Brougham, in a hated gown of stuff, attends, Of bloody gemmen of the Press had slain, Hail, mighty mother, hail !-hail, glorious ALL FOOLS' day! 5. Wise Hutchinson, and wiser Peter Moore, Whose freedom is their toast in bumpers full, Fudge Tommy Moore, and actioning John Bull. Shout, my old Coke!-shout, Albemarle !-shout, Grey! Hail, mighty mother, hail!-hail, glorious ALL FOOLS' day! 6. Apt are the emblems which the party shews- And "Angouleme has touched his hilt in vain,” And "Chaste art thou, O Queen! as snow ere dawn," But shining over all, in alt still say, Hail, mighty mother, hail!-hail, glorious ALL FOOLS' day! 7. Close by their tails see Jeff's reviewers sneak In buff and blue, an antiquated gang; Jeffrey himself with penny trumpet squeak, Chimes with Jackpudding Sydney's jews-harp twang; Hallam is there with blood of Pindar wet, And there Macculloch bellows, gallant stot, And Christian Leslie, too, to whom is set A bust of stone, in Stockbridge shady grot. In puppy chorus yelps the full array, Hail, mighty mother, hail !-hail, glorious ALL FOOLS' day! 8. Still impudent their gestures-still their mien Swaggers beneath the load of self-conceit; Yet all in spite of vanity is seen Graven on each brow disorder and defeat, Still BYRON'S canister too deftly tied, Rings "kling-ling-ling," be-draggling at their tail; Still NORTH's stout cowhide to each back applied, Makes even the stoutest of the crew to quail, Yet boldly still they cry with brave hurra Hail, mighty mother, hail!-hail, glorious ALL FOOLS' day! 9. Whom have we next-I note the gesture trim, And all the singing robes that poets wear- Thou and thy subject tribes have troll'd so long? Hail, mighty mother, hail !-hail, glorious ALL FOOLS' day! 10. For the remainder of his rabble rout, Their names I know not, nor desire to know. Singing, hail, mother, hail !-hail, glorious ALL FOOLS' day! 11. Make way, The stuff you utter, and the stuff you sell! Sing with that voice which can e'en kings dismay, Hail, mighty mother, hail !-hail, April ALL FOOLS' day! THE SHEPHERD. That'll do-Ohe! jam satis. I ken naithing about tae halfo' the chiels, and the little I do ken about the lave is na worth kenning. But the verses sound weel, and seem fu' o' satire. They'll no be popular, though, about Ettrick. NORTH. I must occasionally consult the taste of the people in London, and the neighbouring villages. They are fond of their little local jeers, and attach mighty importance to men and things, that in the Forest, James, are considered in the light of their own native insignificance. THE SHEPHERD. That's God's truth! In London you'll hear a soun', like laigh thunder, frae a million voices, growl-growling on ae subject, for aiblins a week thegither; a' else is clean forgotten, and the fate o' the world seems to hang on the matter in han';-but just wait you till the tips o' the horns o' the new moon hae sprouted, and the puir silly craturs recollec' naithing ava', either o' their ain fear, or their ain folly, and are aff on anither scent, as idle and thochtless as before. In the kintra, we are o' a wiser, and doucer, and dourer nature; we fasten our feelings rather on the durable hills, than on the fleeting cluds; tomorrow kens something about yesterday, and the fifty-twa weeks in the year dinna march by like isolated individuals; but like a company strongly mustered, and on an expedition or enterprize o' pith and moment. NORTH. So with books. In a city they are read-flung aside-and forgotten like the dead. THE SHEPHERD. In the pure air o' the kintra, beuks hae an immortal life. I hae nae great leebrary-feck o't consists o' twenty volumes o' my ain writing; but, oh! man, it is sweet to sit down, on a calm simmer evening, on a bit knowe, by the lochside, and let ane's mind gang daundering awa down the pages o' some volume o' genius, creating thochts alang with the author, till, at last, you dinna weel ken whilk o' you hae made the beuk. That's just the way I aften read your Magazine, till I could believe that I hae written every article-Noctes and a': NORTH. How did the Border games go off this Spring Meeting, Shepherd? THE SHEPHERD. The loupin' was gude, and the rinnin' was better, and the ba' was best. Oh, man! that ye had been but there ! What were the prizes? NORTH. THE SHEPHERD. Bunnets. Blue bunnets-I hae ane o' them in my pouch, that wasna gien awa'. There-try it on. (The Shepherd puts the blue bonnet on Mr North's head.) NORTH. I have seen the day, James, when I could have leaped any man in Ettrick. THE SHEPHERD. A' but ane. The Flying Tailor wad hae been your match ony day. But there's nae denying you used to take awfu' spangs. Gude safe us, on springy meadow grun, rather on the decline, you were a verra grasshopper. But, wae's. me-thae crutches! Eheu! fugaces, Posthume, Posthume, labuntur anni ! NORTH. Why, even yet, James, if it were not for this infernal gout here, I could leap any man living, at hop, step, and jump———— THE SHEPHERD. Hech, sirs!