No. V.-SEPTEMBER, 1822.

ACT I.-SCENE-Back Parlor-Cold Supper just set.

Manet MR. AMBROSE solus.

Mr. Ambrose. I think it will do. That plate of lobsters is a little too near the edge. Softly, softly, the round of beef casts too deep a shadow over these pickles. There-that's right. Old Kit will be unable to criticise

Enter MR. NORTH.

Mr. North. Old Kit! will be unable to criticise!!--Why, upon my honor, Mr. Ambrose, you are rather irreverent in your lingo. Mr. Ambrose, (much confused.) I really, sir, had not the least idea you were at hand. You know, sir, with what profound respect

Mr. North. Come, Ambrose, put down the pots of porter. The King has left the Theatre, and we shall be all here in a few seconds. I made my escape from the manager's box, just before the row and the rush began. Hark! that is the clank of the Adjutant.

Enter ODOHERTY, TICKLER, SEWARD, BULLER, HIGHLAND CHIEFTAIN, and MR. BLACKWOOD.

Odoherty. Allow me, my dear North, to introduce to you my friend, the Chief of the Clan

Mr. North. No need of a name.

I know him by his father's face. Sir, I will love you for the sake of as noble a Gael as ever slaughtered a Sassenach. Sit down, sir, if you please.

(Highland Chieftain sits down at Mr. North's right hand.)

Mr. Seward. Well, did he not look every inch a King,* this evening? A King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, ought, if possisible, be a man worth looking at. His subjects expect it, and it is but reasonable they should.

Mr. North. Fame does no more than justice to his bow. It is most princely-so-or rather so. Is that like him?

* In August, 1822, George IV. visited Scotland. He had visited Ireland and Hanover in the preceding year. He remained in the vicinity of Edinburgh (the guest of the Duke of Buceleugh, at Dalkeith Palace, within six miles of the capital,) for fifteen days, and his return was hastened by the intelligence that the Marquis of Londonderry, Foreign Secretary, had committed suicide in London. When he was proceeding, amid tens of thousands, to the Palace of Holyrood, the ancient abode of the Scottish Kings, the demeanor of the multitude was so quiet and respectful (very unlike the wild enthusiasm which greeted him at Dublin) that he said "This is a nation of gentlemen." This compliment is referred to, over and over again, in the following Noctes.-M.

1822.]

THE ROYAL VISIT.

227

Odoherty. No more than a hop-pole is like a palm-tree, or the Editor of the Edinburgh Review like him of Blackwood's Magazine. The King's bow shows him to be a man of genius; for, mark me, he has no model to go by.* He must not bow like the Duke of Argyll, or Lord Fife, well as they bow, but like a King. And he does so. The King is a man of genius.

Mr. Blackwood. Do you think, sirs, that the King would become a contributor to the Magazine? I have sent his Majesty a set splendidly bound by

Mr. North. Hush, Ebony, leave that to me. fere with the Editorial department.

You must not inter

Mr. Buller. What do you Scotch mean by calling yourselves a grave people; and by saying that you are not, like the Irish, absurd in the expression of your loyalty? I never heard such thunder in a Theatre before.

Odoherty. I would have given twenty ten-pennies that some of the young ladies in the pit had remembered that a pocket handkerchief should not be used longer than a couple of days. Some of the literary gentlemen too, showed snuffy signals. But the coup d'œil was imposing.

Buller. I hate all invidious national distinctions. people hail their King in their own way.

Let every

Odoherty. To be sure they should. But then the Scotch are a nation of Gentlemen ;" and the Irish " a nation of ragamuffins ;" and the English "a nation of shopkeepers." How then?

Mr. North. His Majesty knows better than to satirize us. We are not a nation of gentlemen--thank God;-but the greater part of our population is vulgar, intelligent, high-cheeked, raw-boned, and religious.

Mr. Seward. I could not help smiling, when I looked across the pit and along the boxes this evening, at the compliment towards yourselves as a nation, which some self-sufficient soul put into his Majesty's mouth. I never saw a more vulgar pit in my life. The women

looked as if.

Odoherty. One and all of them could have kissed the King. But, Seward, my boy, you are mistaken in calling the pit vulgar. Your taste has been vitiated, Seward, by Oxford Milliners, and

Mr. North. The conversation is wandering. (Turning to the Chief

* Byron admits the fascination of this bow. In Don Juan we have

"There, too, he saw (whate'er he may be now)

A Prince, the prince of princes at the time,

With fascination in his very bow,

And full of promise, as the spring of prime.
Though royalty was written on his brow,

He had then the grace, too rare in every clime,

Of being, without alloy of fop or beau,

A finished gentleman from top to toe."-M.

