiful verses they are.

"Talents, 'tis true, quick, various, bright, hath God
To Virtue oft denied, on Vice bestow'd;
Just as fond Nature lovelier colours brings
To deck the insect's than the eagle's wings.
But then of Man, the high-born nobler part,
The ethereal energies that touch the heart,
Creative Fancy, labouring Thought intense,
Imagination's wild magnificence,

And all the dread sublimities of song

These, Virtue! these to thee alone belong!"

Shepherd. Gude safe us, man, Mr Tickler, but these be bonny, bonny verses. Wha's the composer?

Tickler. College-University-Cambridge-Prize verses, James.

Shepherd. The deevil they are-that's maist extraordinary. North. It is the fashion to undervalue Oxford and Cambridge Prize Poems-but it is a stupid fashion. Many of them are most beautiful. Heber's "Palestine!" A flight, as upon angel's wing, over the Holy Land! How fine the opening!

"Reft of thy sons! amid thy foes forlorn,

Mourn, widow'd Queen! forgotten Zion, mourn!
Is this thy place, sad City, this thy throne,
Where the wild desert rears its craggy stone?
Where suns unblest their angry lustre fling,
And way-worn travellers seek the scanty spring?
Where now the pomp that kings with envy view'd?
Where now the might that all those kings subdued?
No martial myriads muster in thy gate,

No prostrate nations in thy temple wait,

Afterwards Lord Glenelg.

60

MACAULAY AND PRAED.

No prophet-lords thy glittering courts among
Wake the full lyre, or sweep the flood of song,
But meagre Want and haggard Hate is there,
And the quick-darting eye of restless Fear;
While cold Oblivion, mid thy ruins laid,

Folds his dark wing beneath the ivied shade."

Tickler. More than one of Wrangham's Prize Poems are excellent-Richard's "Aboriginal Britons" is a powerful and picturesque performance-Chinnery's "Dying Gladiator" magnificent-and Milman's "Apollo Belvidere" splendid, beautiful, and majestic.

North. Macaulay and Praed have written very good Prize Poems. These two young gentlemen ought to make a figure in the world. By the way, you would be glad to see, Tickler, that Knight's Quarterly Magazine is rediviva?

Tickler. I was so. May it flourish. It is an able and elegant miscellany. Methinks I see the Opium-Eater in last number. Having now connected himself with gentlemen, may his career be bright and prosperous, for he is a man of a million.

North. His original genius and consummate scholarship speedily effected the damnation of Taylor and Hessey's Magazine, according to my prophecy. All the other contributions looked such ninnies beside him, that the public burst out a-laughing in the poor Magazine's face. Then one and all of them began mimicking our friend, and pretended to be Opium-eaters. Now, the effect of the poppy upon the puppy is most offensive to the bystanders, and need not be described. A few grains were administered to the Ass's head in the Lion's skin,' who forthwith opined himself to be an editor, and brayed upon the contributors, in the language of Shakespeare, Friends, countrymen, and Luddites,2 LEND ME YOUR EARS.

Taylor and Hessey, hearing "the din of battle bray," fled from the field.

Tickler. I fear the commissariat department is at present badly conducted. The army is in great want of provisions. Shepherd. Puir fallows! they seem sairly disheartened, and to have lost a' discipline. What's the use o' their aye tantararaing wi' the trumpet, and rat-a-tooing on the drum,

1 The Lion's Head was the title under which Taylor and Hessey's Magazine addressed its "Notices to Correspondents." 2 Luddites-rebels.

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when the troops are maistly a' without muskets or beggonets,1 have never got richtly out o' the aukward squad, keep trampin on ane anither's heels, and aye cursin and swearin like so mony limmers lugged alang by the poleish3 to Bridewell?

Tickler. Political Economy is not a subject for a Magazine. Its principles should be explained at once-brought continuously before the mind. They may be applied to important subjects of trade and polity in a Magazine, as they often have been in yours, North-but the elements of the science must be given in a volume. The Opium-Eater frittered away his philosophy of that science in detached papers that produced no effect on the public mind.*

North. I agree with you perfectly.

Would that we had

his promised " Romance!" For, with all his logic, he is a man of imagination, and, bating a little formal pedantry now and then, a master of the English language, God bless him.

