O, ay, Wictoire. MULLION. 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. 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 anybody 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 conI am, Sir, cern. Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square. Your humble servant, A. B. NORTH, (taking the pipe out of his mouth.) Are you sure of that signature?—Shew it to me. A. B. A Blackguard; that's the word, sir. He istemper for such an evident ass-a blockhead, sir. ass, -but I shall not lose my Ring the bell-A mean sir.-Curse the waiter-ring the bell again, Doctor-A very donkey, sir. (Enter Waiter.) What brings you here, Richard? 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 Two quarts of porter, sir. Re-enter Waiter. NORTH. Put them down-thank you-vanish. [Exit RICHARD.] Sir, I am sorry VOL. XVI. 4 F Who think themselves eternal stars, Although but stinking, sparkling gas-lights- To sup on egg and lettuce white; And Whigs are now so lost, so low, A miracle could scarce restore them; They fall in droves at every blow, And dirt and dust are spatter'd o'er them; 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 es tumbler.) 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. [HOGG raising the articles and his tumbler, reads, and drinks them off without delay. Who wrote them? MULLION. NORTH. You are always a modest hand at the catechizing. 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. NORTH. 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? NORTH. 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 Colbourn 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! MULLION. 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 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 tolera-` bly. Did you ever see his letter to me? MULLION. Why, yes-Murray once shewed 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. HOGG. Sic things will happen in the best regulated families. MULLION. 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. 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 real 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 mysell in some things. NORTH. Come, this is a little too much, Hogg. You 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 back 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. We were just as thick as weavers in no time. Ye see I had been jauntin aboot in that 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 as 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 off 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. MUI.LION. So you shook hands immediately, of course? HOGG. Shook! Od! he had a good wrist of his ain; yet, I trow, I garred the shackle-bane o' him dinnle. MULLION. August moment! Little did you then foresee either Don Juan or the Chaldee. What was your potation? HOGG. Potation!—we had everything 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. What was this?—I don't recollect to have heard it, Hogg. 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 forgathered 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 Quuncey 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 favour of Southey -at least to ony extent worth mentioning. Na, even Scott-would ony mortal believe there was sic a donneration of arrogance in this waurld?-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 staukin 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 ower Grasmere that day, breeks an a'. I spoilt a pair o' as gude corduroys as ever cam out of the Director-General's for that piece of fun. I couldna bide to thwart him in onything-he did just as he liket wi' me the twa days we staid 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. O fie! O fie, gentlemen! How often must I remind you that no personality is permitted here. Look round you, gentlemen, look round 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 Toddy. HOGG. NORTH. 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 pipestopper-You are a brute, Hogg -Why, laying all petty, dirty, little minutie 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 διοι νυν Βροτοί εισιν -the very specimen and exemplar-of poets, the very beau-ideal On?-O 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! HOGG. Are you at this bottle, or this, my dawtie? Fill up your tumbler. MULLION. To say the truth, Christopher, you and Canning are, in my opinion, much to be pitied. Yourselves the purest and the most liberal of your race, you are doomed to be eternally injured by the indecorousness, the rashness, the bigotry, the blindness, of your soi-disants 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 "Pericles to call the man ?" HOGG. 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 meanshould 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 housewife-like account of certain domestic conveniencies 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? 10 |