THE CHARM OF APPROPRIATENESS.

289

Shepherd. That it is, Mr North; and nae man that feels and thinks as a man, need pretend to be angry wi' a glimpse―na, wi' mair than a glimpse-o' a sicht that soothes the thoughts and feelings into a delightful cawm, and brings into his heart a silent bennison on the Virgin, whose wakin and sleepin dreams are a' as pure as the snaw-drift o' her heaving breast! It's nane but your sanctimonious sinners that gloom as they glower on such a heaven.

North. I often wish that there was not such uniformity in fashion. How much better if every maiden and every matron would dress according to her own peculiar taste and geniuseach guiding herself, at the same time, by some understood Standard, from which there was to be no wide deviation. Thus we should have "variety in uniformity," "similitude in dissimilitude," which, according to Lord Shaftesbury and MrWordsworth, and a thousand others, is one of the prime principles of beauty.

Shepherd. That's a capital remark. Tak, for example, floonces. What's mair ridiculous than sax tier o' floonces on the tail o' the gown o' a bit fat, dumpy cretur, wi' unco1 short legs, and stickin out geyan sair, baith before and behin', beside a tall, straught, elegant lassie, wha bears alang her floonces as gloriously as the rising morning trails her clouds through amang the dews on the mountain-taps!

North. Poetry in every word.

Shepherd. Without sic paraphernalia, Dumpy micht hae been quite a Divinity. But the floonces gar you forget your gude manners, till you can scarce help laughing.

Some look best in

North. Oh, James, what a charm in appropriateness! Shepherd. It's the same thing wi' men. ticht pantaloons-some in lowse troosers-some in kneebreeks-and some in kilts. Instead o' that, when tichts are the fashion, a' maun pit on tichts-and what a figure does yon body mak o' himsel in tichts, wi' legs and thees a' o' ae thickness, frae cute* to cleft, excep at the knees, which stick out on the insides wi' knots like neeps, the verra hicht o' vulgarity in a drawing-room o' leddies.

5

North. O, for the restoration of the Roman Toga!

Shepherd. Then should the Shepherd appear in the character of a Roman Consul.

290

STAGES OF SOCIETY.

North. Hail, Cincinnatus-Cincinnatus, hail!

Shepherd. I thocht he had been a ploughman-no a shepherd.

North. Pray, James, do you think the pastoral preceded the agricultural state?

Shepherd. The horticultural preceded them baith-and that's the reason why I became a member o' the Horticultural Society, though it costs me twa guineas a-year. Now, there could be nae delvin without spades, and nae drillin without hows, and nae dibblin without dibbles

sae you see the agricultural state, as you ca't, naturally succeeded to the horticultural. Further, warna gardens made o' yirth? and what signifies it, in the pheelosophy o' the maitter, when the saft garden was changed for the hard glebe, as was the case, waes me—when the flaming sword drove our first parentspuir creturs-out o' the gates of Paradise! Therefore, strickly speakin, the first state o' man was agricultural.

North. John Millar, in his Distinctions of Ranks,' thought otherwise.

Shepherd. And wha's John Millar? Was he a brother o' Joe's? But to proceed wi' an answer to your question. The pastoral state grew out o' the agricultural, for when corn was raised, what was to become o' the straw? Cattle were collected and tamed, and fattened and ate. Further, think you that men wad hae been sic evendoun idiots as to have lived on cattle, without potawtoes and bread? Or on potatoes and bread without cattle? They werena sic sumphs. Therefore, Cain was a ploughman—and Abel was a shepherd -just as Adam had been a gardener. And think you Eve and her daughters were long contented with fig-leaves ?—no they indeed. Thus manufactures arose. As new families were begotten, villages and towns arose, and hence trade and commerce. So that horticulture was the original state—and thus the agricultural and the pastoral and the manufacturing and the commercial state arose contemporaneously, or nearly sae, a' round and about the bonny borders o' Paradise-for the borders were bonny, and weel watered wi' many large rivers, although the fiery sword o' the Angel o' the Lord often smote the soil wi' drought as with a curse-and

1 The Origin of the Distinctions of Ranks. By John Millar, Esq., Professor of Law in the University of Glasgow. Third edition: 1781.

COLONEL HAWKER.

291

North. But you have forgot the fishing and the hunting

states.

Shepherd. I've dune nae sic thing-Come out to Altrive,' and you will see them baith in a' their pristine glory. But never tell me that a nation o' fishers ever turned into a nation o'

hunters, or veece versa. Indeed I hae my doubts gin ever there was sic a thing as a nation o' fishers-except ye ca' twa or three hunder shiverin forlorn wretches on the shores o' Terra del Fuego, or ony ither siclike dreary and disconsolate shore, a nation—which would be a great abuse o' language. How the devil the human race ever got there, is no for me to say, nor you neither. But I gang no to John Millar, but to Moses, for my pheelosophy o' man and man's dispersion; and even supposing, for the sake o' theory and hippothesis, that the abeelities o' the twa writers were about upon a par, Moses, ye'll allow, had a great advantage, in leevin some thousans o' years nearer the time o' the creation than John Millar. Sae I shall continue to prefer his account to ony ither speculation sin' the invention o' prentin.

North. James, you are a good shot.

Shepherd. I seldom miss a haystack, or a barn-door, standing, at twenty yards; but war they to tak wings to themselves and flee away, I should be shy o' takin on ony big bet that I should bring them down-especially wi' a single barrel.

