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No. XII.-OCTOBER, 1823.

SCENE I.-The Chaldee Closet.

Enter NORTH and MR. AMBROSE.

Mr. Ambrose. I hope, my dear sir, you will not be offended; but I cannot conceal my delight in seeing you lighten my door again, after two months' absence. God bless you, sir, it does my heart good to see you so strong, so fresh, so ruddy. I feared this wet autumn might have been too much for you in the country. But Heaven be praised -Heaven be praised-here you are again, my gracious sir! What can I do for you?-What will you eat?-What will you drink?-Oh dear! let me stir the fire; the poker is too heavy for you.

North. Too heavy!-Devil a bit. Why, Ambrose, I have been in training, out at Mr. Hogg's, you know. Zounds, I could fell a buffalo. Well, Ambrose, how goes the world?

Mr. Ambrose. No reason to complain, sir. Oysters never were better; and the tap runs clear as amber. Let me hang up your crutch, my dear sir. There now, I am happy. The house looks like itself now. Goodness me, the padding has had a new cover! But the wood-work has seen service.

North. That it has, Ambrose. Why, you rogue, I got a threepronged fork fastened to the end on't, and I used it as a lister.

Mr. Ambrose. A lister, sir?-I ask your pardon.

North. Ay, a lister. I smacked it more than once into the side of a salmon; but the water has been so drumly, that Sandy Ballantyne himself could do little or nothing.

Mr. Ambrose. Nothing surprises me now, sir, that you do. We have a pretty pheasant in the larder. Shall I venture to roast him for your honor?

North. At nine o'clock I expect a few friends; so add a stubble-goose, some kidneys, and hodge-podge; for the night is chilly; and a delicate stomach like mine, Ambrose, requires coaxing. Glenlivet.

Mr. Ambrose. Here, sir, is your accustomed caulker.

(NORTH drinks, while MR. AMBROSE keeps looking upon him with a smile of delighted deference, and exit.)

North (solus). What paper have we here?-Morning Chronicle

OCT. 1823.]

THE MORNING CHRONICLE

361

Copyright sold for £40,000. A lie.* *-Let me see; any little traitorous copy of bad verses? Not one. Tommy Moore and Jack Bowring are busy otherwise. Poor occupation for gentlemen, sneering at Church and King. "That wretched creature, Ballasteros!" Nay, nay; this won't do; I am getting drowsy.—(Snores.)

Enter MR. AMBROSE. A sound of feet in the lobby.

Mr. Ambrose, Mr. Tickler, sir-Mr. Mullion—and a strange gentleman. Beg your pardon, gentlemen; tread softly. He SLEEPS.

Bonus dormitat Homerus.

Strange Gentleman. Wonderful city. Modern Athens indeed. Never heard a more apt quotation.

Tickler (slap-bang on NORTH's shoulder). Awake, arise, or be for ever fallen! Mullion, shake him by the collar; or a slight kick on the shins. Awake, Samson; the Philistines are upon thee!

(NORTH yawns; stretches himself; sits erect; stares about him; rises and bows.)

Mullion. Capital subject, faith, for Wilkie. A choice bit. Odds safe us, what a head! Gie's your haun, my man. Hooly, hooly; your nieve's like a vice. You deevil, you hae jirted the bluid frae my fingerends.

North. Mr. Tickler, you have not introduced me to the young gentleman.

Tickler. Mr. Vivian Joyeuse.t

North. Young gentleman-happy to take you by the hand. I hope you have no objections to smoking.

Joyeuse. I have no objections to any thing; but I shall hardly be on an equal footing with you Sons of the Mist.

