60

TRUE TEMPERANCE.-SHERIDAN.

North. Sobriety is the strength of our physical, moral, and intellectual life. But how can any man hope to continue long sober, who calumniates cordial conviviality-misnames fun folly, and mirth malignity — turns up the whites of his eyes at humour, because it is broad, broad as the sea in sunshine —who in his false wisdom knows not what real wit is, or, half knowing it, turns away, abashed and detected, from its corruscations, that are ever harmless to the truly good, and wither only the weak or the wicked-who

Shepherd. Stap, sir-stap-for you'll never be able to fin' your way, at this time o' nicht, out o' sic a sentence. It's o' a perplexin and bewilderin kind o' construction, and I'll defy mortal man to make his escape out o't without breakin through, in perfect desperation, a' the rules o' grammar, and upsettin Dr Syntax at the door o' a parenthesis.

North. Never shall Sot be suffered to sit at our Symposium, James. Not even the genius of a Sheridan

Shepherd. Pshewwhoohoo-the genius o' Sheridan! Oh, sir, but his comedies are cauldrife compositions; and the haill tot of them's no worth the warst Noctes Ambrosianæ that ever Maister Gurney, that gentleman o' the press, extended frae out o' short haun. His mind had baith pint and glitter -but sae has a preen. Sheridan had but a sma' sowl-and even his oratory was feeble, false, and fushionless; and ane o' the auld Covenanters wad hae rowted him doun intil a silent ceepher on the hill-side, makin him fin' what eloquence is, no made up o' patches frae ither men's pamphlets, and o' lang accounts and statements, interlarded wi' rancid rant, and faded figures new dyed like auld claes, that do weel aneuch by cawnle-light, but look desperate shabby in the daytime-wi' remarks, forsooth, on human life and the principles of Eternal Justice nae less-o' which the unhappy neerdoweel kent muckle, nae doubt-having never read a good and great book a' his days, and associated chiefly with the vilest o' the vile

North. James-What's the meaning of all this? These sudden bursts

Shepherd. I canna thole to hear sic a sot as Sherry aye classed wi' Pitt and Burke.

Tickler. Nor I. A couple of clever comedies-a few elegant epilogues—a so-so opera-some spirited speechifyings-a few

HE WANTED IMAGINATION.

61

fitful flashes-some composed corruscations of conversational wit-will these make a great man? Bah! As to his faults and failings, on their ashes we must tread tenderly

North. Yes; but we must not collect them in an urn, and weep over them in maudlin worship. He was but a town-wit after all, and of a very superficial fancy. He had no imagination.

Shepherd. No a grain. He could say sharp things upon blunt people turn a common thocht wi' a certain neatness, that gied it, at first hearin, an air o' novelty; and an image bein' to him rather a rare occurrence, he polished it aff till the pebble seemed a diamond; but after a' it couldna write on glass, and was barely worth settin in the warst goold. He wanted copiousness, ferteelity, richness, vareeity, feelin, truth o' natur, sudden inspiration, poo'r' o' thocht; and as for either beauty or sublimity, he had a fause notion o' them in words, and nae notion o' them at a' in things, and never drew a tear or garred the reader grue' in a' his days. Peezarro alone pruves him to hae had nae real sowl; for though the subject be patriotism, and liberty, and independence, it's a' naething but flummery, and a fritter o' gran' soundin senseless words, that gang in at the tae lug and out at the tither, like great big bummin blue-bottle flees on a sunny day, in a room wi' cross lichts-the folk at their toddy half-wonderin and half-angry wi' the pompous insecks. Better far the bonny, licht, spatty, and mealy-winged, aerial butterflee, that keeps waverin frae flower to firmament, useless but beautifu', and remembered, for sake o' its silent mirth and motion, after the bit gaudy ephemeral has sank down and expired amidst the evening dews. And oh, how many thousand times mair preferable, the bit broon busy bee, that has a sting, but gin ye let it alane will sting naebody—that selects, by instinct, aye the sweetest flowers, rare as they may be in the weedy wild, and wi' cheerfu' murmur returns wax or honey laden, at the gloamin, to its straw-theeked skep in the garden-nyeuck, and continues, wi' the rest o' its innocent and industrious nation, to sing a' nicht lang, when a' the een o' heaven hae closed, and no a breath is stirrin outower a' the hills, trees, or castles.

Tickler. Would you believe it, Hogg, that it is no unusual

1 Poo'r-power.

2 Grue-shudder.

62

DELICATE SPIRIT OF THE NOCTES.

thing for droves of numbskulls to come driving along these lobbies, poking their low-browed stupidities into every parlour, hoping to surprise us at a Noctes Ambrosianæ, and wondering what can possibly have become of us, with their great big grey goggle eyes, sticking boiled-lobster-like out of their dirty-red physiognomies, with their clumsy gift of tongues lolling out of their blubber-lipped mouths, in a sort of speechless slaver, their very nostrils distended and quivering with vulgar perplexity and disappointment, and an ear seemingly nailed to each side of their ignorance-box, somewhere about the size of a small kibbock?1

Shepherd. Whatten a fricht they wud get gin they were to find us! The sumphs wud swarf.2

