[John Wilson et. al.]: Noctes Ambrosianae XVII

“Indeed, we cannot better illustrate what we feel to be the distinctive difference between the acting of Mr. Kean and that of his distinguished predecessor, (Kemble,) than by saying that, as an actor, the latter is to former nearly what, as a poet, Racine is to Shakspeare!!!”	“Never before, in the annals of a civilized country, was it heard of, that a man who could not act was puffed off as the prince of actors by men who could not write, and the audacious lump of pomatum swallowed even by the capacious gullet of the long-eared monster who acts audience at our playhouses.”—“Even by the capacious gullet! Why, what gullet would you choose to swallow so audacious lumps of pomatum?”
Again. “Passion seems to be the very food, the breath, the vital principle of his mental existence. He adapts himself to all its forms; detects its most delicate shades; follows it through all its windings and blending; pierces to its most secret recesses,” &c. &c.!!!	Again. “His retching at the back of the scene, whenever he wanted to express passion!!”
Again. Mr. Kean’s passion is as various, as it is natural and true!!!”	Again. “A worse actor than Mr. Kean never trod the stage; we mean, pretending to enact such characters as he has taken upon himself to murder!!”
Again. Speaking of his mental energy, you say:— “This it is which gives such endless variety, and appropriateness, and beauty, to the expression of his face and action. Indeed Mr. Kean’s look and action are at all times precisely such as a consummate painter would assign to the particular situation and character in which they occur!!”	Again. “But it appears, also, that he had a bandy-legged uncle in the same employment, from whom we opine he borrowed his novel and original method of treading the stage!!”—Very witty.

And I might say again, and again, and again, but I have neither time nor patience; the hasty and random extracts I have made may “give some few touches of the thing;” but to form any adequate idea of the whole, it is necessary to read the two articles, which whoever does, Mr. North, will set your Magazine down for a pretty particular considerable sort of a humbug, I calculate. But, perhaps, the best part of the joke is, after all, that after indulging in a most virulent tirade against the Examiner for upholding Kean as an actor, you take credit to yourself for having opened the eyes of the public to his real merits, or rather, according to your account, his want of them. I like modesty.

Yours, &c.

J. S.

NORTH (taking the pipe out of his mouth).

There is some fun in that fellow, but he is rather spoony in imagining that the contributor of 1824 is bound to follow the opinions of him of 1818.

It needs no ghost to tell us who the 24 man is. Who is the 18 pounder? Pounder, I may well call him; for never did paviour put in lumps of two years old into Pall Mall as he puts the puff into Kean.

NORTH.

Poor Tims. We tolerated him at that time among us. We knew nothing of the London stage, and Tims, who used every now and then to get a tumbler of punch from Kean at the Harp by Old Drury, felt it only grateful to puff him, and he imposed on us provincials accordingly. I soon, however, turned him off, and he now, having bought an old French coat in Monmouth Street, passes off for a Wicount, as he calls himself.

587

O, ay, Wictoire. Well-chosen name, as we should say, my Lord Molly. But, in truth, what do you think of Kean?

NORTH.

I have never seen him. I am by far too old to go to plays, and, besides, I do not like to disturb my recollections of John Kemble.

MULLION.

There are several left.

NORTH (smokes).

Bales.—Take another.

MULLION (reads).

Here:

Sir,—I have been a subscriber to your magazine for some years, but of late I have come to the determination of discontinuing being so. The chief reason—for I think it always best to be quite candid—that I have for this, is the fact, that your magazine does not contain good articles. You appear to be chiefly filled up with abuse of the periodical publications, written by the first men of the age—Mr. Jeffrey, Mr. Place, Mr. Campbell, Mr. Bentham, and others, as if any body whatever cares about your abuse of these eminent men. Whoever writes under the name of T. Tickler,—of course, a fictitious name,—has been so offensive in this way, that the magazines containing his vapid lucubrations have been ejected from at least three of by far the most decent libraries hereabouts.

However, as I like your politics, I shall not absolutely give you up, but occasionally buy your book, and therefore advise you to make it better. Could you not give us Tales—or Travels—or Memoirs—or Histories—or something else amusing and miscellaneous-like, just such as the other magazines? Because, though I am not so great a fool as to imagine that the accusation of personality, and other similar charges, is so true as some clever men,—who are clever, though your partiality may deny it,—could wish to have believed; yet I must say, that if you go on as you go on now, you will be but a stupid concern.

I am, Sir,

Your humble servant,

A. B.

Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square.

NORTH (taking the pipe out of his mouth).

Are you sure of that signature? Show it to me.

Yes, quite sure—here it is for you.

NORTH (taking it.)

A. B.A blackguard; that’s the word, sir. He is—but I shall not lose my temper for such an evident ass—a blockhead, sir. Ring the bell—A mean ass, sir.—Curse the waiter—ring the bell, Doctor—A very donkey, sir. (Enter Waiter.) What brings you here, Richard?

RICHARD.

Sir?

You bade me ring.

Did I? Nothing, Richard.—Stop, bring us in another quart of porter. (Exit Richard, with a bow.) Why, sir, that is a blackguard letter. So Tickler is a fictitious name, and of course too. Good God! is Hogg a fictitious name?—is Mullion a fictitious name?—is Macvey Napier a fictitious name?—is Philip Kempferhausen a fictitious name?—is Henry Colburn of Burlington Street, or his man Tom Campbell, a fictitious name?—is William Cobbett——

(Re-enter Waiter.)

Two quarts of porter, sir.

