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waters of the Dee murmured not twenty yards off-and one of those little springs, so pleasant to the Shepherd, welled out from its hillock yet closer to the tent. Here we found that excellent fisher Walter Ritchie from Peebles, and that trusty caddy John Mackay, Frederick Street, Edinburgh, who had escorted the Adjutant's tent, and many et ceteras, in an old baggage-wagon purchased at Jock's Lodge, on the departure of the Enniskillen Dragoons, and made as good as new at the magical coach-yard of Crichton.* With Walter and John we were now ten in number, while the Thane's three kilted gillies and John of Sky, whom the MIGHTY MINSTREL had kindly sent to enliven our festivities, made precisely the devil's dozen.

"Haud mora,” there was no delay. The shandrydan and dogcart were emptied in a trice, and we ourselves were particularly anxious to see "The Contributors' Box" safely stowed away among our own furniture. Busy as we all were, each with his own concerns, none of us could help smiling at the Ettrick Shepherd, who immediately, on entering the Tent, had got astride on a pretty corpulent cask of whisky, and was filling a jug on which he had instinctively laid his hands. "It's no canny to sleep here a' nicht for fear of the fairies without saining ourselves, so we'll e'en pit round the jug, and pour out a drappoch to King Lu!" In a short time the Tent was in fair array-while Odoherty proposed that we should see that our pieces were all in good order, and to ascertain their comparative excellence, and the skill of the owners, that we should fire at a mark. We accordingly assembled our forces for that purpose.

By some accident or other which will probably never be explained, a copy of the last part of the Transactions of the Royal Society was found lying in the tent. Whether Wastle had brought it in his dog-cart- -but the thing is inexplicable, so let it pass. The volume was opened by chance somewhere about the middle, and set up at forty yards' distance to be fired at by the contributors. The following scale will show the result of the trial.

Ritchie has been repeatedly mentioned in Wilson's writings. The caddies are a race peculiar to Edinburgh, coming from the wilds of Lochaber and Braemar, whence the stock is re-inforced. They are dying out, but, even as late as twenty years ago, were the only trusted and recognized message-bearers in Auld Reekie, knowing every man, woman, and child there,— every street, lane, and close,--every shop, house, and staircase. Mackay, above mentioned, was a real personage, and mightily elevated of course, by this notice in Blackwood. In "Peter's Letters," Lockhart has done full justice to the caddies.-M.

John of Sky was a tall and stalwart bag-piper, who formed one of Scott's household at Abbotsford. His name was John Bruce, and attired in full Highland costume. he used to play on the pipes, stalking up and down in front of the house, when Scott gave a set dinner, coming in at the close, to receive a quaigh (or Celtic wooden drinking vessel) of Glenlivet, from Scott's hand. Saluting the company, he would drink off the contents, about a quarter-pint of strong raw spirits, at a gulp, without moving a muscle of his face, and resume his out-of-door pibrochs, which he continued until after twilight had set in.-M.

Blessing ourselves.-Dr. Jamieson.

As drappie means a little drop, it is probable that the Shepherd's drappoch has a like signification.-M.

1819.]

· SNORING!

7

Trial on the 11th at 40 yards' distance, all shooting with No. 4, at an expanded volume of the Transactions of the Royal Society.

Wadding. Shot. Grains put in. Leaves pierced.

Oz.

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A very remarkable phenomenon, and one well worthy the attention of the Royal Society, was observed on this occasion. While the left hand page, 372, was riddled to pieces, the right hand page did not exhibit a single shot. The cause of this, we who are no philosophers are not able to explain; but such is the fact; and on the page thus miraculously unhurt, were written the following words, "an Essay on the Scope and Tendency of the Philosophical Writings of Lord Bacon, by Macvey Napier, Esq." Such impenetrable stuff was it proved to be.*

By this time it had become rather darkish, and John of the Isles began playing so sleepy an air, that it reminded us of the house of rest. In about an hour we were all fourteen stretched upon our backs with our feet meeting, in the true campaign fashion, in the centre of the tent. The last observation that was uttered came from Dr. Morris, who lamented much that Kempferhausen had not arrived, as the moon would soon rise, and the young poet might have had an opportunity of addressing a sonnet to her in High Dutch. Wastle indistinctly muttered something in reply, for the hand of Morpheus was passing over his mouth. For our own part, we were unable to close an eye, thinking of the Magazine, for, when we left Edinburgh, only two half-sheets had gone to press, and Mr. Blackwood looked unutterable things.

