1823.]

DON JUAN.

321

Hogg. They're extraordinary clever-they're better even than the twa first; but that mischievous Constitutional Association will not let ony body daur to print them.* And, after all, it's maybe as weel sae, for they're gey wicked, I must alloo; and yet, it's amaist a pity Odoherty. I have a great mind to turn bookseller myself, just on purpose to put an end to all this nonsense. A pretty story, truly that two cantos of Byron's best poetry should be going a begging for

Tickler. Just retribution! How are the mighty fallen' “CREDE BYRON !!"‡

Odoherty. Crede humbug!

(Left speaking.)

* A Society which was organized in London, to prevent and punish the publication of immoral and seditious works. It raised large funds by subscription, but did little more than spend them, chiefly in heavy salaries and good dinners.-M.

+ "Crede Byron,”—the heraldic motto of the house of Byron.-M.

322

No. IX.-JUNE, 1823.

Odoherty. Make your mind easy, my old poet, about it. They stand no more in need of your assistance, than a seventy-four wants to be towed through the Bay of Biscay by a six-oared yawl.

North. There would be no harm, however, in saying, that Quentin Durward is a splendid book?

Odoherty. And as little good. Why need you hold your farthing candle to the sun? Hang it, man, never deal in axioms. I was truly sorry to see you in your last Number so anxious to show up the Vicomte Soligny as an ass, when every body saw his measureless ears, pricked up in proud defiance, affronting the daylight.*

Buller. We punsters of Rhedycina are indignant with the Great Magician for missing a capital pun, and making a poor one. You remember what Louis says to Tristan L'Hermite when he is confined, and wishes to have the astrologer hanged-that pun about finis. Tickler. Yes; here's the passage. Tristan, thou hast done many an act of brave justice-finis—I should have said funus coronat opus." Buller. Read it, meo periculo, funis coronat opus.

crown the business by a rope." Isn't it more professional? North. Decidedly, a much better pun. Is it yours? Mullion. Has Durward been dramatized yet?

"We must

North. I don't know; but I suppose it has. Terry would have but little labor on his hands, for many of the scenes are dramatic enough for the stage even as they are.†

Mullion. The defiance of Crevecoeur, for instance. There need not be a word added or diminished there.

Tickler. That certainly is a magnificent scene-a model for all defiances.

Odoherty. Could not we get up a thing of the kind here, in our own way?

North. How! What the deuce have we to do with such things? Odoherty. Why, then, I'll tell you, my ancient biscuit-biter. As soon as Constable's new shop is finally settled-painters, glaziers, ma

* A review, in the May number of Blackwood, of "Letters on England, by Victoire, Count de Soligny," published by Colburn, of London, and affiliated, by Maga, upon little Tims, the Cockney, who was one of the guests in the Tent, in August, 1819, as heretofore related.-M. + Quentin Durward, published in June, 1823, was the first of Scott's fictions which obtained reputation on the Continent. Terry, who adapted several of the novels for the stage, did not take this in hand, but it was dramatized, and made a splendid spectacle.-M.

JUNE, 1823.]

THE DEFIANCE OF ODOHERTY.

323

sons, tilers, slaters, carpenters, joiners, upholsterers, paperers, and all that fry, bowled out clean, there is to be a high dinner given to all the men of blue and yellow. Jeffrey in persona in the chair.

North. Well, what then?

Mullion. I suppose that when the Reviewers are mustered, Odoherty wishes them to be peppered.

North. Knit him up to the stanchions for that pun. It is beyond question the worst I have heard since the days of Harry Erskine. Perge, Signifer.

Odoherty. Would not it be a good thing for you to defy him then and there, when surrounded by the host of the ungodly?

Tickler. Who would be the ambassador?

Odoherty. My own mother's son; and you should be herald, being a man of inches. I should not dress exactly à la Crevecoeur; but hand me the first volume of Quentin, and I shall follow it as close as possible. North. Here, most worthy legate.

Odoherty (reading Quentin Durward, vol. i. p. 205, with a slight deviation from the words of the text). Would not this read grandly in future ages, “Ensign and Adjutant Morgan Odoherty, a renowned and undaunted warrior

Mullion (aside). Over a tumbler of punch.

Odoherty. "Entered the apartment, dressed in a military frock-coat, thickly frogged, black stock, Cossack trowsers, Wellington boots, and steel spurs. Around his neck, and over his close-buttoned coat, hung a broad black ribbon, at the end of which dangled a quizzing-glass. A handsome page

Hogg. Wha the deil will he be?

Odoherty. Don't interrupt me. "A handsome page, James Hogg, Esq., Shepherd of Ettrick

Hogg. Hear till him! Me a page to a stickit Ensign ?*

Odoherty. “Bore his hat behind him. A herald preceded him, bearing his card, which he held under the nose of Francis; while the ambassador himself paused in the middle of the hall, as if to give present time

Tickler. What, by the way, did the Great Unknown mean by such a phrase as “present time?”

Mullion. Perhaps, because the business was no past time.

North (springs up in a rage). By Jupiter Ammon, Mullion, another such pun, and I will fine you a bumper of magnesia water!

Odoherty. "As if to give present time to admire his lofty look, commanding stature, and the modest assurance which marked the country of his birth.'