Put them down—thank you—vanish. [Exit Richard.] Sir, I am sorry that

588

Noctes Ambrosianæ. No. XVII.

that fellow has not had the courage to have signed his name, in order that I might have just flayed him alive. He and his subscription—some five shillings affair per annum, in my pocket——

NORTH (drinks off the quart).

Ne sævi, magne sacerdos. Cool yourself with the narcotic of porter.

So I am not like the other magazines. Heaven forfend! What, sir, am I to have such things as—“Mrs. Stubbs kept a cheese-shop in Norton Falgate. Her brother, Mr. Deputy Dip, was of the ward of Portsoken, and there had a voice potential double as the Duke’s. He was a thriving man, and waxed rich on tallow. His visits to his sister in Norton Falgate were complete epochs in the family. The genteelest fish in the market was bought on the occasion, and the pudding was composed with double care. Then Mr. Hoggins from Aldgate, Miss Dobson, Mr. Deputy Dump, and Mr. Spriggins, were asked to be of the party, and the very best elder-wine that could be had in London was produced.

“Mr. Spriggins was a Tory, Mr. Deputy Dip was a Whig, and they both supported their opinions stiffly. At Mrs. Stubbs’s last party, Mr. Spriggins was cutting up a turkey, on which Mr. Deputy Dip remarked, that he wished Turkey in Europe was cut up as completely as turkey on table. Ay, said Mr. Spriggins, it is evident that you are partial to the cause of Grease. At which Miss Dobson burst out laughing, and said, ‘Drat it now, that is droll.’—‘For my part, madam,’ says Spriggins, ‘the only good thing I know of the map-makers is, that they put Turkey next Hungary; for when I am hungry, I like to be next a turkey’—at which every body laughed, except Mr. Deputy Dip, who said, ‘that punning was the lowest wit.’ ‘Yes,’ retorted Spriggins, ‘because it is the foundation of all wit!’” and so on through the rest of my garbage. Am I to put this into my Magazine to make it interesting? or am I to fill it——

Fill your glass, at all events, which is much more to the purpose now than your Magazine.

Am I to fill it, I say, with——

“Idealism, as explained by Kant, antagonizes with the spirit of causality developed in the idiosyncrasy arising from the peculiarity of affinities indisputable in the individualism of perfectible power. Keeping this plain axiom in view, we shall be able to explain the various results of——”

Fiddle-faddle. Is this to be the staple commodity of my Magazine? I should see it down at the bottom of the Firth of Forth first, with a copy of the London tied round its neck, so as to hinder it from rising!

MULLION.

Nay, I think you have got into a fret for nothing. Nobody can think less of these magazine people than I do; but you know that the real complaint against you is not want of vis, but a too strong direction of it every now and then.

Personality, Doctor is it that ye are driving at? Why, I have discussed that so often, that it would be quite a bore if I were to bring it in by the head and shoulders now. But first listen for a minute.—The people who blame my Magazine very generally praise the New Monthly. I have no objection to this, for I feel no sort of rivalry towards such a poor concern, which is, in point of talent in general, no higher than the Rambler’s Magazine, the old European, or such trash books. But I beg leave to say, that those who object to me for my personality are very inconsistent, if they patronize the writer Tam.

MULLION.

I do not read the Dromedarian lucubrations, so I cannot say whether you are right or not.

I read all the periodicals, you know; and, sir, I must say, that for downright personal scurrility, there never yet were articles in any periodical equal to those which Mr. Sheil——

589

Who is he?

Pho! a young Irish lawyer, who wrote some trash of plays for Mrs. Wrixon Becher to play in. I say, no articles are equal in scurrility to those supplied to Campbell by Mr. Sheil and Mr. W. Curran from Ireland. Have the goodness, when next you are at leisure, to peruse their remarks on the late Luke White, the cold-blooded, blackguard pryings into his private life,—the dirty jealousy displayed against his success, and, in fact, the atrocious spirit of the whole, for which, by the by, they would have smarted properly but for Luke’s death; or read what they say about Ellis of Dublin, or the gentlemanlike allusions to Lady Rossmore; or, indeed, the tissue of the thing altogether, and you will find, that if clever people such as my friends can sometimes abuse, the same thing is done by stupid people also.

MULLION.

But, North, it is not worth your while to be talking so much of such poor hacks as these.

Neither should I, my dear fellow, but for this, that yon hear well-minded poor bodies every now and then puffing up the gentility, and elegance, and freedom from scurrility, of such compositions, whereas the truth is, that their wit is vulgarity, their taste frivolity, and that their supposed exemption from personal abuse is owing to their efforts, however malignant in intention and blackguard in execution, being so weak in their effects as to escape observation. You see how I squabashed the London the other day.

MULLION.

Squabashed! extinguished it. Why, a Newfoundland dog never displayed his superiority over a mangy cur in a more complete and contemptuous fashion.

Change the subject—give us a stave.

Like prongs, like prongs, your bristles rear—

Here’s, then, to the honor and glory of Maga! (Sings.)

Arise, nor linger stuffing, dining—

Lo! blockheads drive in full career,

And Common Sense away is pining.

They come—in ruffian ranks they come—

Rage, rags, and ruin heave in sight;

Haste—earth throws up her dirtiest scum—

Ho! Maga, to the fight.

Truth stood erect in ancient days,

And over Falsehood’s jaw went ploughing;

Now Faction in the sunshine strays,

While Loyalty her neck is bowing:

Power reigns with Ambrose in the halls,

And Fancy high, and Frolic light,

Hark! ’tis the voice of reason calls—

Ho! Maga, to the fight!

