Was the neckbone to smite But, his years by that time Not a word exclamavit And calmly submitting, Furnished ocular nuts, And moreover auricular, But left every good Tory By the side of a bowl In sæcla sæclorum, Every night of the week, And a pipe in his cheek! CHORUS. And a goblet before him, AMEN! Well, now, I'm wound up for once. Good landlord, you may desire your old woman up stairs, like Miladi Macbeth to ring upon the bell,. When that my drink is ready. NORTH. That's true-I had forgot the egg-wine; and, by the by, 'tis a pity I forgot to order Gurney this evening, for old Ebony is constantly bothering me about that confounded Monthly of his, and half his talk for the last three days might be summed up in the words of your fat favourite of Bilboa— "HI LIBELLI, [Curtain drops. Edinburgh: Printed by Ballantyne & Co. Paul's Work, Canongate. BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE. No. CLXXXVI. OCTOBER, 1831. Contents. PASSAGES FROM THE DIARY OF A LATE PHYSICIAN. CHAP, XII. Mother and Son, A Word with the Reader at Parting, ON PARLIAMENTARY REFORM AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. No. X. WHAT IS THE BILL NOW? EXTRACTS FROM AN UNSEASONABLE STORY. CHAP. I.-Orange Processions, Reasons and Representations, CHAP. III.-Enquiry, Justice, and Expediency, MOORE'S LORD EDWARD FITZGERALD, THE LUNATIC'S COMPLAINT. BY DELTA, THE MAGIC MIRROR. BY THE ETTRICK SHEPHERD, IGNORAMUS ON THE FINE ARTS. No. III.-HOGARTH, BEWICK, AND GREEN, VOL. XXX. 565 599 600 616 623 627 631 616 650 655 669 681 697 699 701 702 EDINBURGH: WILLIAM BLACKWOOD, NO. 45, GEORGE STREET, EDINBURGH; AND T. CADELL, STRAND, LONDON. To whom Communications (post paid) may be addressed. SOLD ALSO BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS OF THE UNITED KINGDOM, Mother and Son-AWord with the Reader at Parling, MOTHER AND SON. This is the last, and--it may be considered-most mournful extract Mr Beauchamp came to the full refrom my Diary. It appears to me a ceipt of a fortune of two or three thoutouching and terrible disclosure of sanda-year, which, though hereditary, the misery, disgrace, and ruin con- was at his absolute disposal-about sequent on GAMBLING. Not that I the period of his return from those imagine it possible, even by the most continental peregrinations which are moving exhibition, to soften the judged essential to complete an Engmore than nether-millstone hardness lish gentleman's education. Exterof a gamester's heart, or enable a nal circumstances seemed to combine voluntary victim to break from the in his favour. Happiness and honour meshes in which he has suffered in life were ensured him, at the cost himself to be entangled ;-but the of very moderate exertions on his lamentable cries ascending from this own part, and those requisite, not to pit of horror, may scare off those originate, or continue his coursewho are thoughtlessly approaching but only to guide it. No one was its brink. The moral of the following better apprized than himself, of the events may be gathered up into a precise position he occupied in life: word or two :-Oh! be wise, and be yet the apparent immunity from the wise in time! cares and anxieties of life, which I took more than ordinary pains to seemed irrevocably secured to him, acquaint myself with the transac- instead of producing its natural eftions which are hereafter specified; fect on a well-ordered mind, of stiand some of the means I adopted mulating it to honourable action, led are occasionally mentioned, as I go to widely different, most melancholy, on with the narrative. It may be as but by no means unusual results-a well to state, that the events detail- prostitution of his energies and oped, are assigned a date which barely portunities to the service of fashioncounts within the present century. able dissipation. The restraints to I have reason, nevertheless, to know, which, during a long minority, he that, at least, one of the guilty agents had been subjected by his admistill survives to pollute the earth rable mother, who nursed his fortune with his presence; and if that indi- as sedulously, but more successfully, vidual should presume to gainsay than she cultivated his mind and any portion of the following narra- morals--served, alas ! little other tive, his impotent efforts will meet purpose than to whet his appetite with the disdain they merit. for the pleasurable pursuits to which VOL. XXX, CLXXXVI. 20 some a he considered himself entitled, and Mrs Beauchamp; and she thought from which he had been so long and it impossible that her son could find unnecessarily debarred. All these a fitter companion to the continent. forbidden fruits clustered before On young Beauchamp's return to him in tempting, but unhallowed England, the first thing he did was splendour, the instant that Oxford to dispatch his obsequious tutor into threw open its portals to receive the country, to trumpet his pupil's him. He found there many spirits praises to his mother, and apprize as ardent and dissatisfied with past her of his coming. The good old restraints as himself. - The princi- lady was in ecstasies at the glowing pal features of his character were colours in which her son's virtues Hexibility and credulity; and his were painted by Eccles ;-such unileading propensity-one that, like form moderation and prudence, the wrath of Achilles, drew after it amidst the seductive scenes of the innumerable sorrows-the love of continent; such shining candour; play. such noble liberality !- In the fulness The first false step he made, was of her heart, Mrs Beauchamp promian unfortunate selection of a tutor; sed the tutor, who was educated for a man of agreeable and compliant the church, the next presentation to manners, but utterly worthless in a living which was expected very point of moral character; one who shortly to fall vacant;-as had impoverished himself, when first a small return for the invaluable serat College, by gaming, but who, ha- vices he had rendered her son!” ving learned “ wisdom,” was now a It was a memorable day when subtle and cautious gamester. He young Beauchamp; arrived at the was one of a set of notorious pluckers, Hall in shire, stood suddenamong whom, shameful to relate, ly before his transported mother, in were found several young men of all the pride of person, and of apparank; and whose business it was to rent accomplishments. He was inseek out freshmen for their dupes. deed a fine young fellow to look at. Eccles-the name I shall give the His well-cast features beamed with tutor--was an able mathematician; an expression of frankness and geneand that was the only thing that rosity; and his manners were exquiBeauchamp looked to in selecting sitely tempered with cordiality and him. Beauchamp got regularly in- elegance. He had brushed the bloom troduced to the set to which his tutor off continental flowers in passing, belonged; but his mother's lively and caught their glow and perfume. and incessant surveillance put it out It was several minutes before he of his power to embarrass himself could disengage himself from the by serious losses. He was long embraces of his mother, who laughenough, however, apprenticed to ed and wept by turns, and uttered guilt, to form the habits and disposi- the most passionate exclamations of tion of a gamester. The cunning joy and affection. « Oh, that your Eccles, when anxiously interrogated poor old father could see you !” she by Mrs Beauchamp about her son's sobbed, and almost cried herself into general conduct, gave his pupil a hysterics. Young Beauchamp was Hourishing character, both for moral deeply moved with this display of excellence and literary attainments, parental tenderness. He saw and and acquitted him of any tendency felt that his mother's whole soul to the vices usually prevalent at was bound up with his own; and, College. And all this, when Eccles with the rapid resolutions of youth, knew that he had seen, but a few he had in five minutes changed the weeks before, among his pupil's whole course and scope of his life papers, copies of long bills, accepted --renounced the pleasures of Lonpayable on his reaching twenty-one don, and resolved to come and set -to the tune of L.1500 ; and, further, tle on his estates in the country, that he, the tutor himself, was the live under the proud and fond eye holder of one of these acceptances, of his mother, and, in a word, tread which ensured him L.500 for the in the steps of his father. He felt L.300 he had kindly furnished for his suddenly imbued with the spirit of pupil! His demure and plausible the good old English country gentleair quite took with the unsuspicious man, and resolved to live the life of . 1 |
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