North. Have you read the last number of the Quarterly Review, James ? Shepherd. Na. It hasna come our length yet. North. 'Tis therein said, James, that in these our Noctes you are absurdly represented as a "boozing buffoon." Shepherd. What? In the Quarterly? Na, na, sir. I can swallow a gude deal frae you-but that's bacon I canna bolt. The yeditor kens better-for North. But, like other editors, James, he sometimes naps when he should only be nodding, and sometimes nods when he should be broad awake as a full north-west moon. Shepherd. Eh? North. Some hypocritical humbug has had the audacity, however, to palm that falsehood upon our dozing friend, and, through him, on the Pensive Public;- some brainless bigwig, who believes that the Baltic has been drunk half dry by a whale. Shepherd. Haw! haw! haw! haw! North. At this moment, James, that "budge doctor of the Stoic Fur" fears that the world thinks you are a ten-gallonman, that you have a sma'-still in your bedroom, and that you have bribed the gauger by making him a parlour-boarder. Shepherd. Haw! haw! haw! haw! North. Everything the Cockney reads he takes for gospel. Shepherd. Except, aiblins, the Bible. Tickler. Good, James-good. North. That the rhinoceros drinks a river every morning before breakfast Tickler. And the war-horse literally devours the ground. 1 The passage is as follows:-"When the Ettrick Shepherd was first heard of, he had indeed but just learned to write by copying the letters of a printed ballad, as he lay watching his flock on the mountains; but thirty years or more have passed since then, and his acquirements are now such, that the Royal Society of Literature, in patronising him, might be justly said to honour a laborious and successful student, as well as a masculine and fertile genius. We may take the liberty of adding, in this place, what may not perhaps be known to the excellent managers of that excellent institution, that a more worthy, modest, sober, and loyal man does not exist in his Majesty's dominions than this distinguished poet, whom some of his waggish friends have taken up the absurd fancy of exhibiting in print as a sort of boozing buffoon; and who is now, instead of revelling in the license of tavern suppers and party politics, bearing up, as he may, against severe and unmerited misfortunes, in as dreary a solitude as ever nursed the melancholy of a poetical temperament."—Quarterly Review, vol. xliv. p. 81. แ 179 between him and his enemies-swallowing at lunch five acres, four roods, and three perches. Shepherd. Haw! haw! haw! haw! North. So, being a man of the strictest veracity, and of the highest authority in the moral world, the mandarin shakes his head at our Noctes, and gives not only the lie circumstantial, but the lie direct to a fact unfortunately established, I fear, in the conviction of the Pensive Public, that We Three have frequently demolished at a sitting the Tower of Babel. Tickler. Were the worthy gentleman here now, why he would be under the table in a state of civilisation superior to anything seen since the last debauch of Sardanapalus. North. 'Tis a sad dog-and, to my knowledge-with a wife and a dozen children-keeps a Shepherd. O fie, sir, nae personalities. We maun pity and forgie stupidity when it begins to maunder-even though it maunder malice. Tickler. I presume he has made a pilgrimage to the grave of Sir Roger de Coverley. North. Sleeping in the sunshine side by side with Will Wimble. Tickler. He believes devoutly, no doubt, that the Spectator had a short nose North. And got boozy thrice a-week at Button's. Tickler. The world is well stocked just now, James, with matter-of-fact men Shepherd. What? Ca' ye't a matter-o'-fact that a boozin buffoon ever Glenlivetised at the Noctes ? Tickler. It is a matter-of-fact lie, James-and that the Cockney knoweth right well; but he wished to do you a kindness, without in his dotage clearly comprehending how to set about it, and, with the best intentions in the world, has accordingly committed one of the usual calumnies of the Cockneys, manifestly priding himself all the while in the idea of having essentially served the Ettrick Shepherd, and given him a shove up the hill of preferment. North. Somewhat of the latest-a feeble fumble of falsehood at the eleventh hour. Shepherd. I'm sure I ought to be muckle obleeged to the weak, but weel-meanin man for his vindication o' my character. But I howp the wark o' supererogation mayna be ill for his constitution; and it's the first time I ever heard o' 180 A JACKASS BRAYING" IN THE QUARTERLY. onybody's pityin Atlas for supportin on his back and shouthers the starry heavens. North. He then tells the Pensive Public, that at our Noctes the entire talk is of "Party Politics." Shepherd. Na! that's an even-doun lee-and gin a writer wull indulge in trash, he should spice't wi' at least ae grain o' truth, or he'll be in danger, in a fit o' coughing, to choke on his ain slaver. Tickler. Don't be coarse, James. Shepherd. Coorse? Wha's fine but fules? Muckle nonsense we do speak at the Noctes-but pairty politics we leave to the twa Houses o' Parliament-an' discuss, when we hae discussion, the universal and eternal interests o' mankind. Tickler. The truth is, gents, that this jackass