CROLY ON THE APOCALYPSE. 45 hour, Mr Blackwood has never seen Parry, whereas it appears from the Colonel's own testimony t'other day in Court, that the said Caulker dined daily, for months, at his table; and on being asked, "was he a sober man or a sot?" he answered, 66 a sot." Poor Stanhope! What a fine thing to be a Greek Patriot! Tickler. Do you never feel any sort of irritation on being attacked yourself, North? North. Very seldom, for I am seldom or never in the wrong. There are eight ways of dealing with an assailant.-First, Notice not the insect's existence, and at night in the course of nature he dies.-Secondly, Catch and crush him in your hand. Thirdly, Let him buzz about, till the smell of honey tempts him down the neck of a bottle-cork him up, he fizzes; and is mute.-Fourthly, To leave that metaphor, put the point of your pen through the eye of the scribbler into the rotten matter, ignorantly supposed brain, and he falls like a stot struck in the spine.-Fifthly, Simply ask him, should you meet him in the lowest society you happen to keep, what he means by being such a lying idiot — he leaves the room, and you never see or hear him more.-Sixthly, Kick him.Seventhly, Into the Magazine with him.-Eighthly, Should he by any possibility be a gentleman, the Duello. Shepherd. Dear me ! North. Have you seen Croly's Book on the Apocalypse, Mr Tickler? Tickler. No. North. It is a splendid attempt-you ought to read it, I assure you, not merely as a Treatise on a very deep subject of divinity, but as a political and historical sketch, directly applicable and intentionally applied to the present and coming time. It is a long time since I have read anything finer than his passages-On the Fall of the Roman Empire-The Constitution of the Pagan Hierarchy-The Nature of Romish Modern Idolatry-The French Revolution-The Sceptical Writers who preceded it-The Present State of Europe-and, The Character of the Chief Instruments of English Success during the War. These are all grand topics, and magnificently treated. Tickler. He is a powerful prose-writer, Mr Croly- 46 WHO HISSED THE DUKE.-BOWRING. Tickler. And on the right side, and therefore abused by Whigs and Radicals North. And praised by Tories, and all good men and true. Shepherd. Abused by Whigs and Radicals! Wha's safe frae that?"The Duke of Wellington entered his carriage amidst groans and hisses!!!"-Morning Paper. North. Who groaned and hissed the conqueror of Napoleon ? Hackney coachmen dismissed for drunkenness beaten boxers become pickpockets - prostitutes — burglars returned from Botany Bay-cashiered clerks with coin chinking in their fobs, furnished by De Courcy Ireland-felons acquitted at the Old Bailey on alibi—shopmen out of employment, because they constantly robbed the till-waiters kicked from bar to bar for secreting silver spoons-emeriti besombrandishers of the crossings of streets-sweeps-petitioning beggars, whose wives are all dying of cancers-mud-larks— chalkers to Dr Eady-a reporter to a "Morning Paper," and the hangman. Shepherd. Hae dune-hae dune! You'll gar me split. Tickler. North, why do you never review Bowring in that Magazine of yours? North. Because I cannot lay my hands on all his various volumes-some having been lost, and some stolen—and I should wish to give a general estimate of his literary character. Shepherd. I suspeck he's a real clever fallow, that Jock Bowrin.1 North. He has a wonderful gift of tongues great powers, indeed, of acquisition, and great acquirements. He has also poetical taste, feeling, and even genius; and seems to be, on the whole, a good translator. Shepherd. I like to hear you speak sae, sir — for, oh man! thae waefu' politics North. Shall never sway, have never swayed, my judgment, James, of the literary talents of any man of real merit, like Mr Bowring. His political principles and mine are wide as the Poles asunder; nor, should he ever come under my hands in that character, will I show him any mercy-although all justice. Let him do the same by me, in that able periodical the Westminster - to which I hear he contributes or in any 1 Afterwards Sir John Bowring, the friend and literary executor of Jeremy Bentham. He now holds a lucrative government office at Hong-Kong. other place under the cope of heaven. But when I see him gathering the flowers of poetry, with equal skill and enthusiasm, from the sunny gardens of the south and the icy deserts of the north, then, James, I fling all other thoughts to the winds, and love to hail him a true son of Apollo. Tickler. Bravo-bravo-bravissimo! North. May I believe, sir, what I hear from so many quarters, that you are about editing the SOUTHSIDE PAPERS ? Tickler. You may. The Preface is at press.1 1 Shepherd. That's gran' news!