we say, in the pouch of your true Curler-no, nor yet pocket-pistol. His inside has a lining that will last till the sun sinks-and his stomach, in sympathy with his heart, would scorn even a mouthful chance-offered at the tee. He hungers and thirsts but for glory; for the character of his parish is at stake, and each roaring rink is alive with man's most eager passions. But all the while his appetite is progressing, though unconscious the Curler of its growth; and at the close of spiel or bonspiel, as soon as the many mingling emotions born of victory and of defeat have subsided into an almost stern but surely no sullen calm, the curling crew, jolly boys all, discover that they are ravenous. You probably have lunched-and live to lament it when your dull dead eye falls beamless on undesired dinner. But lo! and hark! stag-strong across the wide moors, crunching beneath their feet in the glitterance of the frost-woven snows, in many a brother band, bound the cheery Curlers to the celebrated change-house at the Auld Brig-end, in summer seen not till you are on the green before the door, the umbrage such of that elm-tree grove, from time immemorial a race of giants-but now visible its low straw roof, with all its icicles, to the close-congregating Curlers, with loud shouts hailing it from the last mountain top. Yon's the gawcy gudewife at the door, looking out, for the last time, for her guests, through the gloaming-and next instant at the kitchen fire, assisting "to tak aff the pat," and to dish on the dresser the beef and greens. For she leaves the care o' the howtowdies to the limmers, and the tongues, on this occasion, she intrusts to the gudeman-some twenty years older than his wife, uniformly the case in a' sma' inns, illustrious for vittals "For sage experience bids us thus declare." 'Tis little short of miraculous to see how close a company of Curlers will pack. The room cannot be more than some twenty feet by twelveyet it unaccountably contains almost all the rink. Some young chiels, indeed, are in the trance teasing the hizzies on their way through with the trenchers-and some auld men are in the spence and a few callants are making themselves useful in the kitchen, while a score or so perhaps have gone straight homeward from the ice for private reasons-such, possibly, as scolding wives, (most of them barren,) into which no writer of an article in a magazine, as it appears to us, is at liberty to institute a public enquiry. But look at that dinner! The table is all alive with hot animal food. A steam of rich distilled perfumes reaches the roof, at the lowest measurement seven feet high. A savoury vapour! The feast takes all its name and most of its nature from-beef and greens. The one corned, the other crisp the two combined, the glory of Martinmas. The beef consists almost entirely of lean fat-rather than of fat lean-and the same may be said of that bacon. See! how the beef cuts long-ways with the bone-if it be not indeed a sort of sappy gristle. Along the edges of each plate, as it falls over from the knife edge among the gravy-greens, your mouth waters at the fringe of fat, and you look for "the mustard." Of such beef and greens, there are four trenchers, each like a tea-tray; and yet you hope that there is a corpsdu-reserve in the kitchen. Saw you ever any where else, except before a barn-door, where flail or fanners were at work, such a muster of howtowdies? And how rich the rarer roasted among the frequent boiled! As we are Christians-that is an incredible goose-yet still that turkey is not put out of countenance-and 66 as what seems his head the likeness of a kingly crown has on," he must be no less than the bubbly. Black and brown grouse are not eatable— till they have packed; and these have been shot on the snow out of a cottage window, by a man in his shirt taking vizzy with the " lang gun" by starry moonlight. Yea-pies. Some fruitand some flesh-that veal-and this aipples. Cod's-head and shoulders, twenty miles from the sea, is at all times a luxury-and often has that monster lain like a ship at anchor, off the Dogger-bank-supposed by some to have been a small whale. Potatoes always look well in the crumbling candour of that heapedup mealiness, like a raised pyramid. As for mashed turnips, for our life, when each is excellent of its kind, we might not decide whether the palm should be awarded to the white or the yellow; but perhaps on your plate, with the butter-mixed bloodiness of steak, cutlet, or mere slice of rump, to a nicety underdone, both are best—a most sympathetic mixture, in which the peculiar taste of each is intensely elicited, while a new flavour, or absolute tertium