290

THE SHEPHERD IN PARLIAMENT.

their governors and their grievances, for that such is the birthright of Britons-to open their mouths barn-door wide, and roar aloud to the heavens with lungs of which the machinery is worked by steam, a high-pressure-engine-and yet the moment they begin to bawl beyond the birthright of Britons, what justice is there in not only commanding the aforesaid barn-door-wide mouths to be shut, bolted, locked, and the key-hole hermetically sealed, but in punishing the bawling Britons for having, in the enthusiasm of their vociferation, abused their birthright of crying aloud to the winds of heaven against their real or imaginary tyrants and oppressors, by fine, imprisonment, expatriation, or not impossibly-death?

Shepherd. Sic conduct can proceed only frae a maist consummate ignorance o' the nature o' the human mind, and a wilfu' and wicked non-understanding o' that auncient apothegm, "Gie an inch, and you'll tak an ell." Noo, I say, debar them the inch by an ack o' the Legislature, if you wull; but if you alloo them the inch, wull you flee in the face o' a' experience, fine them for a foot, and hang them for an ell? That's sumphish.

North. James, I shall certainly put you into Parliament next dissolution.

Shepherd. But I'll no gang. For although I'm complete maister o' the English language and idiom, I've gotten a slicht Scottish accent that micht seem singular to the Southrons; and confoun' me gin I could bear to be lauchen at by the stammerin coofs that hum and ha yonner like sae mony boobies tryin to repeat by heart their lessons frae the horn-book. My pride couldna submit to their "Hear—hearhears!" by way o' derision, and I wud be apt to shut my nieve, and gie some o' them a douss on the chafts, or a clink on the side o' the head, contrar to the rules o' Parliament.

North. With scarcely an exception-now that Brougham is mute―save Sadler and Huskisson,' who in very different styles speak admirably, the members of the Lower House are a pack partly of pert praters, shallow, superficial, coxcombical, and pedantic-yes, James, absolutely pedantic-and partly of drawling dunces, who dole out a vast fund of facts, one and all of which have figured for weeks, months, years, in all the

1 Huskisson was run down by a steam-engine at the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway in 1830, and died after lingering a few hours.

WILKIE. -THE FORUM.

291

newspapers, metropolitan and provincial, and have ceased to be familiar to Wilkie's "Village Politicians."1

Shepherd. I ax pardon, sir, for interruptin you; but did you see Mr Wulkie when he was in Scotland this time—and if you did, hoo is he-and what for did he no come out-by to Mount Benger?

North. The Prince of Painters is as the whole world would wish, well and happy, and in social converse delightful as ever-simple, yet original-plain, yet profound-calm, yet enthusiastic and his whole character composed by the thoughtfulness of a genius that, in his art, works its way slowly and surely through many a multitude of conceptions to the final idea which with consummate skill he embodies in immortal forms. And may the colours be immortal too— works one and all, laborious though they be, of inspiration!

Shepherd. But what for didna he come out-by this time to Mount Benger? I weel remember George Tamson bringin him out in the hairst o' 1817, and me readin till them pairt o' The Manuscripp.

North. What! the Chaldee?

Shepherd. What else? Hoo they leuch!

North. Bad as was the haranguing, and good the humming and hawing, at the Edinburgh Forum' of old, James, where first you "fulmined over Greece," yet for even-down right hammering stupidity, St Stephen's exceeds the Forum far. Nor was yon queer comical body, James, the wee bit smugfaced, smooth-haired, low-browed, pug-nosed, cock-chinned, bandy-legged, hump-backed Precentor to the Chapel rejoicing in the Auld Light, in Liberton's Wynd, who used occasionally to open the question, the tenth part so tiresome, after the ludicrousness of the exhibition had got stale, as Sir Thomas Leather-breeches, stinking of Zummerset, looking from him with a face as free from one single grain of meaning as a clean-swept barn-floor, labouring to apply to speech a mouth manifestly made by gracious nature for the exclusive purpose of bolting bacon, vainly wagging in a frothy syllabub of words a tongue in its thickness admirably adapted, and then

3

1 The "Village Politicians," a celebrated picture by Wilkie.

2 A debating society of very miscellaneous constitution, where Hogg used to hold forth early in the century.

3 Sir Thomas Lethbridge.

only felicitously employed, for lapping up lollipops, ever and anon with a pair of awful paws raking up the coarse bristle of his poll, so that, along with the grunt of the greedy pig, you are presented with the quills of the fretful porcupine; and since the then and the there alluded to, gobbling up his own words-for meanings had he never none-like a turkey-cock his own voidings; and giving the lie direct to the whole of his past political life, public and private, if indeed political life it may be called, which was but like the diseased doze of a drunkard dreaming through a stomach dark and deep as the cider-cellar.

Shepherd. To my lugs, sir, the maist shockin epithet in our language is-Apostate. Soon as you hear it, you see a man selling his sowl to the deevil.

North. To Mammon.

