NORTH.

You did. But during all these twenty years, when you were nobly struggling on, swimming against the stream, with bold heart and sinewy arms, giving buffet for buffet, and though sometimes losing way, yet recovering it by your own energies, and like a water-dragon cresting the spate, pray what assistance or encouragement gave the Quarterly to the bard, seemingly about, at times, to be carried down into the waters of oblivion ? None.

SHEPHERD.

Nane, indeed, or a sma' share waur than nane.

NORTH.

A sneering article on your Poetic Mirror, " damning with faint praise," was all her generosity could afford, all her justice could grant; and I hope you were thankful for the largesse.

I remember naething about it.

SHEPHERD.

NORTH.

Seeing that you were known to be such a loyal subject, why was not the Ettrick Shepherd cheered in the Forest by the voice of praise, which would have at least soothed, if it could not relieve his virtuous poverty?

SHEPHERD.

I surely deserved better at their hauns, for I'm willing to pitch the Queen's Wake again' ony Oxford poem that ever was wrott by ony Oxford Professor.

TICKLER.

No sneers at Milman-the most imaginative of all our poets of the classical school.

SHEPHERD.

Is't a sneer at the Fa' o' Jerusalem, to offer to compare we't, in pint o' genie-for I gie up the polish o' the feenishin o' the execution-wi' the Queen's Wake? Ma certes!

NORTH.

Each successive poem of that beautiful writer was highly-not too highly -praised in the Quarterly Review, to which he has been one of the most powerful contributors. On every account he deserved such eulogies. But why were you forgotten, James? First, because a Scotchman-and, secondly, because you were a shepherd.

SHEPHERD.

And a shepherd's as gude ony day as a shoemaker-though Bloomfield was ane;-as for Gifford, I jalouse he was never mair nor a cobbler.

NORTH.

James, in this age, genius often lives the life, and dies the death of a slave. True devotion is lost in idol worship, a shepherd has no chance against a lord his sweet solitary pipe is drowned in the clangour of many trumpets.

SHEPHERD.

I'm easy. Mine 'll aye continue to be heard at intervals, like the sang o' the linty amang the broom in the season o' spring,-and them that loves to listen to Allan Ramsay, and Robie Burns, and Allan Kinninghame, 'll never forget a'thegether the Ettrick Shepherd. That thocht's aneuch for me-and I'm content wi' my fame, sic as it is, amang my native braes.

Thank you, sir, here's your health. You've been suffering under a sair hoast, I hear; but thae lozenges maun be Crichton's best, for though last week as hoarse as a craw, your vice is noo musical as that o' the nightingale.

NORTH.

Now, James, look on this picture, and then on this,-from the Quarterly turn to Maga, and exclaim with Wordsworth's lover

"Oh!

"The difference to me!"

From the Chaldee to the Winter Rhapsody, she never has been weary of singing your praise. She scorned to flatter-to butter you, James, though well she knew that never yet was flattery lost on poet's ear, nor butter lost on poet's cheek; but she gained and kept for you a clear field and no favour, on which you had elbow-room, James, to contend with all your rivals, and on which you had perpetual opportunities of appearing, with your best foot foremost, before the Pensive Public. Her pages were always open to your genius; and how often, by your genius, have they been illuminated! What, if, since the 1817, when Maga first effulged on a benighted world, she had treated you as the Quarterly did, who now, somewhat late in life, has assured the Royal Society of Literature, that in spite of these wicked Noctes Ambrosiana which have "frighted the isle from her propriety," the Ettrick Shepherd is a loyal subject? Why, let me not hesitate to say, James, that bright as your genius is, the shades of obscurity or of oblivion would long ere now have fallen over it in the Forest.

SHEPHERD.

May be. Burns himsell was little thocht o' in Embro' when he was leevin' in Dumfries.

NORTH.

After your death, my dear James, your fame would have revived, for genius is imperishable; but Maga, and Christopher North, and Yourself, my incomparable Shepherd, by our united power, strong in steadiest friendship, kept the flame of your genius, and the fame of your name, alive during your life, which is better far than that it should have been left, after flickering or going out while its possessor was above ground, to be rekindled on your grave.

SHEPHERD.

Posthumous fame's a wersh thocht without a preein o' the present; for oh, sir! what a difference atween the quick and the dead!

Did this Censor

TICKLER.

SHEPHERD.

Hear till Mr Tickler-dinna interrupt Mr Tickler.-Mr Tickler, what was ye ettlin to say when Mr North took the word out o' your mouth?

TICKLER.

Did the old gentleman who drawls about the boozing buffoonery of the Noctes, ever hear of a celebrated lawyer, one Pleydell, who, in his leisure hours, was strenuously addicted to High Jinks?