-But, pity me, there's John Knox's moniment and the Glasgow Cathedral reappearin aboon the subsidin waves! Anither bowl, sir? North. Not a drop. We have timed it to a minute - nine o'clock. You know we are all engaged-and we are not men to neglect an engagement. Shepherd. Especially to sooper wi' leddies-let's aff. Oh, man! Bronte, but you have behaved weel-never opened your mouth the haill nicht-but sat listenin there to our conversation. Mony a Christian puppy micht take a lesson frae thee. Bronte. Bow-wow-wow. Shepherd. What spangs! [Exeunt omnes. 1 These papers never made their appearance. (JANUARY 1828.) Scene I.-Picardy Place-South-east Drawing-room. The SHEPHERD solus. Shepherd. Perfeck enchantment! Ae single material coalfire multiplied by mirrors into a score o' unsubstantial reflections, ilka image burnin awa as brichtly up its ain shadowy chimley, as the original Prototeep! Only, ye dinna hear the phantom-fires murmurin about the bars-their flickerin tongues are a' silent-they micht seem to reek at a puff o' the Prototeep,- but sic seemin wadna dim the atmosphere o' this splendid Saloon. The refraction and reflection o'light's a beautifu' mystery, and I wuss I understood the sceeance o' optics. And yet aiblins it's better no—I michtna then wi' sic a shudder o' instantawneous delicht, naething short o' religion, glower upon the rainbow, the Apparition o' the storm. Let Pheelosophers ken causes-Poets effecks. Ye canna ca' him an ignorawmus that kens effecks -and then in the moral world, which belangs to men o' genius like Me and Burns, there's for the maist part a confused but no an obscure notion o' causes accompanying the knowledge o' effecks-difficult to express formally, like a preacher in his poupit, or a professor in his chair, but colouring the poetry o' effecks wi' the tinge o' the pheelosophy o' causes, sae that the reader alloos that reason and imagination are ane, and that there's nae truth like fiction.-O, ye bit bonny bricht-burning fires, there's only ane amang ye a' that gies ony heat! A' the rest's but delusion-just as when the evening star lets loose her locks to the dews high up in heaven, every pool amang the mountains has its ain Eidolon, sae that the earth seems strewn with stars, yet a' the while there's in SHEPHERD MORALISING ON TIME. 49 reality but ae star, and her name is Venus, the delicht o' gods and men and universal natur.-Ma faith, you're a maist magnificent time-piece, towerin there on the mantel,' mair like a palace wi' thae ivory pillars, or the verra temple o' Solomon! To what a heicht man has carried the mechanical airts-till they've become imaginative! There's poetry in that portal— mercy on us, twa figures comin out, haun in haun, frae the interior o' the building intil the open air, apparelled like wee bit Christians, yet nae bigger than fairies. Weel, that beats a' —first the tane and then the tither, wi' its tiny siller rod, seemin to strike the chimes on a sheet o' tinsel-and then aff and awa in amang the ticks o' the clock-wark! Puir creturs, wi' a' their fantastic friskiness, they maun lead a slavish life, up and out to their wark, every hour o' the day and nicht, Sabbaths and a', sae that they haena time even to finish a dream. That's waur' than human life itsel; for the wee midshipman in a man-o'-war is aye allooed four hours' sleep at a streetch, and mair than that is the lot o' the purest herd callant, wha, ha'in nae pawrents, is glad to sair3 a hard master, withouten ony wage-a plaid, parritch,* and a cauff-bed.3Mony, certes, is the curious contrivance for notin time! The hour-glass-to my mind the maist impressive, perhaps, o' them a'-as ye see the sand perpetually dreep-dreepin awa momently—and then a' dune just like life. Then, wi' a touch o' the haun, or whammle in which there's aye something baith o' feelin and o' thocht, there begins anither era, or epoch of an hour, during which ane o' your ain bairns, wha has been lang in a decline, and visited by the doctor only when he's been at ony rate passin by, gies a groanlike sich, and ye ken in a moment that he's dead; or an earthquake tumbles down Lisbon, or some city in Calabria, while a' the folk, men, women, and children, fall down on their knees, or are crushed aiblins by falling churches. "The dial-stane aged and green,"-ane o' Cammel's fine lines! Houses change families, not only at Michaelmas, but often, on a sudden summons frae death, there is a general flitting, awa a'thegither frae this side o' the kintra, nane o' the neebours ken whare; and sae, ye see, dial-stanes get green, for there are nae bairns' hauns to pick aff the moss, and it's no muckle that the Robin Redbreast taks for his nest, 1 Mantel-chimney-piece. VOL. II. 2 Waur-worse. 3 Sair-serve. 5 Cauff-bed-chaff-bed. D |