18 O'BRONTE'S EDUCATION. hurdies wi' a swurl.") Your chowks the same-like him, too, as Shakespeare says, "dew-lapped like Thessawlian bills." The same braid, smooth, triangular lugs, hanging doun aneath your chafts; and the same still, serene, smilin, and sagacious een. Bark! man-bark! let us hear you bark-Ay, that's the verra key that Bronte barked on whenever " his blood was up and heart beat high :" and I'se warrant that in anither year or less, in a street-row, like your sire you'll clear the causeway o' a clud o' curs, and carry the terror o' your name frae the Auld to the New Flesh-market; though, tak my advice, ma dear O'Bronte, and, except when circumstances imperiously demand war, be thou-thou jewel of a Jowler-a lover of peace! English Opium-Eater. I am desirous, Mr Hogg, of cultivating the acquaintance-nay, I hope of forming the friendship-of that noble animal. Will you permit him to Shepherd. Gang your wa's,' O'Bronte, and speak till the English Opium-Eater. Ma faith! You hae nae need o' drogs to raise your animal speerits, or heighen your imagination. What'n intensity o' life!-But whare's he been sin' he was puppied, Mr North? North. On board a whaler. No education like a trip to Davis Strait. Shepherd. He'll hae speeled, I'se warrant him, mony an iceberg-and worried mony a seal-aiblins a walrus, or sea-lion. But are ye no feared o' his rinnin awa to sea? North. The spirit of his sire, James, has entered into him, and he would lie, till he was a skeleton, upon my grave. Shepherd. It canna be denied, sir, that you hae an unaccoontable power o' attaching to you, no only dowgs, but men, women, and children. I've never douted but that you maun hae some magical pouther, that you blaw in amang their hair—na, intil their verra lugs and een-imperceptible fine as the motes i' the sun-and then there's nae resistance, but the sternest Whig saftens afore you, the roots o' the Radical relax, and a' distinctions o' age, sex, and pairty—the last the stubbornest and dourest o' a'-fade awa intil undistinguishable confusion-and them that's no in the secret o' your glamoury, fears that the end o' the warld's at haun, and that there 'ill sune be nae mair use for goods and chattels in the Millennium. Tickler. As I am a Christian 1 Gang your wa's—get off. O'BRONTE SWALLOWS OPIUM. 19 Shepherd. You a Christian! Tickler. opium. -Mr De Quincey has given O'Bronte a box of Shepherd. What? Has the dowg swallowed the spale-box o' pills? We maun gar him throw it up. North. Just like that subscriber, who alone, out of the present population of the globe, has thrown up-THE Magazine. Shepherd. Haw, haw, haw!-capital wut! Sin' he couldna digeest it, he has reason to be thankfu' that the Dooble Nummer didna stick in his weasen, and mak him a corp. What would hae become o' him, had they exploded like twa bomb-shells? English Opium-Eater. The most monstrous and ignominious ignorance reigns among all the physicians of Europe, respecting the powers and properties of the poppy. Shepherd. I wush in this case, sir, that the poppy mayna pruve ower poorfu' for the puppy, and that the dowg's no a dead man. Wull ye take your bible-oath that he bolted the box? English Opium-Eater. Mr Hogg, I never could see any sufficient reason why, in a civilised and Christian country, an oath should be administered even to a witness in a court of justice. Without any formula, Truth is felt to be sacred-nor will any words weigh Shepherd. You're for upsettin the haill frame o' ceevil society, sir, and bringin back on this kintra a' the horrors o' the French Revolution. The power o' an oath lies, no in the Reason, but in the Imagination. Reason tells that simple affirmation or denial should be aneuch atween man and man. But Reason canna bind, or, if she do, Passion snaps the chain. For ilka passion, sir, even a passion for a bead or a button, is as strong as Samson burstin the withies. But Imagination can bind, for she ca's on her Flamin Ministers-The Fears;-they palsy-strike the arm that would disobey the pledged lipsand thus oaths are dreadfu' as Erebus and the gates o' hell.— But see what ye hae dune, sir,-only look at O'Bronte. [O'BRONTE sallies from the Arbour-goes driving head-overheels through among the flower-beds, tearing up pinks and carnations with his mouth and paws, and, finally, makes repeated attempts to climb up a tree. English Opium-Eater. No such case is recorded in the medical books-and very important conclusions may be drawn from na accurate observation of the phenomena now exhibited by a 20 THE CONSEQUENCES. distinguished member of the canine species, under such a dose of opium as would probably send Mr Coleridge' himself to Shepherd. his lang hame-or Mr De Quinshy eitherthough I should be loth to lose sic a poet as the ane, and sic a philosopher as the ither-or sic a dowg as O'Bronte.—But look at him speelin up the apple-tree like the auld serpent! He's thinkin himsel, in the delusion o' the drog, a wull-cat or a bear, and has clean forgotten his origin. Deil tak me gin I ever saw the match o' that! He's gotten up; and's lyin a' his length on the branch, as if he were streekin himsel out to sleep on the ledge o' a brig! What thocht's gotten intil his head noo? He's for herryin the goldfinch's nest amang the verra tapmost blossoms !