"He spurr'd to the foot of the high Castle rock,
And to the gay Gordon he gallantly spoke,

Let Mons Meg and her Maidens three volleys gar flee,
For the love o' the bonnet o' Bonny Dundee."

Come, perge.

NORTH (sings.)

"The Gordon he asks of him whither he goes→→→
Wheresoe'er shall guide me the Sprite of Montrose,
Your grace in short space shall hear tidings of me,
Or that low lies the bonnet of Bonny Dundee."

'Tis with you, sir.

TICKLER (sings.)

"The kettledrums clash'd, and the trumpets were blown,
He waved his proud arm, and the horsemen rode on,
Till o'er Ravelstone crags and on Clermiston lee,

Died away the wild war-note o' Jeffrey the wee!"

NORTH.

This boy will be the death of me. Oh! hoh hoh!

TICKLER.

Is Christopher gone?-is the great North no more?
"Oh! when the volleying Weaver play'd
Against the bloody Depute's blade,
Why was not I beside him laid?
Enough-he fell in glory's rank.

Enough he died with conquering Frank."

NORTH.

No subject is too sacred for your ridicule. Your spirit is intensely, incurably, and irredeemably diabolical. But I forget-ye are but a Crosscauseway soldier-ye never saw a real battle

Me! Lord forbid !

TICKLER.

NORTH.

Old as ye are, and laugh as you may, I think you are like to see such things ere you die. Sir, I have seen them. Godlike in form and attitude, and almost in intellect-clear-sighted, rational, contemplative, eloquentvoluptuous, courteous, gentle, brave, upright, gallant, romantic-a prince among mortal things, but a little lower than the angels-once let his blood boil beneath the hot breath of trumpets, and Man is but the fiercest of the feræ.

NORTH.

War is the game, sir-life, honour, glory, are a grand stake. The air above is mad, and the earth staggers and reels, when the old original savage of the woods bursts splendidly horrible from amidst the snapt fetters of custom, and the pretty flimsy veils and mantlings of your civilisation are beat and trodden into mud and Lethe, and the beautiful wild-beast burns and pants for brotherly blood.

TICKLER.

"La Victoire marchera au pas de charge! L'aigle et les couleurs nationaux voleront du clocher en clocher jusqu'aux tours de Notre Dame !"

NORTH.

You have repeated one of the finest sentences that ever came from the lips or the pen of the greatest orator of modern ages-Napoleon Bonaparte! What a flame of glory kindled him on such occasions-" Quaranto siècles vous regardent du haut de ces Pyramides !"-" Qu'il soit dit

chacun-Il etoit dans cette grande bataille sous les murs de Moscow!" I wonder at nothing that these men did.

TICKLER.

"Up, Guards, and at them"-served the turn.

NORTH.

Yes, truly-what a fine story is that Sir Walter tells us in some of his notes about the grim old Douglas at Ancrum Moor! He was just about to charge, when a heron sprung up between and the English van. "Aha!" he cried, "would to God my gude grey hawk were here, that we might a’ yoke thegither!”

TICKLER.

Well said, old Bell-the-Cat!-Ay, ay, 'tis that kind of allocutio that will always do the trick with us. None of your flowers of flummery here!

NORTH.

I trust our own old Plain Speaker has a campaign or two in him yet.

TICKLER.

Ay, barring accidents, a round dozen of them, if need be. He had been pulled down a little with the grippe when I saw him first; but before I left town, his cheeks had plumped out again, and he looked fit for any thing. His eye has lost nothing of its eagle brightness; he walks to this hour as straight as a ramrod; and his leg is as perfect as it could have been at thirty. He is to the fore yet, thank God-heart, soul, bone, and bloodbut if it were otherwise, we have pretty cards in the pack.

NORTH.

Combermere-Hill-Kemp-all fine fellows, and in full vigour.

TICKLER.

Ay, and Murray and Hardinge, either of them well worth your three.

NORTH.

What a beautiful picture of the old cavalier is Sir George Murray. I know nothing like it in that style.

TICKLER.

Nor I, and Pickersgill's portrait, in this year's exhibition, does him as much justice, by Jupiter, as either Lawrence, or Vandyke, or Velasquez could have done. But somehow, Sir George appears to me to carry a certain tinge of languor about him-his eye is so gentle, calm, melancholy, pensive-I should doubt of there being quite enough stimulus.

NORTH.