Shepherd. Belial or Beelzebub. I look to the mountains, Mr North, and stern they stand in a glorious gloom, for the sun is strugglin wi' a thunder-cloud, and facing him a faint but fast-brichtenin rainbow. The ancient spirit o' Scotland comes on me frae the sky; and the sowl within me re-swears in silence the oath o' the Covenant. There they are-the Covenanters a' gathered thegither, no in fear and tremblin, but wi' Bibles in their bosoms, and swords by their sides, in a glen deep as the sea, and still as death, but for the sound o’a stream and the cry o' an eagle. "Let us sing, to the praise and glory of God, the hundred psalm," quoth a loud clear voice, though it be the voice o' an auld man; and up to Heaven hauds he his strang withered hauns, and in the gracious wunds o' heaven are flying abroad his grey hairs, or say rather, white as the silver or the snaw.

North. Oh, for Wilkie!

Shepherd. The eagle and the stream are silent, and the heavens and the earth are brocht close thegither by that triumphin psalm. Ay, the clouds cease their sailing and lie still; the mountains bow their heads; and the crags, do they not seem to listen, as in that remote place the hour o' the delighted day is filled with a holy hymn to the Lord God o' Israel?

North. My dear Shepherd!

Shepherd. Oh! if there should be sittin there—even in that congregation on which, like God's own eye, looketh down the meridian sun, now shinin in the blue region-an Apostate!

FEMALE MARTYR.- -THE GREAT MEASURE.

North. The thought is terrible.

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Shepherd. But na, na, na! See that bonny blue-eed, rosycheeked, gowden-haired lassie-only a thought paler than usual, sweet lily that she is-half-sittin half-lyin on the greensward, as she leans on the knee o' her stalwart grandfather -for the sermon's begun, and all eyes are fastened on the preacher, look at her till your heart melts as if she were your ain, and God had given you that beautifu' wee image o' her sainted mother, and tell me if you think that a' the tortures that cruelty could devise to inflict, would ever wring frae thae sweet innocent lips ae word o' abjuration o' the faith in which the flower is growing up amang the dewdraps o' her native hills?

North. Never-never-never!

Shepherd. She proved it, sir, in death. Tied to a stake on the sea-sands she stood; and first she heard, and then she saw, the white roarin o' the tide. But the smile forsook not her face; it brichtened in her een when the water reached her knee; calmer and calmer was her voice of prayer, as it beat again' her bonny breast; nae shriek when a wave closed her lips for ever; and methinks, sir-for ages on ages hae lapsed awa sin' that martyrdom, and therefore Imagination may withouten blame dally wi' grief-methinks, sir, that as her golden head disappeared, 'twas like a star sinkin in the sea!

North. God bless you, my dearest James! shake hands! Shepherd. When I think on these things-in olden times the produce o' the common day—and look aroun' me noo, I could wush to steek my een in the darkness o' death; for dearly as I love it still, alas! alas! I am ashamed o' my country.

North. What an outcry, in such a predicament, would have been made by Leather-breeches!

Shepherd. Bubble and squeak like a pig plotted. what waur is he than our ain Forty-Five?

me scunner!

But

O, they mak

North. Does not the Duke of Wellington know that mortal hatred of the "Great Measure "2 is in the hearts of millions of his subjects?

Shepherd. His subjects?

North. Yes, James, his subjects; for I am not now speaking of his slaves. His subjects; and if he has that horror at the 1 See ante, p. 264, note. 2 The Catholic Emancipation Bill.

294

NORTH'S LOYALTY. THE KIRK.

idea of being thought ambitious of being KING, which he chooses to evince by the prosecution of the Press, and an attack on its long-established liberties, then must he be at this hour the most miserable of men. For at this hour, he is the King. No King of England, but himself, could, I verily believe, even if they would, have carried the Catholic Question. Shepherd. We had better cry on Gurney no to tak doun this, for I jalouse it's actionable-na, for onything I ken, treasonable; and we may be baith hanged.

North. No, James, we are loyal to the back-bone. Till the day of my death will I raise up my feeble voice in honour of the Hero of Waterloo. He saved Europe-the world. Twinstars in England's sky, immortally shall burn the deified spirits of Nelson and Wellington.

Shepherd. Your words gar me a' grue.

North. But of noble minds ambition is both the first and the last infirmity; an infirmity it must, even in its most glorious mood, be called in all noble minds, except that of Alfred. In war, Wellington, the Gaul-humbler, is a greater name, immeasurably greater than Alfred, the Dane-destroyer. But in peace parallel

too, too painful would it be to pursue the

Shepherd. And therefore shove across the jug; dicht your broo, for you're sweatin; look less fierce and gloomy; and, wi' your permission, here's "The Kirk o' Scotland!"

North. Ay, let the Church of England prepare her pillars for an earthquake, for I hear a sound louder than all her organs; but our Kirk, small and simple though it be, is built upon a rock that Vulcan himself may not undermine; let the storm rage as loud as it may, her little bells will cheerfully tinkle in the hurly-burly; no sacrilegious hands shall ever fling her pews and pulpits into a bonfire: on her roofs shall ever fall the dews and the sunshine of Peace; Time may dilapidate, but Piety will rebuild her holy altars; and her corner-stone shall endure till Christianity has prepared Earth for melting away into Heaven.

Shepherd. A kind o' cauldness and then a fit o' heat's chasin ane anither through my body-is the jug wi' me? I ax your pardon.

North. Well then, James, millions abhor the Great Measure. And in their abhorrence, must they be dumb? No. They