North (to Tickler). Gentlemanly lad.--(Re-enter AMBROSE.)—

Mr. James Perry, "a canny Scotchman," had made the Morning Chronicle one of the daily journals of London. It was the recognised organ of the Whig or Opposition party. He was on intimate terms with the leaders of that party, and had shown, more than once, that he was to be trusted. In his paper appeared the earliest, and some of the best, of Moore's political squibs. There, also, did Byron sometimes appear. The editorial part was ably performed, and the dramatic critic was no less a person than William Hazlitt. Perry was the founder of the European Magazine in 1782. He died in 1821, and the Chronicle was then sold to Mr. Clements, proprietor of the Observer and Bell's Life, which continue to have large circulation. Clements paid £40,000 for the copyright, presses and types. The paper gradually declined in his hands, until after having had it about thirteen years, he sold it to Sir John Easthope, a stock-broker, about the period (Nov. 1834) when The Times suddenly turned round, on Peel's accession to office, and became Conservative instead of Radical. The Chronicle, for a time, seemed likely to resume its position as a Liberal organ, but its proprietor was believed to have used part of its machinery (foreign correspondents) for stock-jobbing purposes, and the shadow settled on it again. It was purchased from him by a party of gentlemen possessed of much wealth, who forthwith gave it a Puseyite politico-religious leaning. This it retains, but it is said that Baron Rothschild, of London, has entered into the proprietorship. At present, its leading articles have no weight, but its foreign correspondence is generally admirable. The article in the Edinburgh Review, on the "Morning Chronicle," was written by Hazlitt.-M. + In Knight's Quarterly Magazine, one of the best periodicals ever published in London, there was an imitation of the Noctes, lively, well written, and with the character of each speaker well individualized. Mr. Vivian Joyeuse was the nom de plume assumed by one of Knight's contributors. Macaulay, Praed, John Moultrie, Chauncey Hare Townshend, Charles Knight, (Editor and publisher,) were among the leading writers in this periodical.-M.

Hollo! Ambrose? What now? Have you seen a ghost? or has the cat run off with the pheasant? If so, I trust he has insured his lives. Mr. Ambrose. Here is a gentleman in the lobby, inquiring for Mr. Tickler.

Tickler. Show him in. Hope it is not that cursed consignment of cotton from Manchester-raw-twist, and- -THE ENGLISH OPIUMEATER!-huzza! huzza! (Three hearty cheers.)

Enter THE ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER* and THE ETTRICK SHEPHERD.

The Shepherd. Thank ye, lads; that's me you're cheering. Haud your hauns, ye hallan-shakers, or my drums will split. Sit down, sit down; my kite's as toom as the Cornal's head. I've had nae fourhours, and only a chack wi' Tam Grieve, as I came through Peebles. You'll hae ordered supper, Mr. North?

North. My dear late English Opium-Eater, this is an unexpected, unhoped for happiness. I thought you had been in Constantinople.

The Opium-Eater. You had no reason whatever for any such thought. No doubt I might have been at Constantinople--and I wish that I had been-but I have not been; and I am of opinion that you have not been there since we last parted, any more than myself. Have you, sir?

The Shepherd. I dinna ken, sir, where you hae been; but, hech, sirs, yon bit Opium Tract's a desperate interesting confession. It's perfectly dreadfu', yon pouring in upon you o' oriental imagery. But nae wunner. Sax thousand draps o' lowdnam! It's as muckle, I fancy, as a bottle o' whusky. I tried that experiment mysel, after reading the wee wud wicked wark, wi' five hunner draps, and I couped ower, and continued in ae snore frae Monday night till Friday morning. But I had naething to confess; naething at least that wad gang into words; for it was a week-lang, dull, dim dwawm o' the mind, with a kind o' soun' bumming in my lugs; and clouds, clouds, clouds hovering round and round; and things o' sight, no made for the sight; and an awfu' smell, like the rotten sea; and a confusion between the right hand and the left; and events o' auld lang syne, like the torments o' the present hour, wi' naething to mark ony thing by; and doubts o' being quick or dead; and something rouch, rouch, like the fleece o' a ram, and motion as of everlasting earthquake; and nae re

Thomas de Quincey, whose " Confessions of an English Opium Eater," in the London Magazine, immediately obtained him high repute as a writer, has done nothing half as good, during his four and thirty years of authorship, as that, his first production, Well learned in ancient and modern tongues, he has written a vast quantity, but when his transcendental and unintelligible metaphysics are weeded out, the actual substance of his works will be in a small space. With the German school of philosophy he is well acquainted, and has endeavored, chiefly by translation, to make his countrymen familiar with it. He has written a great deal -chiefly for magazines. Sometimes he is extremely graphic and picturesque, but his great fault is diffuseness, want of concentration, and an inability to discuss a subject without digressions-apropos to nothing. His writings have been published in America in a collected form; this has not been done in England, where only a selection could obtain a sale.-M.

1823.]

WORDSWORTH.

363

membrance o' my ain Christian name; and a dismal thought that I was converted into a quadruped cretur, wi' four feet; and a sair drowth aye sook, sooking awa' at empty win'; and the lift doukin down to smoor me; and the moon within half a yard o' my nose; but no just like the moon either. O Lord safe us! I'm a' grewing to think o't; but how could I CONFESS? for the sounds and the sights were baith shadows; and whare are the words for expressing the distractions o' the immaterial soul drowning in matter, and wastling wi' unknown power to get ance mair a steady footing on the greensward o' the waking world?

Mullion. Hear till him-hear till him. Ma faith, that's equal to the best bit in a' the Confessions.