-hech, sirs! but the human mind's a strange thing, after a'! Here's you, Mr North, the cleverest man, I'll say't to your face, noo extant, a scholar and a feelosopher, vauntin' o' your loupin'! That's a great wakeness. You should be thinkin' o' ither things, Mr North. But a' you grit men are perfet fules either in ae thing or anither. NORTH. Come, James, my dear Hogg, draw your chair a little closer. We are a set of strange devils, I acknowledge, we human beings. THE SHEPHERD. Only luk at the maist celebrated o' us.-There's Byron, braggin' o' his soomin', just like yourself o' your loupin'. He inforins us that he swom through the streets of Venice, that are a' canals, you ken-nae very decent proceeding and keepit ploutering on the drumly waves for four hours and a half, like a wild guse, diving, too, Is'e warrant, wi' his tail, and treading water, and lying on the back o' him-wha' the deevil cares? NORTH. His lordship was, after all, but a sorry Leander? THE SHEPHERD. You may say that. To have been like Lander, he should hae swom the Strechts in a storm, and in black midnight, and a' by himself, without boats and gondolas to pick him up gin he tuk the cramp, and had a bonnie lass to dicht him dry, and been drown'd at last-but that he'll never be. You are too satirical, Hogg. NORTH. THE SHEPHERD. And there's Tammas Mure braggin' after anither fashion o' his exploits amang the lasses. O man, dinna you think it rather contemptible, to sit in a cotch wi' a bonnie thochtless lassie, for twa three lang stages, and then publish a sang about it? I ance heard a gran' leddie frae London lauching till I thocht she would hae split her sides, at Thomas Little, as she ca'd him. I could scarcely fadom her-but ye ken't by her face what she was thinking,— and it was a quite right-a severe reproof. NORTH. Mr Coleridge? Is he in the habit, Hogg, of making the Public the confidents of his personal accomplishments? THE SHEPHERD. I carna weel tell, for deevil the like o' sic books as his did I ever see wi' my een beneath the blessed licht. I'm no speakin' o' his Poems.-I'll aye roose them-but the Freen and the Lay Sermons are aneuch to drive ane to destraction. What's logic? NORTH. Upon my honour as a gentleman, I do not know; if I did, I would tell you with the greatest pleasure. THE SHEPHERD. Weel, weel, Coleridge is aye accusing folk o' haeing nae logic. The want o' a' things is owing to the want o' logic, it seems. Noo, Mr North, gin logic be soun reasoning, and I jalouse as much, he has less o't himsel than onybody I ken, for he never sticks to the point twa pages; and to tell you the truth, I aye feel as I were fuddled after perusing Coleridge. Then he's aye speaking o' himsel-but what he says I never can mak out. Let him stick to his poetry, for, oh! man, he's an unyerthly writer, and gies Superstition sae beautifu' a countenance, that she wiles folk on wi' her, like so many bairns, into the flowery but fearfu' wildernesses, where sleeping and wauking seem a' ae thing, and the very soul within us wonders what has become o' the every-day warld, and asks hersel what creation is this that wavers and glimmers, and keeps up a bonnie wild musical sough, like that o' swarming bees, spring-startled birds, and the voice of a hundred streams, some wimpling awa' ower the Elysian meadows, and ithers roaring at a distance frae the clefts o' mount Abora. But is't true that they hae made him the Bishop of Barbadoes? NORTH. No, he is only Dean of Highgate. I long for his "Wanderings of Cain," about to be published by Taylor and Hessey. That house has given us some excellent things of late. They are spirited publishers. But why did not Coleridge speak to Blackwood? I suppose he could not tell, if he were