Shepherd of Ettrick, ho! arise—

Haste, Tickler, to the fierce pursuing;

North! dash the cobwebs from your eyes—

Are ye asleep when war is brewing!

Lo! dunces crown Parnassus high,

With yellow breeches gleaming bright;

Haste, drive the grunters to the sty—

Ho! Maga, to the fight!

Look forth upon the toothless curs,

On fools and dunces, Hunts and Hazlitts,

590

Who think themselves eternal stars,

Although but stinking, sparkling gas-lights—

Haste, homewards send them to Cockaigne,

To sup on egg and lettuce white;

Haste, how can ye the knout refrain?—

Ho! Maga, to tha fight!

And Whigs are now so lost, so low,

A miracle could scarce restore them;

They fall in droves at every blow,

And dust and dirt are spattered o’er them;

Religion, Liberty and Law,

In thee repose their sole delight;

Who against thee dares wag a paw?—

Ho! Maga, to the fight!

(While Mullion is singing, Hogg enters, takes a seat, and makes a tumbler.)

HOGG.

Brawly sung, Doctor. Is’t your ain?

Yes.

[Hogg raising the articles and his tumbler reads, and drinks them off without delay.

Od, man, but ye are getting on finely—in time ye may be as good a hand at it as Scott or Byron, or aiblins mysell. By the by, a’ the periodicals are making a great crack about Byron; hae ye onything o’ the sort?

NORTH.

Here are two articles; Mullion has been reading them; they are on Medwin’s book. Look over them.

Who wrote them?

You are always a modest hand at the catechising. However, they are both old friends of Byron’s own—real friends, who knew him well. This Medwin has, as you will perceive, done as much as I could expect from any such person—that is, told some truth about the business.

MULLION.

Ay, ay, some truth, and many lies, I do suppose.

Thou hast said it. I don’t mean to call Medwin a liar—indeed, I should be sorry to forget the best stanza in Don Juan. The Captain lies, sir,—but it is only under a thousand mistakes. Whether Byron bammed him—or he, by virtue of his own egregious stupidity, was the sole and sufficient bammifier of himself, I know not, neither greatly do I care. This much is certain, (and it is enough for our turn,) that the book is throughout full of things that were not, and most resplendently deficient quoad the things that were.

MULLION.

A got-up concern entirely?—A mere bookseller’s business?

I wish I could be quite sure that some part of the beastliness of the book is not mere bookseller’s business—I mean as to its sins of omission. You have seen from the newspapers that Master Colburn cancelled some of the cuts anent our good friend, whom Byron so absurdly calls “the most timorous of all God’s booksellers.” How shall we be certain that he did not cancel ten thousand things about the most audacious of all God’s booksellers?

HOGG.

Ha! ha! ha!—Weel, there’s anither good alias!

Why, it certainly did occur to me as rather odd, that although Medwin’s Byron sports so continually all the pet bits of your vocabulary, such as “The

Noctes Ambrosianæ. No. XVII.

591

Cockney School,” &c., &c., your name,—or rather, I should say, the name of old Maga—is never expressly introduced except, indeed, in an absurd note of his own about Poet Shelley.

NORTH.

Pooh, pooh! man—Byron and I knew each other pretty well; and I suppose there’s no harm in adding, that we appreciated each other pretty tolerably. Did you ever see his letter to me?

MULLION.

Why, yes, Murray once showed it to me; but it was after dinner at the time; and when I awoke next morning, the only thing I remembered was that I had seen it.

NORTH.

You having, in point of fact, fallen asleep over the concern. But no matter, Doctor.

Sic things will happen in the best regulated families.

I observe, Hogg, that Byron told Medwin he was greatly taken with your manners when he met you at the Lakes. Pray, Jem, was the feeling mutual!

HOGG.

Oo, aye, man—I thought Byron a very nice laud. Did ye no ken Byron, Doctor?

MULLION.

Not I; I never saw him in my life except once, and that was in Murray’s shop. He was quizzing Rogers, to all appearance, in the window. We were merely introduced. He seemed well made for swimming—a fine broad chest—the scapula grandly turned.

HOGG.

John Galt, Review of Medwin

The first lad that reviews Medwin for you, Mr. North, does not seem to have admired him very muckle. He was a most awfu’ sallow-faced ane, to be sure, and there’s a hantle o’ your landward-bred women thinks there’s nae beauty in a man wanting the red cheeks; but, for me, I lookit mair to the cut of the back and girths o’ Byron. He was a tight-made, middle-sized man—no unlike mysel’ in some things.

NORTH.

Come, this is a little too much, Hogg. Yon once published an account of yourself, in which you stated that your bumpal system bore the closest resemblance to Scott’s. Your “Sketch of the Ettrick Shepherd,” in the now defunct Panopticon, is what I allude to. And now your backs and girths, as you call them, are like Byron’s! No doubt you are a perfect Tom Moore in something or other!

HOGG.

Me a Tam Muir! I wish I had him his lane for five minutes on the Mount Benger—I would Muir him.

MULLION.

Well, well, James. But you and Byron took to each other famously, it seems?

HOGG.