quid, is impressed upon the palate, which, for the nonce, is not only invigorated, but refined. The devouring we submit to the imagination. The edible has disappeared like snow after a night's thaw. Not cleaner of all obstruction is the besom-swept transparent board itself, now lying bare in the moonlight, along the lucid rink from tee to tee, beautifully reflecting the frosty stars, than the board-erewhile so genial— round which are laughing, yea guffawing, that glorious congregation of incomparable Curlers. The sentiment of the first resolution of the Old Duddingston Curling Society breathes over all-" Resolved that to be virtuous is to reverence our God, Religion, Laws, and the King; and that we hereby do declare our reverence for, and attachment to the same." Bumper-toast follows bumper-toast in animated succession, and here is the list: 1. The King and the Curlers of Scotland. 2. The Tee-what we all aim at. 4. All societies in Scotland formed for the encouragement of the noble game of Curling. 5. The societies in England, Canada, and elsewhere. 6. Our old friend, John Frost. 7. May we never come short, or prove a hog, when required to guard a friend. 8. May Curlers ever be true-soled; lovers of just-ice; and unbiassed in principle. 9. May we never be biassed by un-justice; nor repel an enemy, by inwicking a friend. 10. Curlers' wives and sweethearts. 11. A bumper to the "Land o' Cakes, and her ain game o' Cuiling." 12. "Channel-stones, crampets, and besoms so green." 13. Right a-board play. 14. "May Curlers ever meet merry i' the morn, and at night part friends.' 15. May Curlers on life's slippery rink Frae cruel rubs be free. 16. Frosty weather, fair play, and festivity. 17. Canny skips and eident players. 18. Happy meetings after Curling. 19. Gleg ice and keen Curlers. 20. May we ne'er lie a hog when we should be at the tee. 21. A steady ee and a sure han'. 22. A han'-han player no wise behin' the han'. 23. The ice tee before the Chinese. 24. The tee without water. 25. The pillars of the bonspiel,—rivalry and good fellowship. 26. May the blossoms of friendship never be nipt by the frost of contention. 27. May every sport prove as innocent as that which we enjoy on the ice. 28. To every ice-player well equipped. 29. When treacherous biases lead us astray, may we ever meet some friendly in-ring to guide us to the tee. Are they not a set of noble fellows? They are; and one of the best of them all (in spite of his little peccadilloes against our friend, who will only laugh at them) is the ingenious and honourable author of Curliana, to whose volume we have been mainly indebted for this article. INDEX TO VOLUME XXX. Debates, the late, on Reform, 391. See Education of the People, 306. Foreign Policy of the Whig Administra- Bull-Chap. I. How Arthur mana- Friendly advice to the Lords, Review of, Greek Drama, No. I., Agamemnon of Gregson, his alleged inadvertence, 393. Ignoramus on the Fine Arts, No. III. Hogarth, Bewick, and Green, 655. Ireland and the Reform Bill, 52. Im- Kerry, O'Connell an unfit representative Lyttil Pinkie, by the Ettrick Shepherd, Macqueen, James, Esq., his Letter on Ministerial plan of Reform, by Lieut.- during the Reign of Terror, 920. Noctes Ambrosianæ, No. LVII. 400- -O'Connell, 406-Lord John Russell, Grey, 545-Lord Mansfield, Lord North American Review, Review of its Observations on a Pamphlet, &c. Review O'Connell, his Letter on the Reform Bill, Opinions of an American Republican, and of a British Whig on the Bill, 506. Owl, by the Translator of Homer's Parnell, Sir Henry, Letter on his Finan- Passages from the Diary of a late Physi- Peerage, British, not separated by Privi- Poetry-The Plaint of Absence, by Delta, 58-Family Poetry, No. II. My Let- Poetry, An Hour's Talk about, 475. Pringle, exposure of his misrepresenta- tions, &c. in the case of Mr and Mrs Raj ast'han, Annals and Antiquities there- Reform, Parliamentary and the French debates on Reform, Sir James lower class of the middling orders, 611 -a quotation from one of Mr Rennie, Professor, 6. Revolution, on the approaching, in Great Scotland, its Prosperous State at the in- Shepherd, Ettrick, an awfu' leein'-like Story by him, 448-Lyttil Pynkie by Song, a new, to be sung by all the True Knaves of Political Unions, "Ye Ras- Sotheby, his Homer, critique III., 93— Stewart, Lieut.-Col. Matthew, his Mi- Symmons, review of his translation of the Agamemnon of Eschylus, 350. ties of Rajasthan, reviewed, 681. Unseasonable Story, extracts from, chap. What should the Peers do? 702. Wilson, Professor, his Poem of Unimore, Wood, Mr and Mrs, of Antigua, 744. Edinburgh: Printed by Ballantyne & Co., Paul's Work, Canongate. |