EULOGIUM ON JEFFREY.

335

forehead, eyes, cheeks, mouth, and chin, all declaring, as Burns said of Matthew Henderson, that "Francis is a bright man," -ever in full command of all his great and various talents, with just enough of genius to preserve them all in due order and subordination-for, with either more or less genius, we may not believe that his endowments could have been so finely, yet so firmly balanced, so powerful both in speculative and practical skill, making him at once, perhaps, on the whole, the most philosophic critic of his age, and, beyond all comparison, the most eloquent orator of his country.

English Opium-Eater. To much of that eulogium, Mr North, great as my admiration is of Mr Jeffrey's abilities, I must demur.

Shepherd. And me too.

Tickler. And I also.

North. Well, gentlemen, demur away; but such for many years has been my opinion, and 'tis the opinion of all Scotland.

English Opium-Eater. Since you speak of Mr Jeffrey, and of his achievements in law, literature, and philosophy, in Scotland, and without meaning to include the Southern Intellectual Empire of Britain, why, then, with one exception (bowing to Mr North), I do most cordially agree with you, though of his law I know nothing, and nothing of his oral eloquence, but judge of him solely from the Edinburgh Review, which (bowing again to Mr North), with the same conspicuous exception-maugre all its manifold and miserable mistakesunquestionably stands-or did stand-for I have not seen a number of it since the April number of 1826-at the head of the Periodical Literature of the Age; and that the Periodical Literature of the Age is infinitely superior to all its other philosophical criticism-for example, the charlatanerie of the Schlegels, et id genus omne, is as certain-Mr Hogg, pardon me for imitating your illustrative imagery, or attempting to imitate what all the world allows to be inimitable-as that the hotch-potch which you are now swallowing, in spite of heat that seems breathed from the torrid zone

Shepherd. It's no hotch-potch-this platefu's cocky-leeky. English Opium-Eater. As that cocky-leeky which, though hot as purgatory (the company will pardon me for yielding to the influence of the genius loci), your mouth is, and for a quarter of an hour has been, vortex-like engulfing, transcends, to all that is best in animal and vegetable matter-worthy

336

WATSON GORDON'S "LORD DALHOUSIE."

indeed of Scotland's manly Shepherd-the soup maigre, that, attenuated almost to invisibility, drenches the odiouslyguttural gullet of some monkey Frenchman of the old school, by the incomprehensible interposition of Providence saved at the era of the Revolution from the guillotine.

Omnes! Bravo! bravo! bravo!-Encore! encore! encore! Shepherd. That's capital-it's just me; gin ye were aye to speak that gate, man, folk would understaun' you. Let's hae a caulker thegither.-There's a gurgle—your health, sir—no forgettin the wife and the weans. It's a pity you're no a Scotchman.

1

North. John Watson's "Lord Dalhousie "2 is a noble picture. But John's always great-his works win upon you the longer you study them—and that, after all, is at once the test and the triumph of the art. On some portraits you at once exhaust your admiration; and are then ashamed of yourself for having mistaken the vulgar pleasure, so cheaply inspired, of a staring likeness, for that high emotion breathed from the mastery of the painter's skill-and blush to have doated on a daub.

3

Tickler. Duncan's "Braw Wooer," from Burns's

"Yestreen a braw wooer cam down the lang glen,
And sair wi' his love he did deave me ;

I said there was naething I hated like men,—
The deuce gang wi' him to believe me,”

is a masterpiece. What a fellow, James! Not unlike yourself in your younger days, perhaps-but without a particle of the light of genius that ever ennobles your rusticity, and makes the plaid on our incomparable Shepherd's shoulders graceful as the poet's mantle-But rather like some son of yours, James, of whom you had not chanced to think it worth your while to take any very particular notice, yet who, by hereditary talents, had made his way in the world up to headshepherd on a four-thousand-acre hill-farm,-his face glowing with love and health like a peony over which a milk-pail had happened to be upset-bonnet cocked as crousely on his hard 1 See ante, vol. i. p. 48, note 2.

2 The father of the distinguished Governor-General of India. He fought with great gallantry through the Peninsular war and at Waterloo.

3 Thomas Duncan died in 1844. He painted "Christopher in his Sportingjacket"'-a picture of Professor Wilson in the possession of Mr John Blackwood.

A BRAW WOOER.-A QUEENLIKE QUEAN.