John Galt, Review of Medwin

We were just as thick as weavers in no time. You see I was had been jauntin about in the country for tway three weeks, seeing Wulson and Soothey, and the rest of my leeterary friends there. I had a gig with me—John Grieve’s auld yellow gig it was—and I was standing by mysell afore the inn door that evening, just glowring frae me, for I kent naebody in Ambleside, an be not the minister and the landscape-painter, out comes a strapping young man frae the house, and oft’ with his hat, and out with his hand, in a moment like. He seemed to think that I would ken him at ance; but seeing me bamboozled a thocht, (for he wasna sae very dooms like the capper-plates,) Mr. Hogg, quo’ he, I hope you will excuse me—my name is Byron—and I cannot help thinking that we ought to hold ourselves acquaintance.

MULLION.

So you shook hands immediately, of course?

592

Shook! Od, he had a good wrist of his ain; yet, I trow, I garred the shackle-bane o’ him dinnle.

What was this?—I don’t recollect to have heard it, Hogg.

August moment! Little did you then foresee either Don Juan or the Chaldee. What was your potation?

HOGG.

Potation!—we had every thing that was in the house—Claret, and Port, and ale, and ginger-beer, and brandy-wine, and toddy, and twist, an’ a’; we just made a night on’t. O, man, wasna this a different kind of behaviour frae that proud Don Wordsworth’s? Od! how Byron leuch when I tell’d him Wordsworth’s way wi’ me!

MULLION.

HOGG.

Toots! a’body has heard it!—I never made ony concealment of his cauld, dirty-like behaviour. But, to be sure, it was a’ naething but envy—just clean envy. Ye see I had never foregathered wi’ Wordsworth before, and he was invited to dinner at Godswhittles, and down he came; and just as he came in at the east gate, De Quincey and me cam in at the west; and says I, the moment me and Wordsworth were introduced, “Lord keep us a’!” says I, “Godswhittle, my man, there’s nae want of poets here the day, at ony rate.” Wi’ that Wordsworth turned up his nose, as if we had been a’ carrion, and then he gied a kind of a smile, that I thought was the bitterest, most contemptible, despicable, abominable, wauf, narrow-minded, envious, sneezablest kind of an attitude that I ever saw a human form assume—and “PoetS!” quo’ he, (deil mean him!)—“poetS, Mr. Hogg?—Pray, where are they, sir?” Confound him! I doubt if he would have allowed even Byron to have been a poet, if he had been there. He thinks there’s nae real poets in our time, an it be not himself, and his sister, and Coleridge. He doesna make an exception in favor of Soothey—at least to ony extent worth mentioning. Na, even Scott—would ony mortal believe there was sic a donneration of arrogance in this warld?—even Scott—I believe’s not a pawet, gin you take his word—or at least his sneer for’t.

MULLION.

Pooh! we all know Wordsworth’s weaknesses, the greatest are not without something of the sort. This story of yours, however, is a curious pendant to one I have heard of Wordsworth’s first meeting with Byron—or rather, I believe his only one.

HOGG.

They had never met when Byron and me were thegither; for I mind Byron had a kind of a curiosity to see him, and I took him up to Rydallwood, and let him have a glimpse o’ him, as he was gaun stauking up and down on his ain backside, grumblin out some of his havers, and glowering about him like a gawpus. Byron and me just reconnattred him for a wee while, and then we came down the hill again, to hae our laugh out. We swam over Grasmere that day, breeks an a’. I spoilt a pair o’ as guid corduroys as ever came out of the Director-General’s for that piece of fun. I couldna bide to thwart him in ony-thing he did—just as he liket wi’ me the twa days we stayed yonder; he was sic a gay, laughing, lively, wutty fallow—we greed like breether. He was a grand lad, Byron—nane of your blawn-up, pompous, Laker notions about him. He took his toddy brawly.

MULLION.

D—n the Lakers!

Ditto! ditto!

O fie! fie, gentlemen! How often must I remind you that no personality is permitted here. Look around you, gentlemen; look around this neat, and even elegant apartment, rich in all the appliances of mundane comfort and repose, living with gas, bright with pictures, resplendent with the concentrated radiance of intellect-exalting recollections—look around this beautiful chamber, and recollect with what feelings it is destined to be visited years and lustres hence by the enthusiastic lovers of wit and wisdom, and Toryism and——

593

Toddy.

Have done—have done, and consider for a moment how jarring must be the contrast between the general influence breathed from the very surface of this haunted place, and the specific, particular, individual influence of the baser moods of which you, in the wantonness and levity of madly exhilarated spirits, are planting pabula plus—quam—futura. Mullion, I trouble you for your pipe-stopper. You are a brute, Hogg! Why, laying all petty, dirty little minutiae out of the question, who can hesitate to say, that Wordsworth is, on the whole, and in the eyes of all capable of largely and wisely contemplating such concerns, of poets, and of the poetical life, the very image essential I speak of men ʹοιοι νυν Βροτοι εισιν—the very specimen and exemplar—of poets, the very beau-ideal——

MULLION.

Bore ideal, you mean. Go on.

On?—Mullion! how little does the world know of my real sufferings! Sir, you are a savage, and you compel me to pay the penalty of your barbarism! I am the most unfortunate of men. My character will never be understood—I shall go down a puzzle to posterity! I see it—I see it all—your wildness will be my ruin!

Are you at this bottle, or this, my dawtie? Fill up your tumbler.

“Pericles to call the man?”

To say the truth, Christopher, you and Canning are, in my opinion, much to be pitied. Yourselves the purest and most liberal of your race, you are doomed to be eternally injured by the indecorousness, the rashness, the bigotry, the blindness, of your soi-disant adherents. I commiserate you both from my soul of souls, Who will ever believe that the one of you did not write

“Michael’s dinner—Michael’s dinner,”

and the other

Rax me the black bottle. I say, Christopher, what, after all, is your opinion about Lord and Leddy Byron’s quarrel? Do you you—yourself, I mean—take part with him or with her? I would like to hear your real opinion.