:

tain.) I saw you talking to the Thane in the Theatre.* heaven you had brought him here!

*

Would to

Chieftain. He is gone to Dalkeith or he would have come.

Mr. North. How popular the Thane is all over Scotland. Depend upon it, gentlemen, that the best man is, in general, the most popular. Nothing but generosity and goodness will make peasants love peers. Mr. Blackwood. His Lordship never comes to town without calling at the shop.

Enter MR. AMBROSE and Waiters with rizzard haddocks, cut of warm salmon, muirfowl, and haggis.

Mr. Tickler. Adjutant, I will drink a pot of porter with you— THE KING,-(three times three-surgunt omnes)-Hurra, hurra, hurra-Hurra, hurra, hurra-Hurra, hurra, hurra! (Conticuere omnes.)

Mr. North. Odoherty, be pleased to act as croupier.

Odoherty. More porter.

Mr. Tickler. Did you see how the whole pit fixed its face on the King's-till the play began? It was grand, North. His eye met that loyal "glower" with mild and dignified composure. The King, North, was happy. I'll swear he was. He saw that he had our hearts. Every note of "God save the King" went dirling though my very soul-strings. I'm as hoarse as a howlet.

Mr. North. I think the people feel proud of their King. As he past the platform where I stood, on his entrance into Edinburgh, I heard a countryman say to his neighbor,—“Look, Jock; look, Jock, -isna he an honest-looking chiel? Gude faith, Jock, he's just like my ain father."

Mr. Seward. Curse the Radicals! A king must abhor even a single hiss from the vilest of his subjects. The King, Mr. North, is with us as popular a King as ever reigned in England. He has only to show himself oftener, and —

Mr. Buller. I have seen the king in public often; but I never saw him insulted except in the newspapers. The "Scotsman in London" is a common character.

Odoherty. Mr. Seward, a little haggis. See "its hurdies like twa distant hills."

Mr. Seward. What are hurdies?

Mr. Tickler. See Dr. Jamieson.

Chieftain. Mr. North, I am delighted. I hope I may say so without flattery. I never drank better Glenlivet.-Why, gentlemen, not come and pay me a visit this autumn? No occasion for a tent. I am a bachelor, and have few children.

Odoherty. Settled.-Name your day.

The Earl of Fife ;-he has already been introduced to the reader in "The Tent."-M.

Chieftain. 14th of September. I cannot be home sooner.

a promise?

Omnes. 14th of September. WE SWEAR!!

229

Is it

Odoherty. Well done, old Mole, in the cellarage. Hamlet-see Shakspeare.

Enter MR. AMBROSE.

Mr. Ambrose. Mr. North, a communication.

Tickler. Read—read.

Mr. North. I cannot say I am quite able to do so. My eyes are a little hazy or so. But there is the letter, Tickler.-Up with it.

Tickler, (reads.)

De'il tak the kilts! For fifty year, nae honest soon of Reikie's
Wad ever think to walk the streets, denuded o' his breekies.

And ony kilted drover lad, wi' kyloes or a letter,

Was pitied, or was glower'd at, "Puir chiel, he kens nae better;"
And apple-wives look'd sidelins, and thocht he came to steal or beg,
Whene'er they saw a callant wi' his hurdies in a philabeg.*
And even chiefs o' clans themselves, whene'er they ran to towns, man,
Were fain to clothe their hairy knees in breeks, or pantaloons, man.
But now! Lord bless your soul! there's no a Lawland writer laddie
Can wheedle a pund note or twa frae his auld cankered daddie,
But aff he sets, (though born betwixt St. Leonard's an Drumsheugh) an
He fits himsel' wi' bannet, plaid, and hose, and kilt, and spleuchan.t
Ye'se ken the cause o' a' the steer;-the Heeland Dhuine Wassalst
Began to tire o' wearin' breeks whene'er they left their castles;
So they coaxed the honest citizens to join in a convention
To tak' the corduroy from off the pairt I daurna mention;
That, like the tod that tint his tail, they mightna cause derision,
And find their faces in a flame, while elsewhere they were freezin.
The town's-lads snappit at the plan, and thus began the Celtic,
A medley strange frae every land, frae off the shores o' Baltic;
Frae England, Ireland, Scotland; Border lairds and ancient British,
There were Dutchmen, Danes, and Portuguese, and French and Otaheitish;
And a' professions, frae the lad that's only just apprenticed,

To the great hero of the west-e'en Doctor Scott the Dentist

And they wad dine, and drink, and strut, as big's Macallum More, sir,

And skraigh attempts at Gaelic words, until their throats were sore, sir.

