SHEPHERD. I'll rin a' hazards. I maun out wi't to you; for I hae aye had the most profoun❜ respect for your abeelities, and I hae a pleasure in geein' you the start o' the world for four-and-twenty hours.-I am noo the Yeditor o'Blackwood's Magazine. TICKLER. Angels and ministers of grace defend us! SHEPHERD. Why, you see, sir, they couldna do without me. North's gettin' verra auld, and, between you and me, rather doited—crabbed to the contributors, and-come hither wi' your lug-no verra ceevil to Ebony himsel;-so out comes letter upon letter to me, in Yarrow yonder, fu' o' the maist magnificent offers, indeed, telling me to fix my ain terms; and faith, just to get rid o' the endless fash o' letters by the carrier, I druve into toun here, in the whusky, through Peebles, on the Saturday o' the hard frost, and that same night, was installed into the Yeditorship in the Sanctum Sanctorum. TICKLER. Well, James, all that Russian affair is a joke to this. Nicholas, Constantine, and the old Mother-Empress, may go to the devil and shake themselves, now that you, my dear, dear Shepherd, are raised to the Scottish throne. SHEPHERD. Wha wad ha' thocht it, Mr Tickler—wha wad ha' thocht it—that day when I first entered the Grass-Market, wi' a' my flock afore me, and Hector youfyoufin' round the Gallow-Stane-where, in days of yore, the saints Sire ? TICKLER. SHEPHERD. Nane o' your mockin.-I'm the Editor; and, to prove't, I'll order in-the Balaam-box. TICKLER. James, as you love me, open not that box.-Pandora's was a joke to it. SHEPHERD. Ha! ha! ha! Mr Tickler, you're feared that I'll lay my haun on yane o' your articles. O man, but you're a vain auld chiel; just a bigot to your ain abeelities. But hear me, sir; you maun compose in a mair classical style, gin you think o' continuing a contributor. I must not let down the character of the work to flatter a few feckless fumblers. Mr Ambrose-Mr Ambrose-the Balaam-box, I tell you,-I hae been ringing this half-hour for the Balaambox. MR AMBROSE. Here is the Safe, sir. I observe the spider is still in the key-hole; but as Mr North, God bless him, told me not to disturb him, I have given him a few flies daily that I found in an old bottle; perhaps he will get out of the way when he feels the key. TICKLER. James, that spider awakens in my mind the most agreeable recollections. SHEPHERD. Dang your speeders. But, Mr Ambrose, where's the Monthly Budget? Here, sir. MR AMBROSE. SHEPHERD (emptying the green bag on the table.) Here, Mr Tickler. Here's a sight for sair een,-materials for a dizzen Numbers. Arrange them by tens,—that's right; what a show! I'm rich aneuch to pay aff the national debt. Let us see," Absenteeism." The speeder maun be disturbed,-into the Balaam-box must this article go,-Gude preserve us, what a weight! I wonder what my gude auld father wad hae said, had he lived to see the day, when it became a great public question, whether it was better or waur for a country that she should hae nae inhabitants! TICKLER. Here's an essay on Popular Education. SHEPHERD. Rax't ower. Ay, ay, I see how it is,-Institutions, Mechanic Institutions. 215 That's no the way, in the ordinary coorse o' nature, that the mind acquires knowledge. As the general wealth and knowledge of the country increases, men, in all conditions, will of themselves become better informed. Then the education of the young will be better attended to,-generation after generation that will be the case,-till, feenally, education will be general in town and country, and the nation will be more enlightened, powerful, happy, and free. But now, they are putting the cart before the horse; and the naig will get reesty, and kick aff the breeching. Here's a poem. TICKLER. SHEPHERD. Fling it into the fire;-poetry's a drog. Queen Hynde is still in her first edition. TICKLER. The evil has wrought its own cure. pretty. Another version of our favourite German song.-I'll sing them to the But, on my honour, the verses are fiddle. (TICKLER sings to his Cremona.) The Rhine! the Rhine!-May on thy flowing river And on thy banks may freedom's light fade never! The Rhine! the Rhine!-My fancy still is straying, Of auburn locks in balmy zephyrs playing:- The German knight the lance has bravely broken The German maid the tale of love has spoken With patriot zeal the gallant Swiss is fired, The dull Batavian, on thy banks inspired, Shouts,-Freedom! and the Rhine!