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pay lieutenants, except by their no swearin sae muckle, or at a' events no the same queer kind o' comical oaths, but equally wi' them daunderin about, ill aff for something to do, and equally wi' them red about the nose, thin in the cauves, and thick about the ankles.

North. The Church of England is the richest in the world, though I am far from thinking that its riches are rightly distributed. It ought, then, to work well, since it is paid well; and I think, James, that on the whole it is, even as it now stands, a most excellent church. It ought, however, to have kept down Dissenters, which it has not done; and still more, it ought to keep down Infidels. Did some twenty thousand infidels, educated in richly-endowed universities of their own, compose an anti-christian establishment, O Satan! how they would stir hell and earth!

Shepherd. Universities, colleges, schools, academies, cathedrals, minsters, abbeys, churches, chapels, kirks, relief meeting-houses, tabernacles, and what not, without number and without end, and yet the infidels triumph! Is't indeed sae? Then pu' them doun, or convert them, accordin to their conveniences, into theatres, and ridin-schools, and amphitheatres for Ducrow, and racket-courts, and places for dryin claes in rainy weather.

North. If infidelity overruns the land, then this healthy, wealthy, and wise Church of England has not done its duty, and must be made to do it. If infidelity exists only in narrow lines and small patches, then we may make ourselves easy about the infidel press, and, knowing that the Church has done the one thing needful, look with complacency on occasional parson somewhat too jolly, and unfrequent bishop with face. made up entirely of proud flesh.

Shepherd. Sughs o' wund, some loud and some laigh, but prophetic o' a storm, hae been aften heard o' late roun' about the square towers-for ye seldom see a spire yonner-o' the English churches. What side, when comes the collieshangie,1 wull ye, sir, espouse?

North. That of the Church of England, of which Misopseudos2 himself, with all his integrity and talent, is not a sincerer friend, though he may be a more powerful champion.

1 Collieshangie-disturbance.

2 I do not know who "Misopseudos" was, or what he wrote.

THE SHEPHERD AS AN EAGLE.

Shepherd. Eh? What?

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North. Whisht! Had you your choice, James, pray what sort of a bird would

you be?

Shepherd. I wad transmigrate intil a gey hantle. And, first and foremost, for royal ambition is the poet's sin, I would be an Eagle. Higher than ever in his balloon did Lunardi soar, would I shoot up into heaven. Poised in that empyreal air, where nae storm-current flows, far up aboon the region of clouds, with wide-spread and unquivering wings would I hang in the virgin sunshine. Nae human ee should see me in my cerulean tabernacle-but mine should see the human specks by the sides of rocks and rivers, creeping and crawling, like worms as they are, over their miserable earthly flats, or toiling, like reptiles as they are, up their majestic molehills. Down with a sughing swoop in one moment would I descend a league of atmosphere, still miles and miles above all the dwarf mountain-taps and pigmy forests. Ae headlong lapse mair, and my ears would drink the faint thunder of some puny cataract; another mile in a moment nearer the poor humble earth, and, lo! the woods are what men call majestic, the vales wide, and the mountains magnificent. That pitiful bit of smoke is a city—a metropolitan city. I cross it wi' ae wave of my wing. An army is on the plain, and they are indeed a ludicrous lot of Liliputians.

The rags are indeed most sublime, waving to the squeak of penny trumpets. Ay, the cloud below my claws begins to rain, and the martial array is getting a thorough soakingthose noble animals, horses, like so many regiments of halfdrowned rats. Too contemptible to look at-so away up again to the sky-heart, and for an hour's float far far above the sea. Tiny though they be, I love to look on those thousand isles, mottling the main with beauty; nor do I despise the wavewanderers, whom Britannia calls her men-of-war. Guided by needle still trummlingly obedient to the pole, on go the giant cockle-shells, which Heaven save from wreck, nor in storm may one single pop-gun be flung overboard! But God-given in

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NORTH NEGRIFIED.

stinct is my compass-and when the blackness of night is on my eyes, straight as an arrow or a sunbeam I shoot alang the firmament, nor, obedient to that unerring impeller, deviate a mile-breadth from the line that leads direct from the Grampians to the Andes.—The roar of ocean—what—what's that I hear? You auld mannerless rascal, is that you I hear snorin? Ma faith, gin I was an eagle, I wad scart your haffits wi' my tawlons, and try which o' our nebs were the sharpest. Weel, that's maist extraordinar—he absolutely snores on a different key wi' each o' his twa individual nostrils-snorin a first and second like a catch or glee. I wunner if he can snore by the or trusts entirely to his dreaming ear. It's really no that unharmonious—and I think I hear him accompanying Mrs Gentle on the spinnet. Let's coom his face wi' burned cork.

notes

[The SHEPHERD applies a cork to the fire, and makes NORTH a Blackamoor.

North. Kiss me, my love. Another. 'tis sweet!

Sweet-sweet-oh!

Shepherd. Haw-haw-haw! Mrs Gentle, gin ye kiss him the noo, the pat 'ill no need to ca' the kettle

North. Be not so coy-so cold-my love. "Can danger lurk within a kiss?"

