THE SCENE CHANGES.

25

wi' heigh feturs '-white hair-ruddy cheeks-paircin eennaturally eloquent-fu' o' anecdote o' the olden time-independent in sowl, body, and estate,-geyan proud—a wee madrather deafish on the side of his head that happens to be neist a ninny-He, Mem, is entitled by nature and art to hae a mainner, and an extraordinar mainner sometimes it is2

Mrs Gentle. I think Mr Tickler is about to shake off his drowsiness.

Tickler. Has that lazy fellow of a coachman not got all his parcels and passengers collected yet? Is he never going to set off? Ay, there we go at last. This Portobello, Mrs Gentle, is really a wonderful place. That building reminds me of the Edinburgh Post-Office.

Shepherd. We're in Embro', sir, we're in Embro', and you've been snorin like a bittern or a frog in Tarras Moss.

Tickler. Ladies-can I hope ever to be pardoned for having fallen asleep in such presence? Yet, could I think that the guilt of sleep had been aggravated by being habit and repute a snorer,-suicide alone could

Mrs Gentle. During your slumber, sir, you drew your breath as softly as a sleeping child.

Tickler. My offence, then, is not inexpiable.

Shepherd. I am muckle obliged to you, sir, for sleepin—and I drew up the window on your side, that you michtna catch cauld; for, sir, though you draw your breath as saftly as a sleepin child, you hae nae notion how wide open you haud You'll do the same for me another time. your mouth.

[The coach stops, and the SHEPHERD hands out Miss GENTLE. -MR TICKLER gallantly performing the same office to the Lady Mother.

Bronte. Bow, wow, wow-bow, wow, wow. [Scene closes.

Scene III.-Mr Ambrose's Hotel, Picardy Place-Pitt Parlour.

MR NORTH lying on a sofa, and MR AMBROSE fanning him with a Peacock's Tail.

North. These window-ventilators, Mr Ambrose, are indeed admirable contrivances, and I must get them adopted at the Lodge. No wind that blows suits this room so well as the south-east. Do you think I might venture on another water

1 Feturs-features.

2 Mr Robert Sym is here painted to the life.

26

NORTH SOLILOQUISING.

ice before dinner? The pine-apple we shall reserve. Thank you, Ambrose that fan almost makes me melancholy. Demetrius was truly a splendid-a gorgeous-a glorious bird-and methinks I see him now affronting Phoebus with his thousand lidless eyes intensely bright within the emerald haze by which they were all encircled and overshadowed. Poor, dear, good old Lady Diana Le Fleming1 gave him to me, that parricide might not be perpetrated in the Rydal woods. For the Prince had rebelled against the King his father, and driven old Poliorcetes into the gloom of the forest. There, in some remote glade, accompanied in his dethroned exile but by one single Sultana, would he dare, as the echo of his ungrateful heir-apparent's triumphant cry was faint among the ancient oaks, to unfurl that Tail, Mr Ambrose, glorious even in the gloom, till, sick of tenderness, his pensive paramour stooped her crested head, and pressed her bosom to the mossy greensward before her enamoured lord, who, had he been more of a philosopher than I fear he was, would have been happy in the thought of "All for Love, or the World well Lost." No spectator there of such caresses but the wild-bee, too busy amidst the sylvan blooms to behold even the birds of Junoor the squirrel leaping among the mossy branches of that endless canopy-or the lovely adder trailing his burnished undulations along the forest flowers-or snow-white coney all intent on his own loves, the happy father he of monthly families all the year long, retiring at the far-off rustle of footstep into his old hereditary palace, beneath the roots of elm or ash five centuries old! Solemn woods they were indeed, my good Ambrose, in those days-but oh! that the axe should ever be laid to the root of the Bright, the Beautiful, the Bold, the Free, the Great, the Young or the Old! Let hurricanes level lanes through forests, as plagues do through the families of men, for Nature may work at will with her own elements among her own creations, but why must man for ever destroy? nor, child of a day, fear to murder the Tree that stands green yet gloomy in its strength, beside the mouldering mausoleum it has for ages overshadowed, and that is now but a heap of dust and ashes? Hark! the timepiece sweetly strikes, as

1 A daughter of the Earl of Suffolk: married to Sir Michael Le Fleming of Rydal Hall, Westmoreland. Rydal Mount, for so long the residence of Wordsworth, is a portion of this estate.

* Demetrius, surnamed Poliorcetes, or the Besieger, was defeated, and kept in confinement, by his son-in-law Seleucus.

with a silver bell, the hour of five!-Cease your fanning, mine host most worthy-and let the dinner appear-for ere a man, with moderate haste, might count a hundred, Tickler and the Shepherd will be in the presence. Ay, God bless his honest soul, there is my dear James's laugh in the lobby. (Enter SHEPHERD and TICKLER and BRONTE.) Shepherd. Here I am, sir, gloriously hungry. My stamach, Mr North, as weel's my heart, 's in the richt place. I'm nae glutton-nae gormandeezer—but a man o' a gude—a great appeteet—and for the next half-hour I shall be as perfectly happy as ony man in a' Scotland.

Tickler. Take a few biscuits, James, till

Shepherd. Biskits! I could crunch the haill tot o' them like sae mony wafers. Rax me ower ane o' thae cabin-biskits o' a man-o'-war-there-smash into flinders flees it at ae stroke o' my elbow-but here comes the ROOND!