SHEPHERD.

I daursay never-he'll prove to be the individual that never heard o' Sir Walter Scott. My freen, Mr Cadell, ance tell't me o' either himsell or an acquaintance forgathering, on the tap o' a cotch, wi' a weel-informed man, in black claes, wha had never heard o' Sir Walter, o' Abbotsford, or the Scotch Novels. He maun be the contributor.

NORTH.

How he came not only to hear of you, James, but to be among the number, if we believe him, of your familiars, is as puzzling as his ignorance of the existence of the greatest man alive; yet, in his simplicity, he supposes the Royal Society of Literature to stand in need of some recondite information from his pen, about the life and character, and genius of a Bard, whose name-the Ettrick Shepherd-has long been a household word all over Britain.

TICKLER.

In what unknown cave do these seers abide, supposed to be thus unac→ quainted with all the ongoings of the upper world?

They live in London

NORTH.

Shepherd.

And me in the Forest. Fowre hunder miles, aften o' mist and snaw, in trudes between them and me-and I'm muckle obliged, after a', to the ho

nest gentleman, for remindin' them o' my existence, and for clearin' my character, aboon a' things, frae the stain o' disloyalty contracted frae the traitors wha hae sae lang been plottin' against Church and King at the Noctes Ambrosianæ. I thank him also for telling their worships that I'm a sober man-though I canna quite agree wi' him in conceevin't to be ony proof to the contrar, that some sax times a-year I indulge in a gaudeamus in the Snuggery. Thank him, too, for assuring the Society, that our meetings here are no purely imaginary, as some coofs jalouse-and that this Glenlivet-oh! but it outdoes itsell the night-is no mere pented air, sic as ane endeavours unavailingly to drink in his dreams. He has removed the Noctes frae the shadowy and unsubstantial realms o' Faery, intil the solid world o' reality, established for perpetuity "their local habitation and their name" in the minds of all the people of Britain and elsewhere-yea, embalmed their remembrance in the more than Egyptian wisdom o' his ain genius

TICKLER.

A pair of mummies, that, when countless generations have passed away, and left no memorial of their being, will be preserved in the museums of the curious and scientific, and poetry penned upon them by the wonder of bards flourishing during the Millennium.

NORTH.

I should be sorry, my dear James, to let the world believe, with the lacrymose eulogist of your sobriety and loyalty-virtues as native to your orb as light and heat to that of the sun,-a luminary, by the by, which he ought forthwith to vindicate from the generally credited calumny, that he seldom goes to bed, or rises from it, without drinking an unconscionable draught of the sea,-I should be sorry, I say, James, to let the world believe that you are a melancholy man, living in a melancholy place, the victim of unmerited misfortunes, and the misunderstood and misrepresented Interlocutor in these our Dialogues, at once the disgrace and the delight of the age-countenanced though they be by Kings on their thrones, Bishops and Judges on their benches, Peers and Peasants in hall and hut, Ladies in silk, and Lasses in grogram

TICKLER.

By "Laughter holding both his sides."

NORTH.

And by Il Penseroso, "under the shade of melancholy boughs," feeling himself gradually growing into L'Allegro

TICKLER.

Or coming out of the Cave of Trophonius, with "nods and becks and wreathed smiles," so potent the magic of Maga, folded in a Double Number across his fortified heart.

NORTH.

Most musical thou art, O Shepherd, but not most melancholy; nor hast thou cause, any more than the nightingale, to be other than a merry Bird of Song. True, that with all thy skill and science-witness Hogg on Sheep -thy pastoral farm has not been more prosperous than those of thy compeers; but during all thy struggles, thou didst preserve an unspotted name, nor was there wanting one stanch friend to stand by thee in thy difficulties, whether a new edition of the Wake was deemed advisable, or the publication of Queen Hynde, or a collection of thy matchless Songs, many of them first chanted in this Snuggery, James-and how vocal its roof!or if thy racy articles, beloved by Maga, were sent in from the Forest to brave the Balaam-Box-that tomb of so many Capulets-one stanch friend, James, whom none but the base abuse

SHEPHERD.

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD. The Bailie has aye been a gude freen to me-but let me say, sir, that I aye gied as gude's I got-and that we staun on the same level o' mutual obligation.

NORTH.

He is your debtor, James-and is proud to be so

SHEPHERD.

Na-he's no. But in a' his dealings wi' me, he's been the gentleman,

which is something mair nor I can say o' some that ance held their head sae high, and far mair than I can say o' ithers, who, while they trumpet their payment, are as penurious in their poverty as the blusterin' wund that, amidst a glint o' seeming sunshine, brings naething but a cauld blash o'

sleet.

NORTH.