questioned. THE SHEPHERD. In my opinion, sir, the bishops o' the Wast Indies should be blacks. NORTH. Prudence, James, prudence,-we are alone to be sure, but the affairs of the West Indies THE SHEPHERD. The bishops o' the Wast Indies should be blacks. Naebody 'll ever mak me think itherwise. Mr Wilberforce, and Mr M'Auley, and Mr Brougham, and a' the ither Saints, have tell't us that blacks are equal to whites; and gin that be true, make bishops o' them-What for no? NORTH. James, you are a consistent poet, philosopher, and philanthropist. Pray, how would you like to marry a black woman? How would Mr Wilberforce like it? THE SHEPHERD. I canna answer for Mr Wilberforce; but as for myself, I scunner at the bare idea. NORTH. Why, a black skin, thick lips, grizzly hair, long heels, and convex shinsWhat can be more delightful?-But, to be serious, James, do you think there is no difference between black and white? THE SHEPHERD. You're drawing me into an argument about the Wast Indies, and the neegars. I ken naething about it. I hate slavery as an abstract idea-but it's a necessary evil, and I canna believe a' thae stories about cruelty. There's nae fun or amusement in whipping women to death-and as for a skelp or twa, what's the harm?-Hand me ower the rum and the sugar, sir, NORTH. What would Buxton the brewer say, if he heard such sentiments from the author of Kilmeny? But what were we talking about a little ago? THE SHEPHERD. Never ask me siccan a like question. Ye ken weel aneuch that I never remember a single thing that passes in conversation. But may I ask gin you're comin' out to the fishing this season? NORTH. Apropos. Look here, James. What think you of these flies? Phin's, of course. Keep them a little farther off your nose, James, for they are a dozen of devils, these black heckles. You observe,-dark yellow body-black half heckle, and wings of the mallard, a beautiful brown-gut like gossamer, and the killing Kirby. THE SHEPHERD. I'll just put them into my pouch. But, first, let me see how they look sooming. (Draws out a fly, and trails it slowly along the punch in his tumbler, which he holds up to the argand lamp a present to Mr Ambrose from Barry Cornwall.) O, man! that's the naturallest thing ever I saw in a' my born days. I ken whare theres a muckle trout lying at this very moment, below the root o' an auld birk, wi' his great snout up the stream, drawing in slugs and ither animalculas, into his vortex, and no caring a whisk o' his tail for flees; but you'se hae this in the tongue o' you, my braw fallow, before May-day. He'll sook't in saftly, saftly, without shewing mair than the lip o' him, and then I'll streck him, and down the pool he'll gaung, snoring like a whale, as gin he were descending in a' his power to the bottomless pit, and then up wi' a loup o' lightning to the verra lift, and in again into the water wi' a squash and a plunge, like a man gaun in to the douking, and then out o' ae pool into anither, like a kelpie gaun a-coorting, through alang the furds and shallows, and ettling wi' a' his might at the waterfa' opposite Fahope's house. Luk at him! luk at him! there he glides like a sunbeam strong and steady, as I give him the butt, and thirty yards o' the pirn-nae stane to stumble, and nae tree to fankle-bonnie green hills shelving down to my ain Yarrow-the sun lukin' out upon James Hogg, frae behint a cloud, and a breeze frae St Mary's Loch, chaunting a song o' triumph down the vale, just as I land him on the gowany edge of that grassy-bedded bay, Fair as a star, when only one Shade of Isaac Walton ! NORTH. THE SHEPHERD. I'm desperate thirsty-here's your health. Oh, Lord! What's this? what's this? I've swallowed the flee! NORTH. (starting up in consternation.) Oh, Lord! What's this? what's this? I've trodden on a spike, and it has gone up to my knee-pan!-O my toe! my toe! But, James-James-shut not your mouth-swallow not your swallow-or you are a dead man. There -steady-steady-I have hold of the gut, and I devoutly trust that the hook is sticking in your tongue or palate. It cannot, must not be in your stomach, James. Oh ! THE SHEPHERD. Oh! for Liston, wi' his instruments! NORTH. Hush-hush-I see the brown wings. Enter AMBROSE. AMBROSE. Here, here is a silver spoon-I am all in a fluster. O dear, Mr North, will this do to keep dear Mr Hogg's mouth open, while you are |