The Shepherd. Haud your tongue, you sumph; it's nae sic things. Mr. Opium-Eater, I used aye to admire you, years sin syne; and never doubted you wad come out wi' some wark, ae day or ither, that wad gar the Gawpus glower.

The Opium-Eater. Gar the Gapus glower!-Pray, who is the Gapus?

The Shepherd. The public, sir; the public is the Gawpus. But what for are you sae metapheesical, man? There's just nae sense ava in metapheesics; they're a' clean nonsense. But how's Wudsworth?

The Opium-Eater. I have not seen him since half-past two o'clock on the 17th of September. As far as I could judge from a transitory interview, he was in good health and spirits; and I, think, fatter than he has been for some years. 66 Though that's not much."

The Shepherd. You lakers are clever chiels; I'll never deny that; but you are a conceited, upsetting set, ane and a' o' you. Great yegotists; and Wudsworth the warst o' ye a'; for he'll alloo nae merit to ony leevin cretur but himsel. He's a triflin cretur in yon Excursion ; there's some bonny spats here and there; but nae reader can thole aboon a dozen pages o't at a screed, without whumbling ower on his seat. Wudsworth will never be popular. Naebody can get his blank poems aff by heart; they're ower wordy and ower windy, tak my word for't. Shackspear will say as muckle in four lines, as Wudsworth will say in forty.

The Opium-Eater. It is a pity that our great living poets cannot be more lavish of their praise to each other.*

The Shepherd. Me no lavish o' praise? I think your friend a great man-but

North. I wish, my dear Shepherd, that you would follow Mr.

* De Quincey has written a great deal about Wordsworth, apparently as his friend and admirer, but it may be noticed that a certain deprecatory tone runs through his description of the man and estimate of the poet. Wordsworth and his friends, I know, were ill-pleased with this, which-from early and extended kindnesses to De Quincey-Wordsworth had no reason to expect.-M.

Wordsworth's example, and confine yourself to poetry. Oh! for another Queen's Wake.

The Shepherd. I'll no confine myself to poetry for ony man, Neither does he. It's only the other day that he published "A Guide to the Lakes," and he might as well have called it a Treatise on Church Music. And then his prose work about Spain* is no half as gude as a leading paragraph in Jamie Ballantyne's Journal. The sense is waur, and sae is the wording-and yet sae proud and sae pompous, as gin nane kent about peace and war but himsel, as gin he could fecht a campaign better than Wellington, and negotiate wi' foreign courts like anither Canning. Southey writes prose better than Wudsworth, a thousand and a thousand times. Wha's that glowering at me in the corner? Wha are ye, my lad?

Mr. Vivian Joyeuse. I am something of a nondescript.

The Shepherd. An Englisher-an Englisher-I've a gleg lug for the deealicks. You're frae the South-but nae Cockney. You're ower weel-spoken and ower weel-faured. Are ye married?

Mr. Joyeuse. I fear that I am. I am fresh from Gretna.

The Shepherd. Never mind-never mind-you're a likely laddieand hae a blink in thae eyne o' yours that shows smeddum. What are all the people in England doing just the now?

Mr. Joyeuse. All reading No. II. of Knight's Quarterly Magazine. North. A very pleasant miscellany. Tickler, you have seen the work. Mr. Joyeuse, your very good health, and success to Knight's Quarterly Magazine.† (General breeze.)

The Shepherd. Did ony body ever see siccan a blush? Before you hae been a contributor for a year, you'll hae lost a' power of reddening in the face. You may as weel try then to blush wi' the palm o' your hand.

Tickler. Mullion, who knows every thing and every body, brought Mr. Joyeuse to Southside, and I have only to hope that his fair bride will not read him a curtain-lecture to-night, when she hears where he has been, among the madcaps.

The Shepherd. Curtain-lecture! We are a' ower gude contributors to be fashed wi' any daft nonsense o' that sort. Na-na-but what's this Quarterly Magazine?—I never heard tell o't.

North. Why, I will speak for Mr. Joyeuse. It is a gentlemanly miscellany got together by a clan of young scholars, who look upon the world with a cheerful eye, and all its ongoings with a spirit of hopeful kindness. I cannot but envy them their gay juvenile temper,

*In 1809, with an intention of urging that the Peninsular War be vigorously carried on, (with a view to checking the vast puissance of Napoleon,) Wordsworth published a prose pamphlet on the relations of Great Britain, Spain, and Portugal to each other.-M.

+ Knight's Quarterly Magazine died after completing three volumes. It is very difficult to be obtained now, at any price, in England, and is curious as containing, among other things, as much of Macaulay's early poetry and prose as would fill a volume.-M.