North. Mr Ambrose, I ordered a cold dinner

Shepherd. A cauld denner! Wha the deevil in his seven senses wad condescend to sit doun till a cauld denner! Hail, Hotch-potch! What a Cut o' Sawmon! That maun hae been a noble fish! Come forrit, my wee chiel, wi' the chickens, and you bigger callant, wi' the tongue and ham. Tak tent, ye auld dominee, and no scale the sass o' the sweet-breads! Curry's a gran' thing, geyan late on in a denner, when the edge o' the appeteet's a wee turned, and you're rather beginnin to be stawed.1 Mr Awmrose, I'll thank ye to lend me a pockyhaundkershief, for I've forgotten mine in my wallise, and my mouth's waterin. There, Mr North, there-set in his fit-stule aneath the table. I ca' this, sir, a tastefu' and judicious denner for three. Whisht, sirs. "God bless us in these mercies, and make us truly thankful. Amen!"

Tickler. Hodge-podge, Hogg?

Shepherd. Only three ladlefu's.-Mair pease. Dip deeper. -That's it.

North. Boiling broth, with the thermometer at eighty! Shepherd. I carena if the fermometer war at aught hunder and aughty. I'll eat het hotch-potch against Mosshy Shaubert' -only I'll no gae intil the oven-neither will I eat arsenick or phosphorus.

1 Stawed-satiated.

2 A fire-eater of those days. He could handle, it is said, red-hot iron, and enter with impunity an oven in which beef-steaks were cooking.

28

BATHS. THE AGE REVIEWED.

North. I should like, James, to introduce my friend Dr Dodds to M. Chabert.

Shepherd. Wha's he?

North. The ingenious gentleman who was packed in ice below an avalanche in Switzerland for some century and a half, and who, on being dug out and restored to animation before a rousing wood-fire, merely complained of a slight numbness in his knees, and a tingling at the points of his fingers.1

Shepherd. Oh, man! hoo he must hae enjoyed the first het denner! I think I see him ower his first jug o' het toddy. They tell me he has gotten himsel married-has he ony family?

Tickler. Mr Hogg, a glass of wine?

Shepherd. No the noo. I am for some mair o' the hotchpotch. Mr Awmrose, gie me a deeper ashet.-I wunner to see ye, Mr North, fiddle-faddlin awa at cauld lamb and mint sass. -I just perfectly abhor mint sass.

North. My dear James, you must have had the shower-bath to-day.

Shepherd. Confound your shower-baths, and your vapourbaths, and your slipper-baths, and your marble-coffin-baths, and your Bath-baths-"Give me," as my ingenious freen, the author o' the Cigar and Life after Dark, spiritedly says, “give me the broad bosom of the blue sea, with five fathom of water beneath me;" the Firth o' Forth to frisk in, sir-the lips o' the wide mouth o' the German Ocean to play with-where, as Tennant says,

"Breaks the long wave that at the Pole began."

Noo, Mr Tickler, my hotch-potch is dune, and I'll drink a pint o' porter wi' you frae the tap.

[MR AMBROSE places the pewter. North. The Cigar, James, and Every Night Book, or Life after Dark, are extremely clever and amusing. Who ?? Shepherd. The same. He's a wutty fallow. I wush he was here.

North. Is the Age Reviewed, James, any shakes of a satire?

1 A story to this effect was current at the time.

2 The American editor states that the name of the author of these books was William Clarke.

THE KNOUT.-MAY-FAIR.

29

Shepherd. Some o' the belly, sir. I prefer the belly o' a

sawmon and the back o' a cod. North. I gave you the Age James. Eh?

What's your wull?
Reviewed yestreen to peruse,

Shepherd. He's a sumph, the author. He leads a body in the preface to expeck that he's gaun to be personal, and malevolent, and rancorous, and a' that; and instead o' that, he's only stupit.

Tickler. I gave the drivel a glance-wretched stuff. The dolt is not aware that "The Age" goes farther back in time than about the year 1812, or extends in space beyond London and suburbs.

Shepherd. He might as weel hae ca'd a drill o' twa-three tailors and weavers-makin into volunteers-a review o' the British army. It's curious how many sumphs become satirists. North. What a rare faculty 'tis, James, cutting-up.

Shepherd. Ye may say that, wi' a pig's tail in your cheek, Mr North ; for, savin and exceppin your ain single sel, there's no a man noo, either in the Fleet or the Army, or the Church, or the Courts o' Law, or the Parliament, that knows how to hawnle a cat-o'-nine-tails.

North. My dear Shepherd, you forget-my instrument is the

KNOUT.

Shepherd. What maist surprises and pleases me, sir, is that your richt hand never forgets its cunnin. You'll maybe no tak your KNOUT intil't for a year at a time; and the next culprit that has his head tied ower a post, howps your haun 'ill be weak or ackward; but, my faith, he sune kens better; for at every stripe o' the inevitable and inexorable whang, the skin flipes aff frae nape to hurdies-and the Cockney confesses that Christopher North is still, septuagenarian though he be, the First Leevin Satirist o' the age. I wud like to see you, sir, by way o' vareeity, pented by John Watson Gordon, in the character o' Apollo flayin Marsyas.-Noo for the Roond. Thank ye, Mr Tickler- -some udder.-Awmrose, Dickson's mustard. Tickler. May-Fair,1 North, is clever.

North. Very much so. But I do not fancy light-hittingand showy sparring of that sort. Give me a desperate lunge at the kidneys.

Tickler. The author is not a man of fashion—although he 1 May-Fair, in Four Cantos. By W. H. AINSWORTH. London, 1827.