SHEPHERD GETS EXCITED,

In old days of wassail,

Of chief and of vassal,

O these were the ages of chivalry true,

Of reif and of rattle,

Of broil and of battle,

When first our auld forefathers follow'd Buccleuch.
They got for their merit,

What we still inherit,

Those green tow'ring hills and low valleys of dew,
Nor feared on their mailings

For hornings or failings,

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The broad-sword and shield paid the rents of Buccleuch.
Then join in my chorus, &c.

From that day to this one,
We've lived but to bless them,

To love and to trust them as guardians true;
May Heaven protect then,

And guide and direct then,

This stem of the gen'rous old house of Buccleuch !
The Wats were the callans,

That steadied the balance,

When strife between kinsmen and Borderers grew :
Then here's to our scion,

The son of the lion,

The Lord of the Forest, the Chief of Buccleuch.

Chorus.

Then join in my chorus,

Ye lads of the Forest,

We'll lilt of our muirs and our mountains of blue,
And hollow for ever,

Till a' the tow'rs shiver,

The name of our Master, young Wat of Buccleuch.

There's a sang for you, Timothy. My blude's up. I bless Heaven I am a Borderer. Here's the Duke's health-here's the King's health - here's North's health - here's your health-here's my ain health-here's Ebony's health-here's Ambrose's health-the healths o' a' the contributors and a' the subscribers. That was a wully waught! I haena left a dribble in the jug. I wuss it mayna flee to my head-it's a half-mutchkin jug.

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EDITORIAL RESPONSIBILITIES.

Tickler. Your eyes, James, are shining with more than their usual brilliancy. But here it goes. (Drinks his jug.)

Shepherd. After all, what blessing is in this world like a rational, well-founded, steadfast friendship between twa people that hae seen some little o' human life-felt some little o' its troubles-kept fast hald o' a gude character, and are doing a' they can for the benefit o' their fellow-creatures? The Magazine, Mr Tickler, is a mighty engine, and it behoves me to think well what I am about when I set it a-working. The Cautholic Question is the cause o' great perplexity to my mind, when I tak a comprehensive and philosophic view o' the history and constitution o' human nature.

Tickler. I never heard you, Mr Hogg, on the Catholic Question. I trust your opinions are the same with those of Mr North.

Shepherd. Whatever my opinions are, Mr Tickler, they are my own, and they are the fruit of long, laborious, deep, and conscientious meditation. I cannot believe, with Drs Southey and Phillpotts, and other distinguished men, that the spirit of Catholicism is unchangeable. Nothing human is unchangeable. I do not, therefore, despair of seeing-no, I must not say that, but of my posterity seeing the Catholic religion so purified and rationalised by an unconscious Protestantism, that our Catholic brethren may be admitted without danger to the full enjoyment of all the rights and privileges of British subjects. That time will come, sir; but not in our day—no, not in our day. A century at the very least, perhaps two, must elapse before we can grant the boon of Catholic Emancipation.

Tickler. Just my sentiments.

Shepherd. No, sir, they are my own; and farther I say, that to emancipate the Catholics in order to destroy their religion, as is proposed many hundred times in the rival Journal, (blue and yellow), is pure idiotry. I shall, therefore, not suffer Catholic Emancipation.

Tickler. What think you of Constable's Miscellany? You wish me to speak. The idea is an excellent one, entirely his own, and the speculation cannot fail of success. Thousands

1 The first work in which the publication of "cheap literature" was projected and carried out on a considerable scale.

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of families that cannot afford to buy books, as they are sold in their original shape, will purchase these pretty little cheap periodicals, and many a fireside will be enlightened. The selection of published works is judicious, and so in general is that of subjects to be treated of by Mr Constable's own authors; one most laughable exception there indeed is-History of Scotland, in three volumes, by William Ritchie, Esq. Shepherd. What the deevil!-Ritchie o' the Scotsman?

Tickler. Why, it is rumoured, even Wigham the Quaker,1 when he heard of it, cried out, "Risus teneatis AMICI?" Our excellent friend Constable committed a sad blunder in this; but he was speedily ashamed of it, and has scored out the most insignificant of all names from his list.

Shepherd. Scored out his name?-And will Ritchie' write three volumes of the History of Scotland after that?—I never heard of such an insult. Yet Mr Constable was in the right; -for only think for a moment of printing 15,000 copies of three volumes of a History of Scotland by William Ritchie ! But Mr Constable may just drap the volumes a'thegether; for there will aye be a kind o' a disagreeable suspicion that Ritchie wrote them,—and that would be enough to damn the History, were it frae the pen of Dionysius Harlicarnensis. Tickler. Dionysius Harlicarnensis !

Shepherd. The same. I ken a' about him frae Tennant o' Dollar, author of Anster Fair.3

Tickler. Here's Tennant's health, and that of John Baliol, his new tragedy.

