A "BRAINLESS BIG-WIG' IN THE QUARTERLY.

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

"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

THE NOCTES AS REPRESENTED IN THE QUARTERLY.

183

to say that the staple is boozing buffoonery, and party. politics!

Shepherd. He's wrang there.

North. Now, James, what were the politics of the Quarterly Review-I speak of a period previous to its present management during, perhaps, the most perilous crisis in which this country had ever been placed! I ought rather to say where were its politics? Why, according to a tardy confession in the last Number, they were kept sealed up by Mr Canning, with his official impress, in the conscience of Mr Gifford.1 Shepherd. Eh? What? Hoo?

North. While we, James,—while Maga, James,-while the Noctes, James, were defending the principles of the British. constitution, bearding its enemies, and administering to them the knout, the Quarterly Review was mute and mum as a

mouse

Tickler. Afraid to lose the countenance and occasional assistance of Mr Canning!

North. There indeed, James, was a beautiful exhibition of party politics—a dignified exhibition of personal independence

Tickler. Of Tory-truckling enough to make the Collector of the Jacobite Relics a Whig.

North. The old gentleman informs the Royal Society of Literature, that they must not suffer themselves to be deluded by the Noctes into a belief that the Ettrick Shepherd is not a "loyal subject!" Do traitors compose new King's anthems? Set loyal songs to their own music? Rout and root out radicals? Baste the Blue-and-Yellow till it is black in the back? And, while the lips of hirelings are locked, chant hymns

"To the pilot that weathered the storm ?"

Shepherd. Ma poem on Pitt's prime.

Tickler. Maga has been the mouthpiece of constitutional monarchy

Shepherd. Ever sin' the Chaldee.

North. Methinks that, with respect to politics, either party

1 Mr Gifford was the editor of the Quarterly Review from its commencement in 1809 until 1824. In the short interval between his retirement and Mr Lockhart's appointment to the editorship, it was superintended by Mr H. N. Coleridge.