North. They know not, James, that a single tap of the crutch on the floor enchants us and our orgies into instant invisibility. Hunt the dewdrops after they have fled from before the sun-rising-the clouds that have gone sailing away over the western horizon, to be in at the sun-setting-the flashing and foaming waves that have left the sea and all her isles in a calm at last-the cushats still murmuring on farther and farther into the far forest, till the sound is now faint as an echo, and then nothing-golden eagles lost in light, and raging in their joy on the very rim of this globe's attraction -during the summer heats, the wild-flowers that strew the old woods of Caledon only during the pure snowy breath of the earth-brightening spring-the stars, that at once disappear with all their thousands, at the howl of the midnight storm-the lightnings suddenly intersecting the collied night, and then off and away for ever, quicker than forgotten thoughts -the grave-mounds, once so round and green, James, and stepped over so tenderly by footsteps going towards the low door of the little kirk, but all gone now, James, - kirk, kirkyard and all, James-and not a house in all the whole parish that has not been many times over and over again pulled down-altered-rebuilt, till a ghost, could he but loosen himself from the strong till, and raise up his head from among a twenty-acre field of turnips, and potatoes, and pease, would know not his own bonny birth-place, and death-place too, once so fringed and fragrant with brushwood over all its knolls, with whins, and broom, and harebells, and in moist moorland 1 Kibbock-a cheese. 2 Swarf-swoon.

THE SHEPHERD A TALKING TORRENT.

63

places, James, beautiful with "green grows the rashes o'," and a little loch, clear as any well, and always, always when you lay down and drank, cool, cold, chill, and soul-restoringnow drained for the sake of marl, and forsaken by the wild swans, that used to descend from heaven in their perfect whiteness, for a moment fold up their sounding pinions, and then, hoisting their wings for sails, go veering like ships on a pleasure-cruise, all up and down in every direction, obeying the air-like impulses of inward happiness, all up and down, James, such heavenly air-and-water-woven world as your own St Mary's Loch, or Loch of the Lowes, with its old, silent, ruined chapel, and one or two shepherds' houses, as silent as the chapel, but, as you may know from the smoke, old, but not ruined, and, though silent, alive!

Tickler. Hurra! hurra! hurra!

Shepherd. Oh, man, North, but you're a bare-faced eemetawtor o' me! You never wad hae spoken in that gate, a' your days, had you never kent me, and hearkened till me, when Nature lets me lowse, like a water that has been gettin itsel fed a' nicht, far aff at its source amang the muntains, and that a' at ance, when bits o' callants and lassies are plouterin about fishin for mennons wi' thread and cruckit preens, comes doun, red and roarin, in spate, and gin the bairns hadna heard the weel-kenn'd thunner, up aboon the linn, as it approached, wad hae sweepit them in twa-three hours frae Mingan1 to the Main,-na, broken at ae charge a' the squadrons o' cavalry that ever nichered, frae queerassears to Cossacks, and made parks o' artillery play spin like sae mony straes! Then how the earth-bound roots o' the auld forest-trees rejoice, as oak, ash, and elm try in vain to behold their shadows in the turbid flood! The holms and meadows are all overflowed into a hundred isles-and the kirk is cut aff frae the mainlaun'! How, think ye, will the people get to the summer sacrament the morn? By the morn, a' will be so quate that you will hear the lark at his greatest heicht in heaven, and the bit gowan you canna help treddin on, crunklin aneath your feet-the earth below will be greener than the heavens aboon are blue-a' the waters will be transparent as windows in shadow, or glitterin like windows when the sun glints on the panes, and parties o' well-dressed people a' 1 A farm on the upper part of the Tweed.

proceedin sae orderly thegither, or here and there comin down hill-sides, and out o' the mooths o' wee bit glens, anes, and twas, and threes-say a man and his wife and bairn, or a lassie and her sweetheart, or an auld body wi' fourscore on his back, but hale and hearty for a' that, comin to worship by himsel, for his wife and family hae been lang dead, frae the farthest aff and maist lanesome house in a' a gey wild hillparish, every Sabbath-day, as regular as the shadow fa's on the dial, and the kirk-bell is rung by drucken Davy, wha's fou a' the week thro', but nane but a leear will say that they ever saw him the waur o' drink on the Lord's day, and that's something-though but ane in seven.

Tickler. Hurra! hurra! hurra!

North. Oh, man, Hogg, but you are a bare-faced" eemetawtor" of me.

Shepherd. That's the way o't. That's the way that folks is rubbit' o' their oreeginality. What's a Noctes withouten the Shepherd? Tell me that.-But you're welcome, sir, to be a copiawtor at times, for there's nae denyin that when you either skaitch or feenish aff, after your ain manner, there's few hauns like Christopher North, either ancient or modern. But excuse me, sir, for sayin, that, about the tenth tummler or sae, oh, sir, you are tiresome, tiresome

North. A gross contradiction, James, of that compliment you paid me half-an-hour ago.

Tickler. Claw me, and I'll claw you. Eh, Jamie-Eh, Kit?

Shepherd. He that disna like flattery, is either less or mair nor man. It's the natural language o' freenship, and as distinck frae flummery as a bee frae a drone, a swan frae a guse, a bit bonny yellow meadow-born spanging froggy frae an ugly carbunkle-backit, din,2 nettle-crawlin taid-a real lake frae meerage. What the deevil's the use or meanin o' a freen3 that aye looks dour at you whan you're speakin at your verra best, and gies his nose a snifter, and his breast a grumph, whan you're dune singin, and a' hauns but his clappin, a' tongues but his roosin your voice to the skies,his hauns rooted intil the pocket o' his breeks-a hatefu' attitude, and his tongue seen through his chafts, as if he 1 Rubbit-robbed. 2 Din-dun.

3 Freen-friend.