Shepherd. Othello-Othello-Othello!

North (awaking with a tremendous yawn). 'Tis gone—'twas but a dream!

Shepherd. Ay, ay, what's that you were dreamin about, sir? Your face is a' ower blushes—just like a white rose tinged with the setting sun.

North. I sometimes speak in my sleep. Did I do so now? Shepherd. If you did, sir, I did not hear you-for I hae been takin a nap mysel, and just awaukened this moment wi’ a fa’ frae the cock on a kirk-steeple. I hae often odd dreams; and I thocht I had got astride o' the cock, and was haudin on by the tail, when the feathers gave way, and had it not been a dream, I should infallibly have been dashed to pieces. Do you ever dream o' kissing, sir?

North. Fie, James !

Shepherd. O, but you look quite captivatin, quite seducin, when you blush that gate, sir! I never could admire a darkcomplexioned man.

LADIES AT THE NOCTES.

North. I do-and often wish mine had been dark

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Shepherd. Ye made a narrow escape the noo, sir; for out o' revenge for your havin ance coomed my face when I fell asleep on my chair, I was within an ace of coomin yours; but when I had the cork ready, my respect, my veneration for you, held my haun, and I flung it into the ass-hole ayont the fender.

North. My dear James, your filial affection for the old man is touching. Yet, had you done so, I had forgiven you

Shepherd. But I never could hae forgien mysel, it would hae been sae irreverent.-Mr North, I often wush that we had some leddies at the Noctes. When you're married to Mrs Gentle, you maun bring her sometimes to Picardy, to matroneeze the ither females, that there may be nae scandalum magnatum. And then what pairties! Neist time she comes to Embro', we'll hae The Hemans, and she'll aiblins sing to us some o' her ain beautifu' sangs, set to tunes by that delightfu' musical genius her sister

North. And she shall sit at my right hand

Shepherd. And me on hers

North. And with her wit she shall brighten the dimness her pathos brings into our eyes, till tears and smiles struggle together beneath the witchery of the fair necromanceress. And L. E. L., I hope, will not refuse to sit on the old man's left

Shepherd. O man! but I wush I could sit next to her too; but it's impossible to be, like a bird, in twa places at ance, sae I maun submit

North. Miss Landon, I understand, is a brilliant creature, full of animation and enthusiasm, and, like Mrs Hemans too, none of your lachrymose muses, "melancholy and gentlemanlike," but, like the daughters of Adam and Eve, earnestly and keenly alive to all the cheerful and pleasant humanities and charities of this everyday sublunary world of ours, where, besides poetry, the inhabitants live on a vast variety of other esculents, and like ever and anon to take a glass of Berwick's beer or Perkins's porter between even draughts of Hippocrene or Helicon.

Shepherd. That's the character o' a' real geniuses, baith males and females. They're ae thing wi' a pen in their haun, at a green desk, wi' only an ink-bottle on't and a sheet o' paper-and anither thing entirely at a white table a' covered

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wi' plates and trenchers, soup in the middle, sawmon at the head, and a sirloin o' beef or mutton at the fit, wi' turkeys, and how-towdies, and tongues, and hams, and a' mainner of vegetables, roun' the sides-to say naething o' tarts and flum. meries, and the Dulap,' Stilton, or feenal cheese-Parmesan. North. You surely don't mean to say, James, that poetesses are fond of good-eating?

Shepherd. Na. But I mean to say that they are not addicted, like green girls, to eat lime out of walls, or chowin chalk, or even sookin barley-sugar and sweeties in the forenoon, to the spoilin o' their natural and rational denner; but, on the contrair, that they are mistress o' a moderate slice o' roast and biled butcher's meat; after that, the wing or the merry-thocht o' a fool; and after that again some puddin, perhaps, or some berry-pie, some jeely, or some blawmange; taukin and smilin and lauchin at intervals a' the while to their neist-chair neighbour, waxing wutty on his hauns wi' a little encouragement, and joinin sweetly or gaily wi' the general discourse, when, after the cloth has been drawn, the dininroom begins to murmur like a hive o' honey-bees after a' the drones are dead; and though a' present hae stings, nane ever think o' usin them, but in genial employment are busy in the sunshine o' sociality wi' probosces and wings.

North. What do you mean by a young lady being busy with her proboscis, James?

Shepherd. O ye coof! it's allegorical; sae are her wings. Proboscis is the Latin for the mouth o' a bee, and its instrument for making honey, that is, for extracting or inhaling it out o' the inner speerit o' flowers. Weel, then, why not allegorically speak o' a young lady's proboscis-for drops not, distils not honey frae her sweet mouth? And where, think ye, ye auld crabbit critical carle, does her proboscis find the elementary particles thereof, but hidden amang the saftest leaves that lie faulded up in the heart o' the heaven-sawn flowers o' happiness that beautify and bless the bosom o' this itherwise maist dreary and meeserable earth?

North. Admirable! Proboscis let it be

Shepherd. Yes, just sae. And neist time you're dreamin o' Mrs Gentle, murmur out wi' a coomed face, "O, 'tis sweet, 1 Dulap-Dunlop, a well-known cheese.

2 Feenal-final.