Your works, my dear James, in prose and verse, most of them full of the inspiration of true genius, and none of them without its breath, have been, with few months' intermission, appearing before the world, often in Maga, for upwards of twenty years-and during all that time, your character has been known to thousands of your admiring and affectionate countrymen. Should any Society, whose noble object it is to reward genius and virtue by solid pudding, and not by empty praise, befriend you in the calm and bright afternoon of your life-for 'tis not yet the gloaming, the evening is still far off, and long, long may it be ere cometh to thee the night in which no man can work-there will be a blessing in their bounty-not on you only, but on themselves.

SHEPHERD.

Whisht, sir, whisht. Poor as I am-I'm independent-at least I'm no idle-and conscious o' my integrity, I'm as happy as a bird, though often, you ken, sir, the happiest bird wull sit mute and pensive on the bough, aside its nest, when its loving mate is cowerin' owre their young anes, as if it was thinkin' within itsell what wud become o' them, if it fell aneath the fowler, and the grun' were to be a' covered wi' spring snaw!

NORTH.

God bless you, my dear James, such melancholy moments but serve to brighten sunshine and gladden song.

We have put, I think, this matter in the proper light-removed from it all misapprehension-and courteously and kindly reminded the Quarterly, that should the genius and virtues of the author of the Queen's Wake and the Ettrick Shepherd receive their due and dignified reward from any enlightened patronage, whether of an individual or a society, no praise can, in that case, by possibility, be deserved by that rich but rather stingy periodical; because that, whatever merit may belong to any one besides the poet himself and those who may prove his benefactors, it most assuredly does belong to William Blackwood, Christopher North, and Maga-to whom

SHEPHERD.

I beg leave to add, wi' a heart fu' o' everlastin' gratitude, John Gibson Lockhart, and Sir Walter Scott.

NORTH.

On whom, now and ever, be all blessings poured from heaven-and may the light of their hearths burn bright as that of their fame!

SHEPHERD.

Amen,-Hurraw! hurraw! hurraw! Noo, I'll sing you a bit sang, out o' the colleckshun.

O, weel befa' the maiden gay,
In cottage, bught, or penn,
An' weel befa' the bonny May
That wons in yonder glen;

Wha loes the modest truth sae weel,
Wha's aye sae kind, an' aye sae leal,
An' pure as blooming asphodel
Amang sae mony men.

O, weel befa' the bonny thing
That wons in yonder glen!

'Tis sweet to hear the music float

Along the gloaming lea;

'Tis sweet to hear the blackbird's note
Come pealing frae the tree;

To see the lambkin's lightsome race—
The speckled kid in wanton chase-
The young deer cower in lonely place,
Deep in her flowing den;
But sweeter far the bonny face
That smiles in yonder glen!

O, had it no' been for the blush
O' maiden's virgin flame,
Dear beauty never had been known,
An' never had a name;

But aye sin' that dear thing o' blame
Was modell'd by an angel's frame,
The power o' beauty reigns supreme
O'er a' the sons o' men;

But deadliest far the sacred flame
Burns in a lonely glen!

There's beauty in the violet's vest-
There's hinny in the haw-

There's dew within the rose's breast,
The sweetest o' them a'.

The sun will rise and set again,

An' lace wi' burning goud the main-
The rainbow bend outow'r the plain,
Sae lovely to the ken;

But lovelier far the bonny thing
That wons in yonder glen!

TICKLER.

Clearly and croosely crawed, my cock.

NORTH.

Sweetly and silverly sung, my nightingale.

SHEPHERD.

It's a gran' thing, sirs, to be the cock o' the company, occasionally; at other times, pensie as a pullet.

Any thing but a hen.

TICKLER.

SHEPHERD.

At leeterary soopers, I like to see a blue-stocking playin' the how-towddie.

How?

NORTH.

SHEPHERD.

Chucklin' intil hersell, when a spruce young cockie is lettin' his wing drap close aside hers, and half-receivin' half-declinin' his advances, like ony ither Christian lassie wha may na hae the gift o' writin' verses ayont a Valentine. Far better sic undertoned and underhaund natural dealins', maist innicent a', than cacklin' about Coleridge, or blooterin about Byron, or cheepin, as if she had the pip, o' Barry Cornwall.

NORTH.

Some maidens I know, James, bright as the muses, whose souls, as well as frames, are made of the finest clay, who before the eyes of the uninitiated pass for commonplace characters, because, unpresumptuous in their genius, and retiring in their sensibility, oft "the house affairs do call them thence;" because, to their lips none so familiar as household words; and because to their hearts dearer are the tender humanities of life, than bright to their imaginations the poetic visions, that yet "swarm on every bough," when they walk in their beautiful happiness by Windermere or Loch Lomond.