Hogg. It is glorious! it is perfectly glorious, as Gray would say. Kempferhausen (sings.) Stille, hersch', andacht, und der seel'erhebung, Rings umber! Fern sei was befleckt von sundist, Tilly leeri, oiko, hi oiko, hi oiko! Tillee oiko, oiko. Tilli oi-i-oi-i-oiko! North. Your voice is much improved. You really begin to sing now, Meinheer. Kempferhausen. Give me a flash of the Rudelsheimer-(i-oiko! i-oko-) Hogg. Wheesht, wheesht, callant-you're deafening Mr. Tickler. Tickler. Let me tip ye another bit of sense, will ye, lads? Odoherty. Indulge the quizz. Tickler. That song of Privy Counsellor Kempferhausen is as bad as Naked feet, naked feet.” Omnes. No, no, no, Tickler-don't dish the Privy Counsellor. Tickler. Well, then, I won't for this once. But, after all, what do you think, General Christophe, of this production of Pisa? North. I think, Colonel Timothy, that it is naught. Not that I am in any danger of joining in the vulgar cries that ring in one's ears, but really Lord Byron should remember that he is now a man towards forty*—and that if he passes that era without taking up, the whole world will pronounce him an incurable. Hogg. Lord keep us! whatfor an incurable?—he's just ane of the finest, cleverest chiels of the age, and if he was here just now, he would be a delight to us all. Odoherty. Experto crede. The odd fish is only just trying how far he may go; give him line, he'll soon come in. Tickler. He must cut the Cockney. Odoherty. I lay a tester he has cut him already. Did you look at that rascally specimen of the Cockneyfied Orlando Furioso? * In December, 1822, he was within a month of being 35.-M. North. I did. But what was there to surprise you? He had already done Theocritus into the psalm measure (long metre)—was there any farther march in the kingdom of absurdity? Tickler. No, no; but one really cannot suffer such a fellow to be choppifying and patchifying at the Orlando Furioso, without bringing a whip across his withers. Why, the whole concern is abominably, nauseous, filthy, base, gingerbread, Cockney stuff. One might read him for a mile without knowing it was Ariosto he was after, if he did not clap old Ludovico's name and surname at the top of his pages! What impudence! Odoherty. Do you see me now, I think you are hard on King Leigh. His description of Pisa affected me. Tickler. What affectation !— Odoherty. Well, I was seriously pleased with him. There is a merit in such candor. The man tells you plainly, without going round about the bush, that he had never seen a hill or a clear stream before, and that both of them are fine things in their way. The Cockney is candid. I love the King. Viva Le Hunto Signior di Cocagna! North. What an abortion is that tale of the Florentine Lovers !* How unavoidably the Bel Ludgato peeps out! Suffer any given Cockney to write three sentences on end in any book in the world, and if I don't pick them out ad aperturam, dethrone me. Hogg. That's a stretcher, my man. North. No; for example, just the other day, my friend little Frank Jeffrey, in one of those good-humored moments of utter silliness that now and then obscure his general respectability, permitted Lecturer Hazlitt to assist him in doing a review of Byron's tragedies for the Edinburgh. If any one here has brought the blue and yellow with him for the lighting of his tube, I engage, under pain of drinking double tides till noon, to mark every paragraph that Billy dipped his ugly paw in. Odoherty. By Jove, here's a libel for you! Jeffrey and Hazlitt working at the same identical article, like two girls both sewing of one flower, upon one sampler! Tell that to the marines. Kempferhausen. You will at least admit that Mr. Shelley's version of the Mayday-night scene has its merits. I assure you 'tis goot, very goot. North. Yes, yes, I had forgot it. 'Tis indeed an admirable morseau,-full of life, truth, and splendor. I think it must be very like Goethe's affair. Kempferhausen. Oh, very like,-only the Cockney Editors did not know a word of the original, and they've blundered awfully now and then, in their printing,-for example, there is a wizard call of "Come prose tale in The Liberal, by Leigh Hunt, severely reviewed in Maga.-M. A 1822.] THE CHALDEE. 263 to me from the Sea of rocks," which is in my father-tongue felsensee. The Her Shelley, I suppose, had noted the German word on his paper, not having an English one just ready. But the Hunts print. in English "Come to me from felumee," which is no meaning at all, any more than if they had said, "Come to me from philabeg. Hogg. Oh, what ignoramuses-But, I dare say, yon German chiels sometimes make as braw blunders themsels, when they're yerking awa at the Queen's Wake, or the Three Perils of Man, ower bye yonder Odoherty. 'Tis like they may,—I don't doubt many of your little exquisite touches of elegance evaporate under the hands of your translators. Kempferhausen, himself, has mauled you at a time, if he would but own it. Kempferhausen. Confiteor. Miserere Domine! I wrote a translation of Kenilworth, you know, when I was at Hamburgh. Well, I had forgot that you English spell the beast with an a, and the tipple with an e, so I made mine host of Cumnor sport the Beer and the broken ladle, instead of the Bear and the Ragged Staff, for his signpost. All Germany, at this moment, believes that that was the real sign. Indeed, it is now a favorite one among our Teutonic Tintos. Hogg. Dinna lose a night's rest for that, my man: ae thing's just a good as anither. It's nae matter what ane pits in a book; my warst things aye sell best, I think. I'm resolved, I'll try and write some awfu' ill thing this winter. Odoherty. Do, the Agriculturists really must exert themselves in these hard times. Tickler. You were always a diligent