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Mr. Ambrose. As I live, sir, here's Mr. Odoherty. Shall I say you are here, for he is in a wild humor?

Enter ODOHERTY, singing.

I've kiss'd and I've prattled with fifty fair maids,
And changed them as oft, do ye see, &c.

Odoherty. What, bolting?

(North and Tickler rise to go.)

The Shepherd. Ay, ay, late hours disna agree wi' snawy pows. But I'se sit an hour wi' you.

(The Adjutant and the Shepherd embrace. North and Tickler disappear.)

432

No. XV.-JUNE, 1824.

Present-TIMOTHY TICKLER, ESQ., ENSIGN ODOHERTY, the ETTRICK SHEPHERD, and MR. JONATHAN SPIERS.

Odoherty. Yes, Tickler, you are, after all, quite in the right—I took the other side merely for the sake of conversation.

Tickler. Ay, and if my young friend here had happened to be called away half-an-hour ago-ay, or if I had happened not to be in the exact humor for squabashing, and particularly for squabashing you—what would have been the consequence, Mr. Morgan ?—what would have been the consequence, you care-me-devil ?

Odoherty. Why, I suppose, I should have helped to

"Give to the press one preux-chevalier more,”

as the old zig-zag of Twickenham says, or ought to say. Pope was decidedly the Z of Queen Anne's time*-his dunces were the progenitors of the present Cockneys.

But

Hogg. Wheesht-wheesht-for heaven's sake dinna name thae creatures again-I'm sure they're doon enough at ony rate. really, Mr. Tickler, are ye no ower hasty ?-Od, man, (whispering Timothy,) the lad might have turned out a genius.

Tickler. No whispering at Ambrose's, Hogg. Here, Jonathan, boy -here's the Great Boar of the Forest grunting in my ear, that we may be spoiling a genius in your honorable person. What say ye to this, my hearty ?-Do you really now-but sans phrase now-do you really take yourself to be a genius?

Hogg (aside to Odoherty). He takes his toddy brawlie, at ony

rate.

Odoherty. Hogg remarks that our youthful friend is a promising punchifier. But this, even this, I fear, may still leave the matter a little dubious-bibimus indocti doctique.

Hogg. Jeering at me, I daursay-but what signifies that? Here, Mr. Jonathan, you're a very fine douce lad-never ye heed what thae proud-nosed chiels tell you-put out the poem or the novell-whilk of them said ye it was?

Mr. Spiers. A romantic tale, sir, interspersed with verses.

* The articles in Blackwood against Hunt, Hazlitt, &c., were signed “Z.”—M.

JUNE, 1824.]

'THE CHALDEE MS.

Hogg. Is there a gay feck o' verses ?

433

Mr. Spiers. A considerable number, sir. Several of the characters, sir, give vent to their feelings in a poetical form, sir.

Hogg. Ay, that's a gude auld fashion. A real novell young leddy has aye her keelavine in her pouch, and some bit back of a letter, or auld mantuamaker's count, or something or other, to put down her bit sonnet on, just after she's been stolen, or robbed, or, what's waur, maybe

Tickler. Hold your tongue, Hogg. Jonathan Spiers' book is a very pretty book, I assure you-and his verses are very well introducedvery well indeed.

Odoherty. Why, Hogg himself, in one of his recent masterpieces, has given the finest example of the easy and unaffected introduction. of the ornament of occasional verse, in a prose romance.

Tickler (aside to Odoherty). I forget what you are alluding to. Is this in the "Confessions of the Justified Sinner," which I see advertised?

Odoherty. No, 'tis in the "Three Perils of Man." One of the chief characters of that work is a bona fide poet, and this personage never opens his mouth, but out comes a bonâ fide regular psalm measure stanza of four lines. In the Pirate, to be sure, old Norna spouts most unconscionably; but even she must knock under to the poet of Hogg. Tickler (rings-enter Ambrose). Mr. Ambrose, have you the Three Perils of Man in the house? If yea, bring them forthwith.

Ambrose (indignantly). Sir, Mr. Hogg's works form a part of the standing furniture of the tap-room.

Odoherty (aside). Standing furniture, I will be sworn.

Ambrose. Ì rather think Mr. Macmurdo, the great drover from Angus, has one of the volumes just now; but he seemed getting very drowsy, and I shall perhaps be able to extract it.

(Exit.) Hogg (aside). Honest man! he's surely been sair forfaughten the day at the market.

Odoherty. Hogg has another character in the same book—a priest; and what think ye is his dialect? Why, pure Chaldee, to be sure. Tickler. Chaldee manuscript, you mean, I suppose. Well, I see no harm in this.

Hogg. It's a' perfect nature. If I liked I could speak nothing but poetry-deil a hait of prose-frae month's end to month's end. It would come like butter.

Odoherty. In a lordly dish, to be sure. Come, Hogg, I take you at your word. Stick to your psalm-tune then.

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Tickler. Hurra! Hogg for ever! that's a thumping exordium, James. Could you match him there, Jonathan ?

Hogg.