North. That thick brown octavo, lying by itself, immediately beyond the rizzered haddies, is one of the best and most business-like books on shooting that we sportsmen have: it is a fifth edition of my friend Colonel Hawker.

Shepherd. Commend me to an auld sodger for shootin. Let me put on my specks-ae sentence in a book 's quite aneuch to judge a' the lave by-and I see the Colonel's a clever fallow. Plates, too, Mr North; you maun just gie me a present o' this copy-and it will aye be ready for perusal when you come out to Altrive.

North. Take it, James.

Shepherd. Nane o' your pigeon-killers for me, waitin in cool blood till the bonny burdies, that should ne'er be shot at a', excep when they're on the corn-stooks, flee out o' a trap

1 A small farm on the Yarrow, where Hogg resided after he left Mount Benger.

292

WILD DUCKS AND WHAUPS.

wi' a flutter and a whirr, and then prouder men are they nor the Duke o' Wellington, when they knock down, wi' pinions ower purple, the bright birds o' Venus, tumbling, as if hawkstruck, within boun's, or carrying aneath the down o' their bonny bosoms some cruel draps, that ere nightfall will gar them moan out their lives amang the cover o' suburban groves.

North. So you have no pity, James, for any other birds but the birds of Venus?

It's a

Shepherd. I canna say that I hae muckle pity for mony o' the ithers—mair especially wild-dyucks and whaups. trial that Job would never hae come through, without swearin -after wading half the day through marsh and fen, sometimes up to the houghs, and sometimes to the oxters, to see a dizzen or a score o' wild-dyucks a' risin thegither, about a quarter o' a mile aff, wi' their outstretched bills and droopin doups, maist unmercifully ill-made, as ane might mistake it, for fleeing, and then makin a circle half a mile ayont the reach o' slug, gradually fa'in intil a mathematical figure in Euclid's Elements, and vanishin, wi' the speed o' aigles, in the weather-gleam,' as if they were aff for ever to Norway, or to the North Pole. Dang their web-footed soles

North. James-James, remember where you are, and with whom-time, place, and person. No maledictions to-night on any part o' the creation, feathered or unfeathered. During Christmas holidays, I would rather err on the side of undue humanity. What are whaups?

Shepherd. That's a gude ane! Ma faith, you pruved that you kent weel aneuch what were whaups that day at YarrowFord, when you devoored twa, stoop and roop,2 to the astonishment o' the Tailor,3 wha begood to fear that you would niest* eat his guse for a second coorse. The English ca' whaups curl-loos- the maist nonsensicalest name for a whaup ever I heard but the English hae little or nae imagination.

North. My memory is not so good as it used to be, James -but I remember it now-"Most prime picking is the whaup." Shepherd. In wunter they're aff to the sea but a' simmer and hairst they haunt the wide, heathy, or rushy and boggy moors. Ye may discover the whaup's lang nose half a mile 2 Stoop and roop-stump and rump. 3 The flying tailor of Ettrick, an eccentric character, celebrated for his 4 Niest-next.

1 Weather-gleam-horizon.

agility.

SOLITUDE.—AUDUBON'S EXHIBITION.

293

aff, as the gleg-eed cretur keeps a watch ower the wilderness, wi' baith sicht and smell.

North. Did you shoot the whaups alluded to above, James -or the Tailor himself?

Shepherd. Him—no me. But mony and aft's the time that I hae lain for hours ahint some auld turf-dyke, that aiblins had ance enclosed a bit bonny kailyard belanging to a housie noo soopt frae the face of the yearth,-every noo and than keekin ower the grassy rampart to see gif the whaups, thinkin themselves alane, were takin their walk in the solitude; and gif nane were there, layin mysel doun a' my length on my grufe1 and elbow, and reading an auncient ballant, or maybe tryin to croon a bit sang o' my ain, inspired by the lown and lanesome spat,—for oh, sir! haena ye aften felt that the farther we are in body frae human dwellings, the nearer are we to their ingles in sowl?

North. Often, James-often. In a crowd I am apt to be sullen or ferocious. In solitude I am the most benevolent of men. To understand my character, you must see me aloneconverse with me-meditate on what I then say—and behold my character in all its original brightness.

Shepherd. The dearest thocht and feelings o' auld lang syne come crowd-crowding back again into the heart whenever there's an hour o' perfect silence, just like so many swallows coming a-wing frae God knows where, when winter is ower and gane, to the self-same range o' auld clay biggins, aneath the thatch o' house, or the slate o' ha'-unforgetfu' they o' the place whare they were born, and first hunted the insectpeople through shadow or sunshine!

North. What a pity, James, that you were not in Edinburgh in time to see my friend Audubon's Exhibition!

Shepherd. An Exhibition o' what?

North. Of birds painted to the life. Almost the whole American Ornithology, true to nature, as if the creatures were in their native haunts in the forests, or on the sea-shores. Not stiff and staring like stuffed specimens-but in every imaginable characteristic attitude, perched, wading, or a-wing, —not a feather, smooth or ruffled, out of its place,-every song, chirp, chatter, or cry, made audible by the power of genius.

Shepherd. Whare got he sae weel acquaint wi' a' the tribes -for do they not herd in swamps and woods whare man's 1 Grufe-belly.