No fears, the first "clarion-clarion wild and shrill" would send the blood tumbling through him like another Garry. We have always had Platoffs and Bluchers among us enow, I warrant ye-but we have sometimes felt the want of a Gneisenau-and this soft-eyed hero appears to stand second to Wellington in the opinion of most of his compeers.

TICKLER.

He is a cock of the right feather to be sure, and speaks, by the by, as well as if he had never had another trade.

NORTH.

Peradventure better.

TICKLER.

However I am no judge of such concerns, of course-but I strongly suspect if there were a war either at home or abroad, the army would expect to see Hardinge as far forward as any body but the Duke.

NORTH.

We shall have work for Murray here among ourselves. Scotland will look to him in the first instance.

"There are hills beyond Pentland and streams beyond Forth,
If there's lords in the Lowlands there's chiefs in the North.
There are wild Dunniewassels three thousand times three,
Will cry, Hoich! for the bonnet of bonny Dundee !'"
What a grand ballad that is! It haunts me like a spirit.

NORTH.

You heard Sir Henry Hardinge too?

TICKLER.

Several times; but never a set speech. He may not, perhaps, be exactly an orator, which, among other and better things, Nature certainly meant Murray to be; but he has complete command of clear, terse, nervous language-is quick as lightning at retort-has a full, masculine, sonorous voice-considerable dignity of action, too-and, above all, carries with him such an air of upright, manly single-mindedness, high noble feeling, and unaffected modesty, that, judging from the little I saw, I am not sure if any body in the House produces altogether a more powerful effect. His defence of Philpotts was a first-rate thing, and did that job as well as Cicero could have come up to.

any

NORTH.

Why, that could not have been a difficult job-for the Bishop's justification of facts was clear as day. Sir Henry lost an arm, didn't he, at Waterloo ?

TICKLER,

I don't know where it happened, but that, you know, is a mutilation which takes grace from no man. He is the perfect model of a soldier-a short, compact, firm, handsome figure, all buttoned up to the chin in blue and black, and a countenance which, though without the statuesque elegance of Bonaparte's, reminded me more of that in the extraordinary mass of brow, the large, deep-cut, grey, fiery eye, the solid contour of the jaw, the fall of the hair, and the whole style of complexion, than any other head I remember to have met with. This is one of our very first cards. If things go well, he must be a Secretary of State in the next Cabinet-if darkly, he must come down and raise the standard in Yorkshire-for that, I believe, is his calfcountry.

NORTH.

A fine fellow you describe. Come, the bowl's near out-God save the King, and let's to bed.

TICKLER.

God save the King, say ye? Well, I'll try my hand.

AIR-National Anthem.

NORTH.

Not bad-Come, Timotheus, 'tis well on to one o'clock, and this is a

decent house, and we must e'en turn in.

Tip me just one touch of the fiddle ere we go-you have never yet even attempted to give me a notion of this murderous Paganini.

TICKLER.

To hear is to obey. The violin is behind you there, in the corner.
GRAND OVERTURE-(with the Pizzicato Movement.)

SONATA MAESTOSA SENTIMENTALE.

NORTH.

Wonderful, incredible, sublime !-Worth twenty uxorcides!

TICKLER.

Now for a stave of the old order, with an accompaniment on the fourth string. Fill my glass with brandy-Here's to Douglas Cheape, George Joseph Bell, George Brodie, and all good fellows-Tory, Whig, and Radical! Attend (sings.)

Till he of the stuff,

In a pair of old hose,

Had put by Quantum Suff.

As we may suppose.

When halt and give o'er,
Let the single-roll drop,
Took the plate frae the door,
And shut up the shop.

After which, at full leisure,
With cool cutting digs,
He consulted his pleasure
In whanging at Whigs,

Whom considering as puts
Ever bent on what's ill,
He so poked in the guts
With the point of his quill,

That their whole generation,
With trembling and fear,
And most rueful vexation,
Eyed this Volunteer,

Where tall as a Steeple,
And thin as a Shadow,
He towered o'er the people
On the Links or The Meadow.

Yet among Tory lads

Of the God-fearing breed,
Though as grey as their dads,
He was welcome indeed;

Still maund'ring and hav'ring
And refreshing the body
At Ambrose's Tavern
With tumblers o' toddy ;

Frae June to December,
Frae December to June,
A more regular Member
Was not in the toun;

For his powers peristaltic
Were sure as a gun,
And though full as the Baltic,
He headach had none.

This respectable course
Did our Elder pursue,
Till the Raffs rose in force
In the year thirty-two;

When, just after the King

And his innocent Queen,
I'm assured the next thing

For their damn'd Guillotine