142 ENTER ST AMBROSE AND HIS MONKS. hand, or a piece of lead. So much for Sir Walter's metaphysics. Shepherd. Hurraw-Hurraw!-Hollo! Gurney! [The time-piece strikes Twelve-and enter St Ambrose and his Monks with a roasted goose, son of the celebrated prize-goose who won the stubble-sweepstakes in 1829; and ditto hare, the identical animal killed by Lord Eglinton's goshawk, by which he won the cup at the last meeting of the Ardrossan Coursing Club. GURNEY emerges from the ear of Dionysius, and the Noctes closes. XXVIII. (FEBRUARY 1831.) Scene,―The Snuggery. Time,-Nine. Present,-North, SHEPHERD, and TICKLER. Tickler. CENTAUR! No more like a centaur, James, than he Ducrow1 is not "demi-corpsed " is like a whale. -as Shakespeare said of Laertes with what he bestrides; how could he, with half-a-dozen horses at a time? If the blockheads will but look at a centaur, they will see that he is not six horses and one man, but one manhorse or horseman, galloping on four feet, with one tail, and one face much more humane than either of ours Shepherd. Confine yoursel to your ain face, Mr Tickler. A centaur would hae sma' diffeeculty in ha'in a face mair humane nor yours, sir-for it's mair like the face o' Notus or Eurus nor a Christian's; but as for ma face, sir, it's meeker and milder than that o' Charon himsel North. Chiron, James. Shepherd. Weel, then, Cheeron be't-when he was instillin wisdom, music, and heroism intil the sowl o' Achilles, him that afterwards grew up the maist beautifu' and dreadfu' o' a' the sons o' men. Tickler. The glory of Ducrow lies in his Poetical Impersonations. Why, the horse is but the air, as it were, on which he flies! What godlike grace in that volant motion, fresh from Olympus, ere yet "new-lighted on some heaven-kissing hill!" What seems 66 the feathered Mercury" to care for the horse, whose side his toe but touches, as if it were a cloud in the ether? As the flight accelerates, the animal absolutely 1 See ante, vol. ii. p. 81. 144 DUCROW'S IMPERSONATIONS. disappears, if not from the sight of our bodily eye, certainly from that of our imagination, and we behold but the messenger of Jove, worthy to be joined in marriage with Iris. Shepherd. I'm no just sae poetical's you, Mr Tickler, when I'm at the Circus; and ma bodily een, as ye ca' them, that's to say, the een, ane on ilka side o' ma nose, are far ower gleg ever to lose sicht o' yon bonny din meer. North. A dun mare, worthy indeed to waft Green Turban, "Far descended of the Prophet line," across the sands of the Desert. Shepherd. Ma verra thocht! As she flew round like lichtnin, the sawdust o' the amphitheatre becam the sand-dust o' Arawbia-the heaven-doomed region, for ever and aye, o' the sons o' Ishmael. Tickler. Gentlemen, you are forgetting Ducrow. Isna a Roman Shepherd. Na. It's only you that's forgettin the din meer. His Mercury's beautifu'; but his Gladiawtor's shooblime.1 Tickler. Roman soldier you mean, James. Shepherd. Haud your tongue, Tickler. sodger a Gladiawtor? Doesna the verra word, Gladiawtor, come frae the Latin for swurd? Nae wunner the Romans conquered a' the warld, gin a' their sodgers focht like yon! Sune as Ducraw tyuck his attitude, as steadfast on the steed as on a stane, there ye beheld, staunin afore you, wi' helmet, swurd, and buckler, the eemage o' a warriour-king! The hero looked as gin he were about to engage in single combat wi' some hero o' the tither side some giant Gaul-perhaps himsel a king-in sicht o' baith armies-and by the eaglecrest could ye hae sworn, that sune would the barbaric host be in panic-flicht. What ither man o' woman born could sustain sic strokes, delivered wi' sovereign micht and sovereign majesty, as if Mars himsel had descended in mortal guise, to be the champion o' his ain eternal city. North. Ma verra thocht. Shepherd. Your thocht! you bit puir, useless, trifling cretur! -Ax your pardon, sir- for really, in the enthusiasm o' the moment, I had forgotten wha's vice it was, and thocht it was Mr Tickler's. 1 Ducrow's impersonations of ancient statues were as perfect as his horsemanship. CALEDONIA INVICTA. 