NORTH.

O dear!—Well, Hogg, since you will have it, I think Douglas Kinnaird and Hobhouse are bound to tell us whether there be any truth, and how much, in this story about the declaration signed by Sir Ralph. I think they, as friends of Lord Byron, must do this—and, since so much has been said about these matters, I think Lady Byron’s letter—the “dearest duck” one I mean—should really be forthcoming, if her Ladyship’s friends wish to stand fair coram populo. At present we have nothing but the loose talk of society to go upon, and certainly, most certainly, if the things that are said be true, there must be thorough explanation from some quarter, or the tide will continue, as it has assuredly begun, to flow in a direction very opposite to what we for years were accustomed to. Sir, they must explain this business of the letter. You have, of course, heard about the invitation it contained—the warm affectionate invitation to K——; you have heard of the house-wife-like account of certain domestic conveniences there; you have heard of the hair-tearing scene, as described by the wife of this Fletcher—you have heard of the consolations of Mrs. C——; you have heard of the injunctions “not to be again naughty;” you have heard of the very last thing which preceded their valediction—you have heard of all this and we have all heard that these things were followed up by a cool and deliberate declaration, that all these endearments were meant “only to soothe a madman!”

HOGG.

I dinna like to be interrupting ye, Mr. North; but I maun speer, is the jug to stan’ still while ye are havering away that gate?

594

There, Porker. These things are part and parcel of the chatter of every bookseller’s shop, à fortiori of every drawing-room in Mayfair. Can the matter stop here? Can a great man’s memory be permitted to incur damnation, while these saving clauses are afloat any where uncontradicted? I think not. I think, since the Memoirs were burnt by these people, these people are bound to put us in possession of the best evidence which they still have the power of producing, in order that we may come to a just conclusion, as to a subject upon which, by their act, at least as much as by any other people’s act, we are compelled to consider it as our duty to make up our deliberate opinion—deliberate and decisive. Woe be to those that provoke this curiosity, and will not allay it!—Woe to them, say I—woe to them, says the world.

HOGG.

Faith, and it cannot be denied but what there’s something very like reason in what you say, Mr. North. Just drap ae hint o’ this in Maga, and my word for’t ye’ll see a’ the lave of the periodicals take up the same tune and then the thing maun be cleared up—it maun, it will, and it shall be—

NORTH.

Shall I confess the truth to you? Byron’s behaviour in regard to the Greeks has, upon the whole, greatly elevated his character in my estimation. He really seems to have been cut off at the moment when he was beginning in almost every way to give promise and token of improvement. He never wrote any verses so instinct with a noble scorn of the worse parts of his nature (alas! may I not say, of our nature) as the very last that ever came from his pen—the Ode on his last birthday;—and it is but justice to admit, that, overlooking the general wisdom or folly of his Greek expedition, he seems in Greece to have conducted himself like a man of sense and sanity; while all the others—at least all the other Frankish Philhellenists appear in the light of dreaming doltish fools, idiots, madmen. It did me good to read Colonel Stanhope’s account of his altercations with Byron on the subject of the Greek press—to see Byron expressing his complete scorn of the idea of establishing an unchecked press in the midst of an uneducated, barbarous, divided and unsettled people, and the Honorable Colonel flinging out of the room, with the grand exclamation, “Byron is a turk!”

HOGG.

He was mair like Captain MacTurk his ain sell, I’m thinking.

This conduct, and the great and successful efforts Byron was making to introduce something like the humane observances of civilized war among these poor people—all this, I must say, has elevated Byron in my mind. He seems to have driven Stanhope quite mad with his sarcasms against Jeremy Bentham, Lord Erskine, Joseph Hume, and the rest of the “Statesmen of Cockaigne.”

MULLION.

Stanhope was ordered home by the Duke of York—was he not?

NORTH.

Yes, and I must say, there are some parts of the Colonel’s behaviour which appear to me explicable only on the supposition of his being as devoid of sense and memory, as his book shows him to be of education and knowledge.

Education?

Ay, education. The man cannot even spell English. He writes, in the very letter authorizing the publication of his correspondence with Babylonian Bowring, croud for crowd, council for counsel.

MULLION.

Pooh! he’s but a soldier.

Yes, and in his answer to Colonel Macdonald’s letter, ordering his return, he tells him, that throughout all his doings in Greece, he had nothing in view but “to deserve the esteem of mankind, his country, and his King;” which last is to me a puzzler, I must own.

MULLION.

As how, Kit?

595

Why, you see Stanhope, throughout his book, avows himself to Turk, Greek, and Frank, a disciple to the back-bone of sage Jeremy the bencher. He goes so far on one occasion as to repel with apparent indignation an insinuation that he wished to see a government resembling the British established in Greece; avowing, in terms express, that his wish to see Greece “not Anglicized, but Americanized;” and adding also, in terms express, that the only nations that do not loathe the governments under which they live, are the Swiss and the Americans. This is pretty well. But farther still, we have him acting all along in the confidence and in the service of the Greek Committee in London. In other words, of Jeremy Bentham and Bowring. He is their servant and tool throughout.

MULLION.

Of course he was. We all know that.

sight of these venerable edifices, these strongholds of ignorance and superstition, are sure to excite! How Geoffrey came to acquire and cultivate the tastes of these Somebodys, it is not difficult to divine.”