fellow, Hogg; of course The Three Perils have a fine run. Hogg. That's civil Odoherty. One of your principal objects appears to have been The Vindication of the Chaldee of Hogg, (ut cum Glengarry loquar)—for I see one of your characters is yourself, always sporting that venerable lingo. Hogg. Hoot! It was just the ither five chapters of the Chaldee ; them that Ebony would not print: they were lying moulding in my drawers, and I thought I would put them into the Novel for Balaam; naebody fand me out,-I kent that would be the way o't. Odoherty. After all, Hogg, what devil possessed you to own the Chaldee? Hegg. I wish ye would let me eat my victuals, and drink my liquor in peace; I've been up since four in the morning among the drovers, and I'm no able to warstle wi' you the night. North. Don't mind these scamps, Hogg. Why, there's not one of 'em but would give his ears to write any thing half so fine as the opening chapters of the second volume of your PERILS. Tickler. Has Hogg heard or seen the Epigrams by Mr. Webb, and Mr. Hazlitt, on General North's arms? Hogg. Deil a bit o' me. Yarrow water. Od! there's nae wale o' Epigrams on Tickler. Then listen. William Hazlitt, in the first place, being asked by Leigh Hunt, why North's crest is a Rose, a Thistle, and a Shamrock, made these lines by way of answer. At least they are attributed to him by the Whigs here. But, to be sure, he must have been in a sweet humor : "You ask me, kind Hunt, why does Christopher North The splendor, the fragrance, the grace of the Rose; Yet so humble, that he, though of writers the chief, In modesty vies with the Shamrock's sweet leaf; Like the Thistle!--Ah! Leigh, you and I must confess it, NEMO ME (is his motto) IMPUNE LACESSET." Hogg. Very weel, very weel, indeed; the lad's on the mending hand I think, sirs. Tickler. Yet I think Corny Webb's verses are neater : "Each leaf which we see over Christopher's helm Is an emblem of part of our insular realm: The well-fought-for Rose, is of England the bearing, And they therefore are borne by the Star of the Forth, FOR KIT NORTH LOVES ALL three, and alL THREE LOVE KIT NORTH." Odoherty. Rather jaw-breaking that last line, like Cornelius's sonnets; but truth may well compensate for want of melody. * Hogg. It often surprises me when I think on't. But, after a', there's but few of the First-raters, except Christopher himself here, that really excels in periodical writing; I confess I never thought I myself for ane was ony great dab in that department. Tickler. Let me see-this is an ingenious start of the Shepherd's. But, after all, is there truth in what he says? Is not he himself a goodish periodicaller? Kempferhausen. Donner and blitzen! do you talk so of the author of the Chaldee? Tickler. Aye, that, to be sure, is one chef-d'œuvre; but on the whole, I, though I love and admire Hogg as much as any one, must honestly and fairly say, that I consider him as inferior to Jeffrey in re periodicali. North. No doubt he is. In fact, Hogg has always had his eyes on other affairs-perhaps on higher. Hogg. Na, na-nane o' youa jeers, auld man! * Cornelius Webbe, a London writer, author of Glancesat Life, Sonnets, &c.-M. 1822.1 CAMPBELL. 265 North. I don't so much wonder at Hogg; but what do you say to Tom Campbell? Tickler. Why, I don't know that we have any proper data yet to judge of Tommy. His magazine is a very queer book. It is almost all (I mean the large print) very decently written. There is a certain sort of elegance in many papers, and a certain sort of very neatish information in others; but the chief, and indeed the damnifying defect, is a total want of gist. Is there any one can tell me at this moment of any one purpose that work appears to keep in view? Kempferhausen. Mr. North, did you not like the letters of Don Leucadio Doblado ?* North. To be sure I did, and did I not like the Confessions of the Opium Eater, too ?—but I do no more think of judging of the two London Magazines by these things, than I would think of estimating the Edinburgh Review, as a book, by the few occasional pages of the old Arch-libeller's own penmanship, which now and then adorn it in these its degenerate days. Tickler. The real defect is in my friend Tom. He is lazy, and he is timorous, are not these qualities enough for your problem? Odoherty. Let them pass. Lord Byron is neither lazy nor timorous, and yet, you see, he is also a failure in this line. North. Not at all-he is a man made for that sort of fun. But what would the Duke of Wellington himself do, if he were obliged to consult Jeremy Bentham about his movements? Knock off his handcuffs--I mean the Cockneys-and you'll see Byron is a sweet fellow yet. Tickler. I was distressed to see John Bull abusing The Liberal as he did. John should be above such palaver; but I see he, with all his wit, makes a few sacrifices to humbug. What now can be more exquisitely ludicrous than the anti-Catholic zeal of such a chap as Bull ? Odoherty, (laying finger on nose, and eyeing Mr. Editor.) Poo! poo! we could match that elsewhere. North, with an agreeable knitting of brows. Silence, Standardbearer ! Hogg. I'll no hear Lord Byron abused, for he has ay been a kind friend to me. But, oh, sirs! what could gar him put in yon awfu' words about the gude auld King; and now that the worthy sant's in heaven, too? or whare did ever ony body see ony thing like yon epigrams on Lord Castlereagh's death? * By Rev. J. Blanco White, a Spaniard.-M. The "Vision of Judgment," (a burlesque on a very pretentious poem of the same name, by Southey.) appeared in The Liberal, edited by Byron and Leigh Hunt. The three epigrams on Castlereagh's death appeared in the same periodical. They were worth little. The best run thus VOL. I. "So, He has cut his throat at last!-He! Who? |