While considering what ought to be the opening article, such a noise arose as might have passed in America, for a frog concert. What a snore! not one of the fourteen noses, Lowland or Highland, Scotch, Irish, or Welsh, lay idle. The sum total was tremendous. By degrees our ears got somewhat accustomed to the sound, and we could distinguish the characteristic snore of every sleeper. Above all the menial and plebeian rhoncus rose the clear silver-nosed trumpet of Tickler, playing its bold reveillé-there was heard the equable, but not monotonous, and most gentlemanly snore of Wastle

* Macvey Napier, who edited the Encyclopedia Britannica, and succeeded Jeffrey as conductor of the Edinburgh Review, in 1829, was also one of the principal clerks of the Scottish Court of Session, and Professor of Conveyancing in Edinburgh University. He had perpetrated an article on Lord Bacon, which the Blackwood writers greatly ridiculed. He was a very decided Whig--which may account for these Tory sneers. Macvey latterly occupied the house 39 North Castle-street, Edinburgh, in which Scott lived, from 1798 to July, 1826, and died in 1847.-M.

-Dr. Morris snored in such a manner as he did mock himself, and ever and anon ceased, as if he were listening, and then after a little uncertain sniffling as if tuning his instrument to concert-pitch, broke out again into full possession of his powers-Odoherty betrayed a good deal of the nasal brogue of his country, for sleeping or waking the Adjutant is a true Milesian, snoring by fits and starts in a hurried and impassioned manner like a man dreaming of Feuntes D'Onore or Donnybrook Fair*-while, from the breast, neck, shoulders, head and nose of the Ettrick Shepherd came a deep, hollow, gruntinggrowl, like that of the royal tiger, so admirably described by Lady H. in the last number of the Literary and Scientific Journal. When this had lasted for a couple of hours, sometimes one performer leading the band, and sometimes another, we felt that the drum of our ear could bear it no longer-so we picked our way out of the tent over limbs of Celt and Saxon, and retired from the concert-room, to hear the music "by distance made more sweet." Nearly half a mile off, we heard the

"Solemn hum,

Voice of the desert never dumb,"

and through its multitudinous murmur were distinctly audible the majestic base of the author of the above lines, and the pure tenor of Tickler-the first resembling a subterranean grumble, and the latter striking on the ear like the sound of iron against rock in a frost. During all this time, the moon was sitting in Heaven, "apparent queen," not with a stoical indifference, as Mr. Southey reports of her on the night after Prince Madoc had defeated the Mexicans, but evidently much pleased with the scene below her-both with what she saw and what she heard. We shortly after returned to the Tent; and "joining at last the general troop of sleep," we no doubt added one instrumental performer more to the grand chorus of this Musical Festival.

We do not pretend to conceal the fact, that we felt ourselves carried in a dream to the back shop, the sanctum sanctorum of No. 17 Prince's Street; and that we never thought Mr. Blackwood so beautiful as in that vision. But just as he had given us a proof to correct, it seemed as if the roof had fallen in and crushed us in the ruins. We awoke—and found that Odoherty had fired the morninggun, as a signal. We buckled on our armor in less than no time, and the adjutant was pleased to say, that he had never seen men sharper at an alarm through the whole course of the Peninsular war. "No fear lest breakfast cool"-for in ten minutes each man had

* "Who e'er has the luck to see Donnybrook Fair,

An Irishman all in his glory is there,

With his sprig of shillelah and shamrock so green."-M.

1819.]

RETROSPECTION.

9

housed half a pound at least of mutton-ham, and a dash of the dew. Early as the hour was, there was nothing like squeamishness-and it must not be omitted, that each Contributor, like a good soldier and good citizen, after an appropriate address by Odoherty, emptied his quech to the health of the Prince Regent.

*

Dr. Morris, Wastle, and Odoherty, each attended by a Highland guide, provided for them, as we have said, by the munificence of the Thane, took their departure to the mountains; the Dr. ascending the pass of the Geonly Water, with a view to the ground towards the head of Glen Tilt,—Wastle taking up the glen of the source of the Dee, and the Adjutant meditating a cast or two with our own favorite bitch, over the ground behind Mar-Lodge. Tickler, who had never seen a red Deer, went to the forest with John of the Isles. and small Donald Dhu of Invercauld, having, ere he parted, fixed his bayonet at the mouth of the tent. The Ettrick Shepherd, apparently discouraged by his last night's discomfiture in shooting at the Transactions, accompanied Walter Ritchie to the Dee, to try for a salmon; while we ourselves, along with John Mackay, remained at home in the tent, to overhaul the "Contributors' Box," and if necessary, to write a leading article.