Very well. Now reach me the last number of the Westminster Review. By the way, Bowring sent Colonel Stanhope the first number of this work into Greece with a great air. Turn me up the article on Washington Irving’s last book—ay, ay, here it is. Read that passage, Mullion—I need not tell you that Jeremy Bentham is the great and presiding spirit of this periodical. This, indeed, is avowed. Read.

MULLION. (reads).

“In America he saw the great mass of the population earning from thirty to forty shillings a-week, furnished with all the necessaries of life, and absolutely exempt from want; in America, he saw a clergy, voluntarily paid by the people, performing their duties with zeal and ability; the various functions of government performed much better than in Europe, and at less than a twentieth ot the expense; the people orderly, provident, and improving, without libel-law, vice-societies, or constitutional associations; no lords or squires driving their dependants to the poll, or commanding votes by influence, that is, by terror—by apprehension of loss if the vote be withheld; no lords or squires turned by means of this influence into what are called representatives, and then combining to make corn dear, or voting away millions, for the support of their own children or friends, money extorted in the shape of taxation from needy wretches, who had not even a share in the mockery of being compelled to give a free vote for their member.

“In the British dominions he sees the great mass of the agricultural laborers starving on eight shillings a-week; he sees a clergy enormously paid by taxation of the whole community, for rendering slender service, in one portion of the empire to about a fourteenth part of the population, and in other parts to little more than a third; he sees discussion repressed, the investigation of truth punished by fine and imprisonment for life, and the judges themselves so hostile to the press, as to prohibit, during the course of a trial, when its appearance is most likely to be beneficial to all parties, any printed statement of what passes in court; he sees a gang of about a hundred and eighty families converting all the functions of government into means of a provision for themselves and their dependants, and for that purpose steadily upholding and promoting every species of abuse, and steadily opposing every attempt at political improvement: all this and more he sees in Britain only, and yet, with this before his eyes, the ignorant and puling sentimentalist has a manifest preference for British institutions! In a man of ordinary penetration and ordinary benevolence, such a preference could never be found; but the penetration and benevolence of your genuine sentimentalist are not of the ordinary kind; his perverse fecundity of imagination fills him with apprehension where no danger exists; his individual attachments and associations preclude him from entertaining any general regard for his species. In the check which every well-regulated community ought to possess against misconduct on the part of its rulers, he sees nothing but visions of anarchy, rapine, and bloodshed; in uncontrolled power on the part of the government, and the consequent pillage and privation to which the many are subjected for the benefit of the few, he sees nothing but the natural, and as he deems it, amiable weakness of human institutions. He can weep at a tale of disappointed love, and sigh over a dying leaf, but the slaughter of thousands at the nod of the successful conqueror, the pain and privation inflicted on millions to support the conqueror’s career, will not cost him a regret, or a single exertion of thought as to the means by which the world may be ridden of such detestable vermin. In Geoffrey’s sentimentalism there is also something antiquarian and romantic. America has no buildings nor institutions that have not the demerit of being new; in England we have Gothic cathedrals and Norman castles; and who would not submit to, or allow the Nobodys to submit to a world of actual evil, to enjoy the edifying associations which the

596

Noctes Ambrosianæ. No. XVII.

When the Church and Crown are tumbled down

Stop there.—Pretty well for one specimen, I think. The whole of that article is the most genuine effusion of the ignorant malevolence of the tailorly tribe, that I have as yet met with; but it is not worth while to talk of that.—I only wished to let you have the opportunity of comparing this avowal of the true Bentham principles, with the assertion of one of Bentham’s dearest and most devoted pupils, that he who went to Greece as Bentham’s agent, and began and ended every one communication he had with the Greek authorities by maintaining that there could be no good for Greece unless Greece Benthamized herself—I wished you to compare this passage in the Bentham Gazette with the assertion of the Bentham soldier, that he was uniformly influenced in Greece by the desire to obtain the esteem of the King of England, whose uniform he wears. I wished you to put these things together, and hesitate if you can about coming to the same conclusion with myself as to the intellectual status of this hero-statesman.

MULLION.

They say Bowring and Co. have made twenty thousand pounds by the Greek Loan. Some folks, at least, are no fools, if that be true.

NORTH.

Ay, ay—I guessed what the bursting of the bubble would reveal. Well, Bowring, after all, is not a goose—he is a good linguist. I should not be sorry to hear he had made a little picking off those dolts.

MULLION.

They are a neat set altogether. What a fine thing they would make of it were they in power! Then they might sing—

By Bentham and his band,

When Taylor Place shall wield the mace,

Torn from old Eldon’s hand;

When Joseph Hume fills Canning’s room,

And Hone supplants Magee;

When Brougham looks big in Copley’s wig,

When Waithman’s face in Sutton’s place,

II.

As Speaker, we behold;

When Sir James Mac shall hold the sack

Which keeps the nation’s gold;

When Croker’s quill thy fist shall fill,

Dear Secretary Leigh,

When Bowring’s tongue sings Southey’s song,

Then hey, boys, up go we,

III.

When Cobbett turns our home concerns,

In place of murdered Peel;

When glowring Grey shall feel his way,

To guide the common weal;

When murky Mill our trade shall drill,

On continent and sea;

When the grim Stot the Mint has got,

When Stanhope’s hand great York’s command

IV.