- And drink,-while life, and love, and beauty passes,- SHEPHERD. Faith, ye hae a gran' bow-hand, Mr Tickler. Ye wad be a welcome guest in the kitchen o' ony farm-house in a' Scotlaud, during the lang winter nichts. The lasses" would loup as they were daft, when Shame on the spinet, and the flute, and a' instruments, but the fiddle. ye blew up your chanter." TICKLER. Many and oft is the time, James, that in my younger days I have set the shepherd's and farmer's family a-dancing,-on to the sma' hours. They would send out the bit herd laddie to collect the queans,—and they came all flocking in, just a little trigger than when at work,round their foreheads,-their bosoms made cosh and tidy— -a clean mutch, or a ribbon SHEPHERD. Whisht, whisht. Ony mair verses amang the materials. Let us collec them a' into a heap, and send them to the cyook to singe the fools. What's that your glowering on, Sub? Sub? TICKLER. SHEPHERD. Ay, Sub. I create you Sub-yeditor of the Magazine. You maun correc a' the Hebrew, and Chinese, and German, and Dutch, Greek and Latin, and French and Spanish, and Itawlian. You maun likewise help me wi' the pints, and in kittle words look after the spellin'. Noo and then ye may overhawl, and cut down, and transmogrify an article that's ower lang, or ower stupid in pairts, putting some smeddum in't, and soomin' a' up wi' a soundin peroration. North had nae equal at that; and I hae kent him turn out 'his hands a short, pithy, biting article, frae a long, lank, lumbering rigmarole, taken, at a pinch, out the verra Balaam-box. The author wondered at his ain genius and erudition when he read it, and wad gang for a week after up and down the town, asking everybody he met if they had read his leading-article in Ebony. The sumph thocht he had written it himsel! I can never hope to equal Mr North in that faculty, which in him is a gift o' nature; but in a' things else, I am his equal,—and in some, dinna ye think sae, his superior? TICKLER. I do. There seems to me something pretty in this little song. To do it justice, I must sing it. TUNE-"The Sailor's Life." 1. Oh! often on the mountain's side A shepherd's life's the life for me, 2. When Summer gladdens all the scene A shepherd's life's the life for me, &c. 3. When winter comes with sullen blast, A shepherd's life's the life for me, &c. 4. And when at eve, with guileless mirth, A shepherd's life's the life for me, &c. 5. Oh! envy not the palace proud, When on the hill-side he could sing, A shepherd's life's the life for me, &c. SHEPHERD. Tut, tut!-it's wersh-wersh as a potauto without saut. The writer o' that sang never wore a plaid. What for will clever chaps, wi' a classical education, aye be writin' awa at sangs about us shepherds? Havers!-Let Burns, and me, and Allan Cunningham talk o' kintra matters, under our ain charge.— We'll put mair real life and love into ae line-aiblins into ae word—than a' the classical callants that ever were at College. TICKLER. Well, well-here's a poem that may as well go into the fire-heap at once, without farther inspection. SHEPHERD. For God's sake, haud your hand, Mr Tickler!-dinna burn that, as you houp to be saved! It's my ain haun-writin'-I ken't at a' this distance-I'll swear til't in a coort o' justice!. Burn that, and you're my Sub nae langer. My dear Editor, I will sing it. TICKLER. SHEPHERD. Na, you shanna sing't-I'll sing't mysel-though I'm as hoarse as a craw. Breathin' that easterly harr is as bad as snooking down into your hawse sae many yards o' woollen. Howsomever, I'll try. And mind, nane o' your accompaniments wi' me, either o' fiddle or vice. A second's a thing that I just perfectly abhor,-it seems to me-though I hae as gude an ear as Miss Stephens hersel—and better, too,-to be twa different tunes sang at ae timea maist intolerable practice. Mercy me!-It's the twa Epithaliums that I wrote for the young Duke o' Buccleugh's birth-day, held at Selkirk, the 25th of November, 1825. 5. O, young Buccleuch, O, kind Buccleuch ! TICKLER. Beautiful, James, quite beautiful! SHEPHERD. Mr Tickler, I think, considering all things, the situation I now occupy, my rank in society-and the respect which I have at all times been proud to show you and Mrs Tickler, that you might call me Mr Hogg, or Mr Yeditor? Why always James, simple James? TICKLER. A familiar phrase, full of affection. I insist on being called Timothy. SHEPHERD. Weel, weel, be it so now and then. But as a general rule, let it be Mr Tickler, Mr Hogg, or, which I would prefer, Mr Editor. Depend upon it, sir, that there is great advantage to social intercourse in the preservation of those mere conversational forms by which " table-talk" is protected from degenerating into a coarse or careless familiarity. TICKLER. Suppose you occasionally call me " Southside," and that I call you "Mount Benger-" SHEPHERD. A true Scottish fashion that of calling gentlemen by the names of their estates. Did you ever see the young Duke? You nod, Never!-He's a real scion of the old tree. What power that laddie has ower human happiness !— He has a kingdom, and never had a king more loyal subjects. All his thousands o' farmers are proud o' him, and his executors; and that verra pride gi'es them a higher character. The clan must not disgrace the Chief. The "Duke" is a household word all over the Border;-the bairns hear it every day;-and it links us thegither in a sort o' brotherhood. Curse the Radicals, who would be for destroying the old aristocracy of the land!— |