Our friends were now all gone, and we were left alone in the silence of the morning. Many years had elapsed, since our health had permitted us to be among the mountains, though in our youth, we could have "trodden the bent," with the best man in Scotland. Our heart leapt within us, as we gazed on the sea of mountains, emerging from the soft mists in which they had been shrouded during the night. The wide and sunny silence was like the bright atmosphere of former days. And when the Eagle sailed away on his broad vans, from that magnificent cliff above the Linn of Dee, we recollected our own strength, which we once thought nothing could have tamed and which used to carry us, as on wings, unwearied and exulting, over heights that we could now travel only in the dream of fancy. Here a twinge of the rheumatism made us sensibly feel the truth of these reflections, and we hobbled into our tent with a sigh; but the comfortable arrangement of the interior, and above all the jolly cask of whisky, soon awakened us to a sense of the extreme folly of repining retrospection, and we could not help thinking, that the Editor in his camp, had greatly the advantage over his Contributors, now out in all directions on foraging parties.†

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George. Prince of Wales. was Regent, from February, 1811, (when the confirmed madness of George lil., was indisputable). until January, 1820, when he became King, by succession.--M. † in Peter's Letters to his Kinsfolk, we, the Editor are spoken of as an obscure man, a martyr to rheumatism. and one who only draws plans which others execute. That we are not so luminous a body as Dr. Morris. we admit-and that we are a martyr to rheumatisın. is unfortunately true, in spite of the well-known skill of our townsman, Dr. Balfour-but we beg leave to contradict the illustrious Physician of Aberystwith on the last charge. We both plan and execute-and flatter ourselves that there is a something in our articles that betrays the hand 1*

On opening the Box, it was found to be rich in various matter— and we amused ourselves for a couple of hours with an excellent article on the National Monument-one on Bait-Fishing-and another " on the Mechanism of the Foot and Leg.”* While reading the last, we heard the noise of wings, and going to the mouth of the tent, saw a numerous pack of grouse sit down close to the little spring already mentioned. We are no poachers—but it must not be expected that a martyr to rheumatism is to be bound by the same rules with sportsmen who have the free use of their limbs. We accordingly took up Hogg's double barrel, and let fly at the pack as they were all sitting together in a snug family-party-and before they could recover from their confusion, we repeated the salutation. John Mackay went leisurely forward-and returned with five brace and a half of as fine young birds as might be looked at—and the old cock. We maintain that no man is entitled to form an opinion of our conduct in this, who has not suffered under confirmed rheumatism for ten years at least, or, which is as well, under the gout for five.†

John Mackay had scarcely got the birds hung up by the legs, when we were considerably alarmed by loud shouts or yells from the river side, which we knew to be from the Shepherd-and running down as expeditiously as our knee would permit, we found that the Bard had hooked a Fish. There was he capering along the somewhat rugged banks of the Dee, with his hair on end, and his eyes sticking out of his head, holding the butt-end of his rod with both hands in perfect desperation.

"Fit statue for the court of fear !"

Walter Ritchie ever and anon "his soul-subduing voice applied” close to his ear, instructing him how to act in this unexpected emergency; and above all things, imploring him to get the better of his fright! Unluckily the Shepherd's reel-line was too short, so, to prevent the salmon from running it out, he was under the necessity of following him up close at the heels. At every plunge the fish

of the Editor. Dr. Morris, who had never seen us when he published his "Letters," has since apologised to us in the handsomest manner, both for his unfounded charge of obscurity and incapacity, but we wish also that the world should know it. We hear that several other persons, equally opaque as ourselves, have taken it grievously to heart, that the Doctor has overlooked them altogether, and attempt to carry their heads very high when his name is mentioned. Such persons may be said to belong to the High School.-See Gray's Elegy, "And leave the world to darkness and to me."-C. N.

* These articles actually did appear in the current No. of Blackwood. The first strongly urged that the suggested National Monument on Calton Hill, should consist of a restoration of the Parthenon. The second, professedly written by one Peter McFinn, was a graphic account of a fishing excursion in Dumfrieshire, with remarks on bait-fishing. The third was a very amusing review of Dr. John Cross's book On the Mechanism and Motions of the Human Leg and Foot.-M.

† We have been so long out of the sporting world that we scarcely know what the public feeling is on subjects of this kind. We remember an old gentleman long ago, when we had a shooting box in Northamptonshire, who always shot hares sitting, on the principle that it was more difficult to shoot them in that situation! We despise all such sophistry.-C. N.

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