-Ay, my lad! that was a thud! [O'BRONTE, who has fallen from the pippin, recovers his feetstorms the Arbour-upsets the table, with all the bottles, glasses, and plates, and then, dashing through the glass frontdoor of the Lodge, disappears with a crash into the interior. English Opium-Eater. Miraculous! Shepherd. A hairy hurricane !-What think ye, sir, o' the SCOTTISH OPIUM-EATER? English Opium-Eater. I hope it is not hydrophobia. Tickler. He manifestly imagines himself at the whaling, and is off with the harpooners. Shepherd. A vision o' blubber's in his sowl. Oh! that he could gie the warld his Confessions! English Opium-Eater. Mr Hogg, how am I to understand that insinuation, sir? Shepherd. Ony way you like. But, did ever onybody see a philosopher sae passionate? Be cool-be cool. comes spanging back into the cool of the evening, with CYPRUS, NORTH's unique male tortoise-shell cat in his mouth, followed by JOHN and BETTY, broom-and-spitarmed, with other domestics in the distance. 1 S. T. Coleridge was a great consumer of opium. See his "confessions" in Cottle's Reminiscences. Born in 1771, Coleridge died in 1834. A BEE-HIVE UPSET. 21 North. Drop Cyprus, you villain! Drop Cyprus, you villain! I say, you villain, drop Cyprus-or I will brain you with Crutch! [O'BRONTE turns a deaf ear to all remonstrances, and continues his cat-carrying career through flower, fruit, and kitchen gardens the crutch having sped after him in vain, and upset a bee-hive. Tickler. Demme-I'm off. North. Was that thunder? [Makes himself scarce. Shepherd. Bees-bees-bees! Intil the Arbour-intil the Arbour-Oh! that it had a door wi' a hinge, and a bolt in the inside! Hoo the swarm's ragin wud! The hummin heavens is ower het to haud them- - and if ae leader chances to cast his ee hither, we are lost. For let but ane set the example, and in a moment there 'ill be a charge o' beggonets.1 English Opium-Eater. In the second book of his Georgics, Virgil, at once poet and naturalist and indeed the two characters are, I believe, uniformly united-beautifully treats of the economy of bees-and I remember one passage Shepherd. They're after Tickler-they're after Ticklerlike a cloud o' Cossacks or Polish Lancers-a' them that's no settlin on the crutch. And see see a division the left o' is bearin doun on O'Bronte. He'll sune liberate the army Ceeprus. nor Tickler (sub tegmine fagi). Murder-murder-murder ! Shepherd. Ay, you may roar. - that's nae flea-bitin midge-bitin neither-na, it's waur than wasps-for wasps' stings hae nae barbs, but bees' hae and when they strike them in, they canna rug them out again withouten leavin ahint their entrails sae they curl theirsels up upon the wound, be it on haun, neck, or face, and, demon-like, spend their vitality in the sting, till the venom gangs dirlin to your verra heart. But do ye ken I'm amaist sorry for Mr Tickler -for he'll be murdered outricht by the insecks-although he in a mainner deserved it for rinnin awa, and no sharin the common danger wi' the rest at the mouth of the Arbour. If he escapes wi' his life, we maun ca' a court-martial, and hae him broke for cooardice. Safe us! he's comin here, wi' the haill bike' about his head !-Let us rin- let us rin! rin for our lives! 1 Beggonets-bayonets. Let us [The SHEPHERD is off and away. 2 Bike-swarm. 22 22 OPIUM-EATER ON COWARDICE. North. What! and be broke for cowardice? Let us die at our post like men. English Opium-Eater. I have heard Mr Wordsworth deliver an opinion, respecting the courage, or rather the cowardice, of poets, which at the time, I confess, seemed to me to be unwarranted by any of the accredited phenomena of the poetical character. It was to this effect: That every passion of the poet being of "imagination all compact," fear would in all probability, on sudden and unforeseen emergencies, gain an undue ascendancy in his being over all the other unaroused active powers :-(and here suffer me to put you on your guard against believing, that by the use of such terms as Active Powers, I mean to class myself, as a metaphysical moralist, in the Scottish school,—that is, the school more especially of Reid and Stewart'-whose ignorance of the Will—the sole province of Moral Philosophy-I hold to be equally shameful and conspicuous :)—so that, except in cases where that Fear was withstood by the force of Sympathy, the poet so assailed would, ten to one (such was the homely expression of the Bard anxious to clench it), take to almost immediate flight. This doctrine, as I have said, appeared to me, at that time, not to be founded on a sufficiently copious and comprehensive induction ; but I had very soon after its oral delivery by the illustrious author of the Excursion, an opportunity of subjecting it to the test act :-For, as Mr Wordsworth and myself were walking through a field of considerable nay, great extent of acres-discussing the patriotism of the Spaniards, and more particularly the heroic defence of "Iberian burghers, when the sword they drew Of fiercely-breathing war,” a bull of a red colour (and that there must be something essentially and inherently vehement in red, or rather the natural idea of red, was interestingly proved by that answer of the blind man to an inquirer more distinguished probably for his curiosity than his acuteness-" that it was like the sound of a trumpet") bore down suddenly upon our discourse, breaking, as you may well suppose, the thread thereof, and dissipating, for 1 Dr Thomas Reid, Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Glasgow, born in 1709, died in 1796. For Stewart, see ante, vol. ii. p. 238. |