145 Tickler. Whose? Shepherd. Sit still, sir. I wunner gin the Romans, in battle, used, like our sodgers, to cry, "Huzzaw, huzzaw, huzzaw !" North. We learned it from them, James. And ere all was done, we became their masters in that martial vociferation. Its echoes frightened them at last among the Grampians; and they set sail from unconquered Caledon. Shepherd. What a bluidy beatin Galgacus gied Agricola ! North. He did so indeed, James-yet see how that fellow, his son-in-law, Tacitus, lies like a bulletin. He swears the Britons lost the battle. Shepherd. Haw, haw, haw! What? I've been at the verra spat-and the tradition's as fresh as if it had been but the verra day after the battle, that the Romans were cut aff till a man. North. Not one escaped? Shepherd. Deevil the ane the hills, whare the chief carnage rotted, are greener nor the lave till this hour. Nae white clover grows there-nae white daisies—wad you believe me, sir, they're a' red. The life-draps seepit1 through the grun'—and were a body to dig doun far aneuch, wha kens but he wouldna come to coagulated gore, strengthening the soil aneath, till it sends up showers o' thae sanguinary gowans and clover, the product o' inextinguishable Roman bluid ?2 Tickler. The Living Statues! North. Perfect. The very Prometheus of Eschylus. Oh! James what high and profound Poetry was the Poetry of the world of old! To steal fire from heaven-what a glorious conception of the soul in its consciousness of immortality! Shepherd. And what a glorious conception o' the sowl, in its consciousness o' immortality, o' Divine Justice! O the mercy o' Almichty Jove! To punish the Fire-stealer by fastenin him doun to a rock, and sendin a vultur to prey on his liver-perpetually to keep prey-preyin on his puir liver, sirs-waur even nor the worm that never dees,—or, if no waur, at least as ill-rug-ruggin―gnaw-gnawin-tear 1 Seepit-soaked. 2 As Lotichius sings of the banks of the Neckar VOL. III. "Ripa gerit regum natos e sanguine flores, K tearin-howk-howkin, at his meeserable liver aye wanin and aye waxin aneath that unpacified beak-that beak noo cuttin like a knife, noo clippin like shissors, noo chirtin like pinchers, noo hagglin like a cleaver! A' the while the body o' the glorious sinner bun' needlessly till a rock-block-needlessly bun', I say, sir, for stirless is Prometheus in his endurance o' the doom he drees, as if he were but a Stane-eemage, or ane o' the unsufferin dead? North. A troubled mystery! Shepherd. Ane amaist fears to pity him, lest we wrang fortitude sae majestical. Yet see, it stirs ! Ha! 'twas but the vultur. Prometheus himself is still-in the micht, think ye, sir, o' curse or prayer? Oh! yonner's just ae single slicht shudder-as the demon, to get a stronger purchase at his food, taks up new grun' wi' his tawlons, and gies a fluff and a flap wi' his huge wings again' the ribs o' his victim, utterin― was't horrid fancy?—a gurglin throat-croak choked savagely in bluid! North. The Spirit's triumph over pain, that reaches but cannot pierce its core "In Pangs sublime, magnificent in Death!" Tickler. Life in Death! Exultation in Agony! Earth victorious over Heaven? Prometheus bound in manglings on a sea-cliff, more godlike than Jove himself, when "Nutu tremefecit Olympum!" Shepherd. Natur victorious ower the verra Fate her ain imagination had creawted! And in the dread confusion o' her superstitious dreams, glorifying the passive magnanimity o' man, far ayont the active vengeance o' the highest o' her gods? A wild bewilderment, sirs, that ought to convince us, that nae licht can ever be thrown on the moral government that reigns ower the region o' human life-nae licht that's no mair astoundin than the blackness o' darkness-but that o' Revelation that ae day or ither shall illumine the uttermost pairts o' the earth. North. Noble. These Impersonations by Ducrow, James, prove that he is a man of genius. Shepherd. Are they a' his ain inventions. North. Few or none. Why, if they were, he would be the |