* When a licentiate of the Scottish church, whose devotion or ambition has led him into the pulpit, happens to fail as a preacher, he is usually spoken of as "a stickit Dominie." In like manner, no doubt, Hogg thus alluded to Odoherty as a mere carpet-knight.-M.

Omnes. Hear, hear, hear!

Turn to page

Odoherty. Well, I'll skip on to the defiance at once. 213. (A rustling of leaves is heard.) "Hearken, Francis Jeffrey, King of Blue and Yellow-Hearken, scribes, and balaamites, who may be present-Hearken, all shy and shabby men-and thou, Timothy Tickler, make proclamation after me-I, Morgan Odoherty, of the barony of Iffa and Offa west, and the parish of Knockmandowny, late Ensign and Adjutant of the 99th, or his Majesty's Tipperary regiment of infantry, and Fellow of the Royal, Phrenological, Antiquarian, Auxiliary Bible, and Celtic Societies of Edinburgh; in the name of the most puissant chief, Christopher, by the grace of Brass, Editor of Blackwood's and the Methodist Magazines; Duke of Humbug, of Quiz, Puffery, Cutup, and Slashandhackaway; Prince Paramount of the Gentlemen of the Press, Lord of the Magaziners, and Regent of the Reviewers; Mallet of Whiggery, and Castigator of Cockaigne; Count Palatin of the Periodicals; Marquis of the Holy Poker; Baron of Balaam and Blarney, and Knight of the most stinging Order of the Nettle, do give you, King of Blue and Yellow, openly to know, that you having refused to remedy the various griefs, wrongs, and offences, done and wrought by you, or by and through your aid, suggestion, and instigation, against the said Chief, and his loving subjects, the authors in particular, and the Tory people in general, of this realm, he, by my mouth, renounces all belief in your assery, pronounces you absurd and trashy, and bets you sixpence, that he beats you as a critic and as a man. There, my tester is posted in evidence of what I have said."

Omnes (with enthusiasm). Hear him! hear him! hear him!

Odoherty. Let me go on, for I think the remainder would be applicable. "So saying, he plucked the sixpence from the bottom of his breeches pocket, and flung it down on the floor of the hall.

"Until this last climax of the bet, there had been a deep silence in the Whig apartment during this extraordinary scene; but no sooner had the jingle of the tester, when cast down, been echoed by the deep voice of Timotheus, the Blackwoodian herald, with the ejaculation 'Vive Tête de Buchanan!' than there was a general tumult; while Brougham, Sydney Smith, Leslie, and one or two others, whose coats, whole at the elbows, authorized the suspicion that they could sport the coin, fumbled in their pockets for wherewithal to cover the sixpence; the Seven Young Men exclaimed, 'No bet with you, Butcher! Bubble, bubble! Comes he here to insult the King of the Libellers in his own hall ?'

"But the King appeased the tumult, by exclaiming, in a voice agreeably composed of the music of an English coachee grafted upon a genuine Embro' brogue, Silence, my lieges! Cover not the bet, for you would lose your blunt; Christopher is too rum a customer for me.'

1823.]

LEDDY GRIPPY.

325

Hogg. Od, man, that's the verra way Advocate Jeffrey speaks. Tickler. It would be a fine subject for a picture. I shall suggest it to Allan, when I see him next.

Mullion. It could be called the "Defiance of Doherty."

Odoherty. I trouble you for the vowel, my friend-Odoherty, if you please-I have no notion of any body's being alliterative at my expense.

Tickler. Yes, it would be a grand historical painting. The stuckpig stare of the great man himself-the scowling fury of Brougham -the puckered-up nose of the Mercurial Parson-the jobbernowl gape of “our fat friend "*. our fat friend "*-the sentimental visage of the "Modern Pygmalion"-the epileptical frenzy of the half-human countenance and the helpless innocence of the Seven Young Men, would be truly awful and sublime, while the magnificence of the Odoherty

of the

Odoherty. The stateliness of the Tickler

Tickler. And the beauty of the Hogg, would afford a fine foreground.

Buller. Allan should lose no time. If he does not do it at once, as I am off for London to-morrow, I shall speak to that other great master of the sublime, George Cruikshank.

North. There is another defiance in the third volume, where De la Marck sends Maugrabbin to the Duke of Burgundy.

Mullion. If you copy that defiance, send Hogg as ambassador, for he has the best title to be Rouge Sanglier.

Hogg. I wish, doctor, ye would let Hogg alane. What for are ye aye harling me intill your havers, by the lug and the horn ?—I dinna like it.

Odoherty. What! surly?

Ye

Hogg. It's no decent to be aye meddling wi' folks' personalities. I'm sure by this time the whole set o' you might ha' mair sense. ken what ye hae gotten by your personalities.

North. A decreet o' Court, Jamie, as Leddy Grippy would have said.

Tickler. Softly on that score.

North. What do you mean?

Tickler. Have you not heard the news? Why, the old woman is still alive.

Hogg. Godsake! is she till the fore yet?

Odoherty. Yes; all alive and kicking-and in town too. Galt was taken in by the jeu d'esprit in the respectable elderly paper, announcing that she died much and justly regretted.

* Sir John Leslie, described by Scott as "a great philosopher, and as abominble an animal as ever I saw."-M.

+ The heroine of Galt's novel of "The Entail."-M.