337

brow as the comb upon the tappin o' chanticleer when sidling up, with dropped wing, to a favourite pullet-buckskin breeches, such as Burns used to wear himself, brown and burnished to a most perilous polish-and top-boots, the images of your own, my beloved boy on which the journey down. the lang glen has brought the summer-dust to blend with the well-greased blacking broad chest, gorgeously apparelled in a flapped waistcoat, manifestly made for him by his great grandmother, out of the damask-hangings of a bed that once must have stood firm in a Ha' on four posts, though now haply in a hut but a trembling truckle-strong harn shirt, clean as a lily, bleached in the showery sunshine on a brent1 gowany brae, nor untinged with a faint scent of thyme that, in oaken drawer, will lie odorous for years upon years,—and cravat with a knot like a love-posy, and two pointed depending stalks, tied in the gleam of a water-pail, or haply in the mirror of the pool in which that Apollo had just been floundering like a porpoise, and in which, when drought had dried the shallows, he had leistered many a fish impatient of the sea;there, James, he sits on a bank, leaning and leering, a lost and love-sick man, yet not forgetful nor unconscious of the charms so prodigally lavished upon him both by nature and art, the BRAW WOOER, who may not fail in his suit, till blood be wersh as water, and flesh indeed fushionless as grass growing in a sandy desert.

Shepherd. Remember, Mr Tickler, what a lee-way you hae to mak up, on the sea o' soup, and be na sae descriptive, for we've a' gotten to windward; you seem to hae drapt anchor, and baith mainsail and foresail are flappin to the extremity o' their sheets.

Tickler. And is not she, indeed, James, a queenlike quean? What scorn and skaith in the large full orbs of her imperial eyes! How she tosses back her head in triumph, till the yellow lustre of her locks seems about to escape from the bondage of that ribbon, the hope-gift of another suitor who wooed her under happier auspices, among last-year's "rigs o' barley," at winter's moonless midnight, beneath the barn-balk where roosts the owl,-by spring's dewy eve on the dim primrose bank, while the lark sought his nest among the green braird, descending from his sunset-song!

VOL. II.

1 Brent-high; steep.

Y

338

SHEPHERD'S GENIUS CONTAGIOUS.

Shepherd. Confound me-if this be no just perfectly intolerable-Mr North, Mr De Quinshy, Mr Tickler, and a', men, women, and children, imitatin ma style o' colloquial oratory, till a' that's specific and original about me 's lost in universal plagiarism.

Tickler. Why, James, your genius is as contagious-as infectious as the plague,-if, indeed, it be not epidemical-like a fever in the air.

Shepherd. You're a' glad to sook up the miasmata. But, mercy on us! a' the tureens seem to me amaist dried up—as laigh's wells in midsummer drought. The vermicelli, especially, is drained to its last worms. Mr De Quinshy, you've an awfu' appeteet!

English Opium-Eater. I shall dine to-day entirely on soup, -for your Edinburgh beef and mutton, however long kept, are difficult of mastication,—the sinews seeming to me all to go transversely, thus,-and not longitudinally,—so

We

North. Hark! my gold repeater is smiting seven. allow an hour, Mr De Quincey, to each course- -and then[The LEANDERS play "The Boatie Rows,"-the door flies open,-enter PICARDY and his clan.

Shepherd. I'm sure we canna be sufficiently gratefu' for having got rid o' a' thae empty tureens o' soup-so let us noo set in for serious eatin, and tackle to the inhabitants o' the Great Deep. What's that bit body, North, been about?

Daidlin1 wi' the mock-turtle. I hate a' things mock-soups, pearls, fause tails, baith bustles and queues, wigs, cauves, religion, freenship, love, glass-een, rouge on the face o' a woman,—no' exceppin even cork legs, for timmer anes are far better, there bein' nae attempt at deception, which ought never to be practised on ony o' God's reasonable creatures—it's sae insultin.

English Opium-Eater. Better open outrage than hidden guile, which

Shepherd. Just sae, sir.—But is't no a bonny instrument, that key-bugle? I've been tryin to learn't a' this wunter, beginnin at first wi' the simple coo's-horn. But afore I had weel gotten the gamut, I had nearly lost my life.

Tickler. What? From mere loss of breath-positive exhaustion? An abscess in the lungs, James?

Shepherd. Nothing o' the sort. I hae wund and lungs for onything—even for roarin you doun at argument, whan, driven to the wa', you begin to storm like a Stentor, till the verra neb o' the jug on the dirlin table regards you wi' astonishment, and the speeders are seen rinning alang the ceilin to shelter themselves in their corner cobwebs.-(Canna ye learn frae Mr De Quinshy, man, to speak laigh and lown, trustin mair to sense and less to soun', and you'll find your advantage in't?)-But I allude, sir, to an Adventure.

North. An adventure, James?

Shepherd. Ay- an adventure-but as there's nane o' you for cod's-head and shouthers, I'll first fortify mysel wi' some forty or fifty flakes-like half-crown pieces.

Tickler. Some cod, James, if you please.

Shepherd. Help yoursel-I'm unco thrang2 the noo. Mr De Quinshy, what fish are you devoorin ?

English Opium-Eater. Soles.

Shepherd. And you, Mr North?
North. Salmon.

Shepherd. And you, Mr Tickler?
Tickler. Cod.

Shepherd. You're a' in your laconics. I'm fear'd for the banes, otherwise, after this cod's dune, I sud like gran' to gie that pike a yokin. I ken him for a Linlithgow loun by the length o' his lantern-jaws, and the peacock-neck colour o' his 1 Daidlin-trifling. 2 Thrang-busy.