With frenzied gripe shall seize;

When Wilson’s tread the laurelled head

Of Wellington shall squeeze;

When Cochrane’s flag shall proudly wag,

597

Where Nelson’s wont to be;

When Hob we greet in Melville’s seat,

When fire shall gleam o’er Isis stream,

And Cam with blood shall flow;

When base Carlile shall scowling smile,

O’er Lambeth crumbled low;

When Westminster in ceaseless whirr

Shall spinning-jennies see;

When Preston stalls in fair St. Paul’s,

When Jeremy shall sit on high,

VI.

Where Bradshaw sat of yore;

When George shall stand with hat in hand,

His hatted judge before;

When Prince and Peer, ’mid scorn and jeer,

Ascend the gallows tree;

When Honor dies and Justice flies,

I admit that Byron had his defects. He was aye courting the ill will o’ the world, that he might make a fool o’t. There was a principle in his prodigality that I ne’er observed in other men. He wasna just like King Henry, the fifth o’ that name, wild for wantonness—but in a degree like Hamlet, the play-actor, a thought antic for a purpose—What that purpose was, he best kent himself; and if it werena to speak blasphemy, I would a’maist say he was wicket that he might be wise. O he was a desperate worldly creature, thinking to make himself a something between a god and a devil—a spirit that would hae a dominion over the spirits o’ men—and make the earth a third estate ’tween heaven and hell.

MULLION.

A new idea, Hogg—and the thing is not an impossibility. Do we not see, every now and then, a genius arise, whose energies affect the whole elements of mind,—changing the currents of opinion, and, in proportion to its power, influencing and governing the thoughts, and, by consequence, the will and actions of mankind?

NORTH.

Po! None of your mysteries now.—Put Hogg’s thought into plain language, and it means nothing more than that Lord Byron was ambitious, and chose literature for the field of his fame.

MULLION.

Not so fast, old one—I could build a theory on the Shepherd’s notion. Suppose, for example, that there has been another rebellion among the angels, and that they have been cast upon the earth, and entered into human forms—may not Byron have been the Satan of this secret insurrection?

If what Medwin says be true, the only spirits that Byron fell with were gin and water.

HOGG.

Really ye’re vera comical the night, Mr. North.—Oh, Mullion, man, it’s a great pity you and Byron hadna been acquaint; there would hae been a brave ettling to see wha could say the wildest or the dreadfu’est things—for he hadna fear either o’ man or woman—but would hae his joke and his jeer, harm wha it might. Did ye ever hear Terry tell what happened wi’ him and ane o’ the players behint the scenes o’ Drury Lane ae night—that there was a stramash among the actors anent a wife who had misbehaved at Covent Garden. “Had I been Harris,” said my lord, “I would have “turned her out o’ the house.”—

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Noctes Ambrosianæ. No. XVII.

“And had I been her,” replied that birky Fanny Kelly, “I would have put on breeches, and challenged your lordship.”—“In that case, Miss Kelly,” quo’ he, “I might have considered whether it would be worth my while to turn sansculotte, and accept the challenge.”

MULLION.

Mind your glass, Jem; a little more—

John Galt, Life of Byron

And there was another funny thing o’ his, till a queer looking lad, one Mr. Skeffington, that wrote a tragedy, that was called “The Mysterious Bride,” the whilk thing made the Times newspaper for once witty—for it said no more o’t, than just “Last night a play called The Mysterious Bride, by the Honorable Mr. Skeffington, was performed at Drury Lane. The piece was damned.” Weel, ye see it happened that there was a masquerade some nights after, and Mr. Cam Hobhouse gaed till’t in the disguise o’ a Spanish nun, that had been ravished by the French army—

MULLION.

O, I remember it—I was there myself—Hob had made up his dairy with a pair of boxing-gloves.

HOGG.

Weel, ye see—being there as a misfortunate nun, he was cleekit wi’ my Lord Byron; and Mr. Skeffington, compassionating the situation of the artificial young woman, in a most discreet and sentimental manner,—was greatly moved by the history o’ her ravishment. Who is she? said that unfortunate author to my Lord,—but “The Mysterious Bride,” was a’ the satisfaction he got for his civility. In truth, it may be said he was a fearless creature, and spared neither friend nor foe, so that he had dominion.—But, od! I liket him as if he had been my ain Billy, for a’ that.

Enter ODOHERTY.

Good bye—good bye—I’m off in half an hour per coach, and have not time to say more.

Sit down while you are here, at all events. Fill your glass.

Small need of advising that.

Give us a parting chaunt.

Farewell, farewell, beggarly Scotland—

With all my spirit.

Vera civil, that. My certie, lad, ye’re no blate.

Farewell, farewell, beggarly Scotland,

Bleat—grunt. Hold your tongue.

Cold and beggarly poor countrie;

If ever I cross thy border again,

The muckle deil must carry me.

There’s but one tree in a’ the land,

And that’s the bonny gallows tree;

The very nowte look to the south,

And wish that they had wings to flee.

Farewell, farewell, beggarly Scotland,

Brose and Bannocks, crowdy and kale!

Welcome, welcome, jolly old England,

Laughing lasses and foaming ale!

’Twas when I came to merry Carlisle,

That out I laughed loud laughters three,

And if I cross the Sark again,

The muckle deil maun carry me.

Farewell, farewell, beggarly Scotland,

599

Kilted kimmers, wi’ carroty hair,

Pipers, who beg that your honors would buy

A bawbee’s worth of their famished air.

I’d rather keep Cadwallader’s goats,

And feast upon toasted cheese and leeks,

Than go back again to the beggarly North,

To herd ’mang loons with bottomless breeks.