Shepherd. With all my heart; but I wish people would give over writing tragedies. If they won't, then let them choose tragical subjects; let them, as Aristotle says in his Poetics, purge our souls by pity and terror, and not set us asleep. The Bridal of Lammermuir is the best, the only tragedy since Shakespeare

Tickler. Try the anchovies. I forget if you skate, Hogg? Shepherd. Yes, like a flounder. I was at Duddingston Loch on the great day. Twa bands of music kept cheering

1 An oracle among the suburban Radicals.

2 One of the editors of the Scotsman newspaper. Nothing worse, I believe, is known of him than that he was a keen Whig.

3 Afterwards Professor of Oriental Languages in the University of St Andrews. He died in 1848.

the shade of King Arthur on his seat, and gave a martial character to the festivities. It was then, for the first time, that I mounted my cloak and spurs. I had a young leddie, you may weel guess that, on ilka arm; and it was pleasant to feel the dear timorous creturs clinging and pressing on a body's sides, every time their taes caught a bit crunkle on the ice, or an imbedded chucky-stane. I thocht that between the twa they wad never hae gien ower till they had pu'd me doun on the breid o' my back. The muffs were just amazing, and the furbelows past a' enumeration. It was quite Polar. Then a' the ten thousand people (there couldna be fewer) were in perpetual motion. Faith, the thermometer made them do that, for it was some fifty below zero. I've been at mony a bonspeil, but I never saw such a congregation on the ice afore. Once or twice it cracked, and the sound was fearsome, -a lang, sullen growl, as of some monster starting out o' sleep, and raging for prey. But the bits o' bairns just leuch, and never gied ower sliding; and the leddies, at least my twa, just gied a kind o' sab, and drew in their breath, as if they had ben gaun in naked to the dookin on a cauld day; and the mirth and merriment were rifer than ever. Faith, I did make a dinner at the Club-house.

Tickler. Was the skating tolerable ?

Shepherd. No; intolerable. Puir conceited whalps! Gin you except Mr Tory1 o' Princes Street, wha's a handsome fallow, and as good a skater as ever spread-eagled, the lave a' deserved drowning. There was Henry Cowburn, like a dominie, or a sticket minister, puttin himself into a number o' attitudes, every ane clumsier and mair ackward than the ither, and nae doubt flatterin himself that he was the object o' universal admiration. The haill loch was laughing at him. The cretur can skate nane. Jemmy Simpson3 is a feckless bodie on the ice, and canna keep his knees straught. I couldna look at him without wondering what induced the cretur to

1 Mr Tory, although a tailor, had thews and sinews superior to his profession.

2 Afterwards Lord Cockburn, one of the Judges of the Court of Session, and author of the Life of Lord Jeffrey.

3 James Simpson, Advocate, a Whig, author of A Visit to the Field of Waterloo, which ran through many editions, and was republished with additions in 1852. He died in 1854, having done much by his philanthropical exertions to promote the welfare of his fellow-citizens.

THE SHEPHERD ON SKATES.

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write about Waterloo. The Skatin Club is indeed on its last legs.

Tickler. Did you skate, James ?

Shepherd. That I did, Timothy-but ken you hoo? You will have seen how a' the newspapers roosed the skatin' o' an offisher, that they said lived in the Castle. Fools!-it was me-naebody but me. Ane o' my twa leddies had a wig in her muff, geyan sair curled on the frontlet, and I pat it on the hair o' my head. I then drew in my mouth, puckered my cheeks, made my een look fierce, hung my head on my left shouther, put my hat to the one side, and so, arms a-kimbo, off I went in a figure of 8, garring the crowd part like clouds, and circumnavigating the frozen ocean in the space of about two minutes. "The curlers quat their roaring play," and every tent cast forth its inmates, with a bap in the ae haun and a gill in the ither, to behold the Offisher frae the Castle. The only fear I had was o' my long spurs ;-but they never got fankled; and I finished with doing the 47th Proposition of Euclid, with mathematical precision. Jemmy Simpson, half-an-hour before, had fallen over the Pons asinorum.

Tickler. Mr Editor, I fear that if in your articles you follow the spirit that guides your conversation, you will be as personal as Mr North himself. No intrusion on private

character.

Shepherd. Private character! If Mr James Simpson, or Mr Henry Cockburn, or myself, exhibit our figures or attitudes before ten thousand people, and cause all the horses in the adjacent pastures to half-die of laughter, may I not mention the disaster? Were not their feats celebrated in all the newspapers? There it was said that they were the most elegant and graceful of volant men. What if I say in the next number of the Magazine, that they had the appearance of the most pitiful prigs that ever exposed themselves as public performers? Besides, they are by far too old for such nonsense. They are both upwards of fifty, and seem much older. At that time of life they should give their skates to their boys. Tickler. My dear Editor, you are forgetting the articles. The devil will be here for copy

Mr Ambrose (entering). Did you ring, Mr North? Beg your pardon, did you ring, Mr Hogg?

Shepherd. No, Ambrose. But here,—take that poetry, and