There is no poet, no, not one,

Nor yet no poetess,

Whose ready rhymes like those can run,
Which my lips do express.

Yea, all the day continually

Out from my mouth they go,
Like river that not waxeth dry,

But his waves still do flow.
Sith it be so that Og, the King
Of Bashan-

Tickler. Come, Hogg, in virtue of the power which Christopher gave me when he took the gout, you are absolved, and hereby I do absolve you. One rhyme more, you great pig, and I'll have you scalded on the spot.

Hogg. The pitcher's getting cauld, at ony rate. Ye had better ring, and bid Ambrose have on the big boiler at ance. And as for you, Jonathan Spiers, they were deaving us wi' saying there was nae opening in the literary world. Me away, that canna be said, my braw`lad. Odoherty. Come, Hogg, a joke's a joke—we've had enough of this. There is no opening in the literary world.

Hogg. Weel, Jonathan, if Byron and me canna make an opening between us, I'm thinking ye maun just ca' canny, and wait till ye see out Odoherty and the Author of Waverley-I reckon them about the next to Byron and me.

Tickler (aside). Either of their little fingers well worth you both. But, however-Come, Hogg, supposing Jonathan really to reject my poor advice, what would be your counsel? Come now, remember 'tis a serious concern :-so be for once the sagacious master of the sagacious Hector.

Hogg. I would be for Jonathan trying a good, rousing, independent Tory paper. Deil a paper I see's worth lighting one's pipe wi'. It would surely do.

Tickler. I dare say Jonathan's ambition aimed at rather higher concerns; but no matter, what have you to say against the papers, Jemmy? Hogg. Just that they're a' clean trash-the Scots anes, I mean. There's the Scotsman-it was lang the only ane that had ony bit spice of the deevil in't, and it's noo turned as douce and as doited as the very warst of them, since that creature turned Ricardo Professor, or what ca' ye't. He was a real dour, ugly, sulky beast, but still he was a beast; now they're mere dirt the lave o' them-just the beast's leavings-perfect dirt.

Odoherty. What say ye to the Weekly Journal, James?

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Hogg. Too-too-too-too-too! By'r Lady, good Master Lieutenant-too!-too !—too !—too !—too !—pheugh!

Tickler. The Courant, Hogg?

Hogg. An edificationing paper, I'll no deny. It has a' the farms and roups. I couldna do without the Courant.

Tickler. What sort of paper did you wish Jonathan to set up—a Beacon,* perhaps.

Hogg. A Beacon! Gude pity us, Timotheus,-are you gaun dementit a'thegither? I thought ye said Jonathan was a prudent, quiet, respectable laddie-wishing to make his way in the warld-and "your ain sense tells you," as Meg Dods says about the lad remaining in the room with Miss Mowbray, that, though your Antijacobins, and John Bulls, and Twopenny Post-Bags, and sae on, do very weel in the great Babel of Lunnun, the like o' thae things are quite heterogeneous in this small atmosphere of the Edinbro' meridian-the folk here canna thole't.

Tickler. Jonathan might try a good daily paper in London—that is much wanted at present. Indeed, a new one is wanted every three or four years; for the chaps that succeed soon get too rich and fat for their business. Stoddart is quite a Bourbon man now. The Courier is verging to conciliation.

Odoherty. By the by, some dandies always pronounce Courier, as if it were a French word, Courié. Did you hear our friend Peter's joke upon this at Inverness?

Tickler. Not I. What was it?

Odoherty. Why, a young Whig wit asked some witness before the venerable Jury Court, "Are you in the habit of taking in the Courié, sir?" Upon this, Patrick, in cross-examination, says, "Are you in the habit, sir, of taking in the Morning Po-?"

Tickler. Very well, Peter!-but enough of the papers. I wonder you, Odoherty, don't think of patching up the Memoirs of Byron-you could easily guess what sort of stuff they were; and, at any rate, an edition of 10,000 would sell ere the trick could be discovered.

Odoherty. Why, I flatter myself, if it were discovered, the book

* "The Beacon" was a newspaper, the publication of which commenced in Edinburgh in January, 1821, and was abruptly discontinued in August of the same year. The sympathy felt in Scotland for Queen Caroline, in 1820, would lead, it was feared, to the extension of antipathy towards her husband, George IV. and his ministers. The Edinburgh Tories subscribed money to establish a strong newspaper on their own side,—a publication even more personal and libellous than the London John Bull was produced, and when, at last-after being suddenly put an end to-The Beacon was noticed in Parliament, it was shown, that even the Law-officers of the Crown were part proprietors! On its ashes arose The Glasgow Sentinel, principally edited by the late Robert Alexander, (afterwards of the London Morning Journal and the Liverpool Mail,) a powerful, but indiscreet writer. More personalities than had made the Beacon notorious were introduced, and the end was that an editorial quarrel resulted in the betrayal or theft of a box of MSS., by which the late Sir Alexander Boswell of Auchinleck (son of Johnson's biographer) was discovered to be author of certain truculent pasquinades against James Stuart of Dunearn, who challenged and shot him.-M.

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