An' a' was canty for a while, for these were still their gay days,

An' a' could lend a hand to pay for balls gi'en to the ladies;

And there they danc'd the Highland fling, and kick'd their kilts and toes up,
Tho' whiles their ruler-shapit legs refused to keep their hose up.

But when the pawky Highland lairds had fairly set the fashion,

Up gets an angry Chief o' Chiefs in a prodigious passion:

Fat Teil hae you to do wi' kilts, gae wa' and get your claes on,

Get out, ye nasty Lowland poys, and put your preeks and stays on;

* Hurdies in a philabeg,-his buttocks in a kilt.-M. Spleuchan;-tobacco-pouch.-M.

+ Dunnie-wassal.-A Highland gentleman, generally the cadet of a family of rank, who received his title from the land he occupied, though held at the will of his chieftain.—M. Tod.-A Fox.-M.

Ye shanna wear your claes like me, I look on you as fermin,

Ye hae nae mair o' Highland pluid than if you were a Cherman."*
This sets them up, " Chairman indeed! Ye never shall be ours, sir!
Except it be to carry us when we go out of doors, sir!

Like ithers o' your kintra men.” And thus they flyte thegither,
And haud the hail town in a steer, expellin' ane anither.

And how the business is to end, is mair than I can tell, sir,
Indeed it seems to fickle and perplex the Sheriff's sell, sir;

But this I ken, that folk that's wise think they maun be nae witches,
Wha ever let a Highland Kern† entice them out o' breeches.

Highland Chief. Come, gentlemen, if you please, I will propose a toast," Glengarry!" His Majesty would not have sent the message he did to the chiefs, if he had not been pleased with them and their highlanders.‡

Omnes. Glengarry. Hurra, hurra, hurra!

Odoherty. What does Glengarry mean by saying that few members of the Celtic Society could shoot an eagle? It is easier, a damned deal easier, to shoot an eagle than a peacock. easiest way of any is to knock an eagle down with a shillelah.

But the

Mr. Seward. Do you shy the shillelah at his head from a distance ? Odoherty. No. I refer to the Chieftain. You must walk slowly up to him at the rate of about four miles an hour, (Townsend, the pedestrian, would do it half backwards and half forwards,) and hit him over the periwig with your sapling.

Chieftain. Perfectly true. When an eagle has eat a sheep or a roe, he sits as heavy as a Dutchman-cannot take wing-and you may bag him alive if you choose. The shepherds often fling their plaids over him. But let him take wing, and he darkens disk like an eclipse.

the sun

Mr. Blackwood. I beg your pardon, sir, but I should wish much to have a sound, sensible Article on the State of the Highlands of Scotland. I suspect there is much misrepresentation as to the alleged cruelty and impolicy of large farms. Dog on it, will any man tell me, sir, that

* German.--C. N. † Kerne.--A freebooter.-M.

Every one seemed to have gone mad on the subject of Highland costume, the use of which had been prohibited by the 19th, George II. The late Sir John Sinclair, in the early part of the present century, had this act repealed; and although this took place in mid-winter, all the Highlanders north of Stirling threw off the hated breeches, and adopted the cooler and more ventilatory kilt! Even at his first levee, George IV. appeared in full Highland garb-which no royal Stuart, Prince Charles excepted, had ever worn in Holyrood. General Stewart. of Garth, assisted at this Celtic toilet, and saw that the king was correctly attired. There, too, in the same costume, appeared the bulky frame of the London alderman and banker, Sir William Curtis, (immortalized in Don Juan, as

"The witless Falstaff to a hoary Hal,")

whose appearance, in such a garb, was very ludicrous. When the King was about leaving Scotland, an official letter was addressed by the late Sir Robert Peel, then Home Secretary, in which, after thanking Scott, for his own immense and successful efforts to make the royal visit a pleasant one, he added, "The king wishes to make you the channel of conveying to the Highland Chiefs and their followers, who have given to the varied scene, which we have witnessed, so peculiar and romantic a character, his particular thanks for their attendance, and his warm approbation of their uniform deportment."-M.