must have had his long ears pulled, and his tauty hide knouted by Maga, and Joannes' has with his well-known good-nature indulged him in a quarterly bray— Shepherd. A jackass brayin at the moon! a comical eemage. North. But still he must be cudgelled off the premises, and "taught never to come there no more,”—if it were only for the sake of the poor echoes. Shepherd. Do you ken, sirs, that it's a curious fack in natur that the bray o' an ass has nae echo? Gin it had an echo, sic is the disposition o' the cretur, that it would keep brayin till it drapped doun dead, forgetfu' o' its thustles; whereas, by the present constitution o' the breed, nae lang-continued brayin can tak place excepp when there are a multitude o' asses by some strange chance colleckit thegither; and then, indeed, ilka ane imagines that a' the rest are but his echoes, and thus, in pride o' heart, the gang do astonish the heavens. But in the Quarterly Review, the ass aforesaid maun find himsel a solitary beast, and will sune loot doun his lang leather and lantern jaws in seelence amang the dockens. Tickler. I only hope he won't cross the breed, James, else, instead of the ethereal coursers of the sun that run in that chariot, ere long we shall see a team of mules that, in their native obstinacy, will reest when they meet with any up-hill work, or bolt obliquely into the sea. Shepherd. Nae fears. Tickler. I am delighted to see that the Quarterly-like 1 John G. Lockhart. "A SOBER MAN AND LOYAL SUBJECT" IN THE QUARTERLY. 181 some other Periodicals-has the spunk to imitate Maga in her Double Numbers. The last was, in general, admirable, and is to be followed immediately-next time I hope the two will appear simultaneously-by another, which I doubt not will be worthy of its predecessor, now justly making a distinguished figure in the world. North. The Quarterly Review is a great national work, and may it live for ever. Notwithstanding his not unfrequent oversights, not a man alive could edit it in such a style as Mr Lockhart. North. The wiseacre, James, has been pleased to inform the Royal Society of Literature, that, in spite of the Noctes, the Ettrick Shepherd is a sober man, and a loyal subject. Shepherd. Hoo kens he that? North. He also says, James, that Altrive is as melancholy a solitude as can be imagined Shepherd. What? and wee Jamie there! North. And speaks of you as a fit object, not only of patronage, but of pity. Shepherd. Pity I spurn-patronage I never asked; but for the patronage of enlightened men, if it ever be bestowed upon me, I hope that I shall hae deserved it. North. James, let us for a moment be serious on this subject. All Britain—and many other lands besides — have delighted in the Noctes Ambrosianæ, of which you are the Life and the Soul. Ours has been ever "weel-timed daffin;" our mirth "On the wan cheek of sorrow has waken'd a smile, And illumined the eye that was dim with a tear!" Shepherd. Aften, sir-I ken aften North. In our higher moods, we have opened our hearts to one another, nor concealed one secret there that ought to be divulged in the sacred intercourse of friendship between man and man. Shepherd. Aften, sir, aften. North. We have unburdened to one another our hearts of cares and sorrows, which we share in common with all our brethren of mankind; "All our secret hoards of unsunn'd griefs" 182 THE NOCTES AS THEY ARE IN THEMSELVES. have-as far as might and ought to be-been laid out in the light of confident affection, and been aired by the gracious gales of heaven. Shepherd. Now and then sic has indeed been the case. North. We have looked over the fields of human life, and we have made our reflections on the ongoings there, sometimes, perhaps, in no unlearned spirit, not seldom in a spirit which I do not fear to call religious, and almost always in a spirit of humanity-blaming none but the worthless-honouring the good-and celebrating the great-whatever tongues they speak, whatever climes they inhabit. Shepherd. We hae dune that, sir, to the best o' our abeelity -and our abeelity's no sma', unless the warld be a leear. North. Seldom do we talk about politics at all here, James; but when we do, assuredly not about party politics, as I said a moment ago; but about such measures of the Ministry or Government as affect the well-being of the State. Occasionally we have taken a glance at the Continent, where revolutions are brewing, or have burst, and where the deafest ear may hear, like subterranean music, a hubbub foretelling war. Now and then, when excursively disposed, we "Survey mankind from China to Peru;" and more than once, embarking in our Ship of Heaven, with Imagination at the helm, we have doubled Cape Horn. Shepherd. Circumnavigawtors! North. Nor have we feared, James, at times 66 to pierce The caves obscure of old Philosophy." Tickler. And to bring up in a bucket Truth from the bottom of her well. North. In short, James, there is no subject which, at our Noctes, we have not touched; and none have we touched that we did not adorn; making ' Beauty still more beauteous." Shepherd. And ugliness mair ugsome, till the stamack o' the universe scunnered at vice. North. And of such Dialogues, diviner than those of Plato yea, even than his Banquet our friend presumes |