Tickler. James, you are the worst smoker of a cigar in Christendom. No occasion to blow like a hippopotamus. Look at me or North-you would not know we breathed. Shepherd. It's to keep mysel frae fallin asleep. I never heard you baith muckle mair stupider than you have been a' the nicht. A' my wonder is, how you contrive to keep up that Magazine. It's a waefu' sicht to see a' the other Magas pining awa in a kind o' green sickness, just for want o' contributors, little bigger in bulk than the Living Skeleton now in London. But there gangs our ain Maga, a strapping quean, wi' a satisfied ee, a lilting voice, and a step o' elasticity, and, may I say it without coorseness, she's perpetually in the family-way. But Maga's your honest wedded wife, Mr North -and all her productions are legitimate. Hear till that auld watchman, crawing the hour like a bit bantam. What's the cretur screeching? Twa o'clock!! Mercy me!—we maun be aff. (Exeunt omnes.)

1 Beggonets-bayonets.

2 Limmers-worthless characters, usually applied to women.

3 Poleish-police.

4 of these "detached papers" which have since been republished in Mr De Quincey's collected works, Mr M'Culloch says (in his Literature of Political Economy) that "they are unequalled, perhaps, for brevity, pungency, and force. They not only bring the Ricardian theory of value into strong relief, but triumphantly repel, or rather annihilate, the objections urged against it by Malthus, Say, and others. They may indeed be said to have exhausted the subject."

(DECEMBER 1825.)

NORTH, SHEPHERD, TICKLER.

North. Thank heaven for winter! Would that it lasted all year long! Spring is pretty well in its way, with budding branches and carolling birds, and wimpling burnies, and fleecy skies, and dew-like showers softening and brightening the bosom of old mother earth. Summer is not much amiss, with umbrageous woods, glittering atmosphere, and awakening thunder-storms. Nor let me libel Autumn in her gorgeous bounty, and her beautiful decays. But Winter, dear coldhanded, warm-hearted Winter, welcome thou to my fur-clad bosom! Thine are the sharp, short, bracing, invigorating days, that screw up muscle, fibre, and nerve, like the strings of an old Cremona discoursing excellent music-thine the long snow-silent or hail-rattling nights, with earthly firesides and heavenly luminaries, for home comforts, or travelling imaginations, for undisturbed imprisonment, or unbounded freedom, for the affections of the heart and the flights of the soul! Thine too

Shepherd. Thine too, skatin, and curlin, and grewin,' and a' sorts o' deevilry amang lads and lasses at rockins and kirns. Beef and greens! Beef and greens! O, Mr North, beef and greens!

North. Yes, James, I sympathise with your enthusiasm. Now, and now only, do carrots and turnips deserve the name. The season this of rumps and rounds. Now the whole nation sets in for serious eating-serious and substantial eating, James, half leisure, half labour-the table loaded with a lease 1 Grewin-coursing.

WINTER.- -THE POOR-LAWS.

63

of life, and each dish a year. In the presence of that Haggis, I feel myself immortal.

Shepherd. Butcher-meat, though, and coals, are likely, let me tell you, to sell at a perfec' ransom frae Martinmas to Michaelmas.

North. Paltry thought. Let beeves and muttons look up, even to the stars, and fuel be precious as at the Pole. Another slice of the stot, James, another slice of the stot-and, Mr Ambrose, smash that half-ton lump of black diamond till the chimney roar and radiate like Mount Vesuvius.-Why so glum, Tickler?-why so glum?

Tickler. This outrageous merriment grates my spirits. I am not in the mood. "Twill be a severe winter, and I think of the poor.

North. Why the devil think of the poor at this time of day? Are not wages good, and work plenty, and is not charity a British virtue ?

Shepherd. I never heard sic even-doun nonsense, Mr Tickler, in a' my born days. I met a puir woman ganging alang the brigg, wi' a deevil's dizzen o' bairns, ilka ane wi' a daud' o' breid in the tae haun and a whang2 o' cheese i' the tither, while their cheeks were a' blawn out like sae mony Boreases, wi' something better than wun'; and the mither hersel, a weelfaur'd hizzie, tearin awa at the fleshy shank o' a marrow-bane, mad wi' hunger, but no wi' starvation, for these are twa different things, Mr Tickler. I can assure you that puir folks, mair especially gin they be beggars, are hungry four or five times a-day; but starvation is seen at night sitting by an empty aumry and a cauld hearthstane. There's little or nae starvation the now, in Scotlan'!

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North. The people are, on the whole, well off.-Take some pickles, Timothy, to your steak. Dickson's* mustard is superb.

Shepherd. I canna say that I a'thegither just properly understan' the system o' the puir-laws; but I ken this, that puir folks there will be till the end o' Blackwood's Magazine, and, that granted, maun there no be some kind o' provision for them, though it may be kittle to calculate the preceese amount?

1 Daud-lump. 2 Whang-slice. An Edinburgh seedsman.

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3 Aumry-cupboard in a corner. 5 Kittle-difficult.

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