A very polite ditty, I must say—but ’pon honor, as a sturdy Scot, I had rather hear such things as that, than the idiot talk about the Modern Athens. What are you going to do in London, Sir Morgan?

Business, diplomatic and deep. Have you any commands?

Nothing particular. Stir up the lads for me.

Poz. I shall certainly mention you at the Pig and Whistle. Le cochon et souffle.

Whaur’s that?

In a certain spot. It is the great resort of the eminent literary men of London—you meet them all there and at Sir Humphrey Davy’s. I shall send you a dissertation on the taverns of London which I shall certainly make an opus magnum. It is at present the greatest desideratum in our literature.

NORTH.

Do you go through Leeds?

Yes. Why?

You will, of course, call on Alaric Watts. You will find him in Commercial Street.

ODOHERTY.

I know the ground. Leeds is a dirty town; but the devil’s in the dice, if you could not raise a tumbler of twist somewhere or other in it.

Tell Watts that I have received his very pretty Literary Souvenir.

MULLION.

Is it good?

The Literary Souvenir is a very graceful and agreeable book, both inside and outside, and does infinite credit both to the editor and publishers.

ODOHERTY.

Some of our friends—Croly, Delta, and Davie Lyndsay, I see, contribute to it some capital pieces and you too, Jemmy.

HOGG.

Yes, I wrote some havers about fairies.

No, James, it is not havers, it is a clever writing. But this I tell you, that you will be known in future ages, not by such things, but your great works—your truly great and important works in prose and rhyme—the Chaldee MS., and the Left-handed Fiddler. They will be recorded in the inscription on your tomb, to be erected at Altrive, in the year 2024.

ODOHERTY.

Yes, Hogg, you will shine among the bards of bonny Scotland.

HOGG.

Haud your tongue anent bonny Scotland, after the blackguard sang ye hae just blethered out.

Do not be angry, Shepherd, and I shall make you blessed by a French song in praise of it; written by Monsieur de Voltaire, a man for whom I have particular respect.

600

Mendica, egens, frigida gens;

Oo, ay, Voltaire was a man of preceese judgment so give us his sang.

ODOHERTY sings.

Valedico, Scotia, tibi,

Diabolus me reportet ibi

Si unquam tibi sum rediens.

Arbor unus nascitur ibi,

Isque patibulus est decens.

Bos ipse Austrum suspicit, sibi

Alas ut fugeret cupiens.

Vale, vale, Scotia mendica,

Avenæ, siliquæ, crambe, far!

Ridentes virgines, Anglia antiqua,

Salvete, et zythum cui nil est par!

Cum redirem Carlilam lætam

Risu excepi effuso ter,

Si unquam Sarcam rediens petam

Diabole ingens! tu me fer!

Vale popellus tunicatus

Crinibus crassis, et cum his

Tibicen precans si quid alliatus

Famelici emere asse vis!

Capros pascerem Cadwalladero,

Cui cibus ex cepis et caseo fit,

Potius quam degam cum populo fero,

Cui vestis sine fundo sit.

Ay, there is something in that. The remark about popular fair, O, in the last line amaist, is very gude indeed.

I am sorry to hear it, for I like that lad Buller.

Get married, Odoherty, before you return, and bring us back Lady Morgan. All my contributors are getting married.

MULLION.

Yes, faith, but not all with equal luck. Buller was not so very happy!

NORTH.

MULLION.

There’s a gayish song on the subject. Shall I sing it?

NORTH, HOGG, ODOHERTY.

By all means.

MULLION—sings.

The Crabstick.

Air—The Green Immortal Shamrock.

Through Britain’s isle as Hymen stray’d

Upon his ambling pony,

With Buller sage, in wig array’d,

To act as cicerone,

To them full many a spouse forlorn

Complain’d of guineas squander’d,

Of visage torn and breeches worn,

And thus his godship ponder’d—

In Russia’s native Crabstick!

I’ll ensure

A lasting cure

With magic wand he struck the earth,

601

And straight his conjuration

Gave that same wholesome sapling birth,

The husband’s consolation;

Dispense, quoth he, thou legal man,

This new-discover’d treasure,

And let thy thumb’s capacious span

Henceforward fix its measure.

Be Buller’s magic Crabstick!

Long essay’d

On jilt and jade

The olive branch, Minerva’s boon,

Betokens peace and quiet,

But ’tis sage Hymen’s gift alone

Can quell domestic riot;

For ’tis a maxim long maintain’d

By doctors and logicians,

That peace is most securely gain’d

By armed politicians.

The wonder-working Crabstick!

Its vigorous shoot

Quells all dispute,

In idleness and youthful hours,

When graver thoughts seem stupid,

Men fly to rose and myrtle bowers

To worship tiny Cupid;

But spliced for life, and wiser grown,

Dog-sick of sighs and rhyming,

They haunt the crab-tree bower alone,

The leafy shrine of Hymen.

But Hymen gives the Crabstick!

Love bestows

The useless rose,

Bravo! Very well, indeed. I hope, however, that he will have no need of using his specific.

I can’t stay another minute. Good bye. Keep up the fun, my old fellows, and console yourselves as well as you can.

Take care of yourself, Odoherty, in the great vanity fair of Lunnun. Dinna let your eye or your tongue seduce you to sin or disgrace—dinna consort wi’ drunken loons, or ne’er-do-weel huzzies, but wi’ douce, orderly, quiet-like people, like the editor and myself.