NEW SCOTTISH PLAYS AND POEMS.[53]

NEW SCOTTISH PLAYS AND POEMS.[53]

We suspect that in this railway age poetry is at a greater discount than ever. The reason is obvious. Not only the public, who are the readers, but even the poets themselves, have been largely infected by the current mania of speculation. Had the possession of capital been requisite for a participation in any of the thousand defunct schemes which have caused so unprecedented an emigration to the breezy shores of Boulogne, our poetical friends might have claimed for their vocation the credit of a rare morality. But unfortunately, the national gaming-table was open to men of every class. Peer and peasant, count and costermonger, millionaire and bankrupt, were alike entitled to figure as allottees, or even as committee-men, for the simple subscription of their signatures; and amidst the rush and squeeze of the crowd, who thronged towards the portal of Plutus, we were less surprised than pained to observe some of the most venerated votaries of Apollo. We shall not affect to disguise the purpose for which we were there ourselves. But much may be permitted to the prosaic writer which is forbidden to the canonized bard. Ours is a pen of all work—equally ready to concoct a prospectus, or to expose a literary charlatan. We are intensely fond of lucre, and expect, some day or another, to be in possession of the moiety of a plum. We have therefore no vain scruples regarding the sanctity of our calling, but carry our genius like a hooded falcon upon our wrist, ready to let it fly at any manner of game which may arise. We, however, deny in absolute terms the right of a poet to any such general license. He has no business whatever to trespass one foot beyond the limits his own domain. He ought to be thoroughly ignorant of the existence of bulls and bears, stags and ducks, and the rest of the zoology of the Exchange. Consols should be to him a mystery more impenetrable than the Sibylline verses, and the state of the stocks as unaccountable as the policy of Sir Robert Peel. The mischief, however, is done, and we fear it is irremediable. The example of the Poet-Laureate may indeed serve as a kind of excuse for the minor professors of the art. His well-known attempt to bear the Kendal and Windermere line, by a series of ferocious sonnets, is still fresh in the memory of the public, and we trust the veteran has, long ere this, realized a handsome profit. We ourselves made a little money out of the Perth and Inverness, by means of an indignant tirade against the desecration of the Pass of Killiecrankie; and we should, to a certainty, have made more, had not the Parliamentary Committee been weak enough to believe us, and, in consequence, to reject the bill. Yet it may be long before the literary market can recover its healthy tone—ere sonnets once more resume their ancient ascendency, and circulate from hand to hand in the character of intellectual scrip.

We suspect that very few of the poets backed out of the scrape in time. Their sanguine and enthusiastic temperament led them to hold, at all risks and hazards; and they did not, as a body, take warning from the symptoms of a declining market. An amiable friend of ours who belongs to the Young England party, and who has issued a couple of duodecimos in laudation of Bishop Bonner, found himself at the period of the crash in possession of two thousand Caithness and Land's End scrip, utterly unsaleable at any discount, though a fortnight before they were quoted at fifteen premium. He meditates, as we are informed, a speedy retirement to the penal solitudes of La Trappe, as there now seems to be little hope that Louis Philippe will provide a proper refuge for chivalrous misfortune by resuscitating the Order of Malta. The weaver-poet of Camlachie has gone into the Gazette in consequence of an unfortunate speculation in Caledonians. His lyre is as silent as his shuttle; and we fear that in his hours of despondency he is becoming by far too much addicted to drink. A clever young dramatist confessed to us some time ago that he found himself utterly "goosed;" and the last hope of the school of Byron has been forced to deny himself the luxury of inverted collars, as his uncompromising laundress peremptorily refused to accept of payment in characteristic Cemetery shares.

In the gross, this state of things seems deplorable enough; and yet, when we analyse it, there is still some room for comfort. Never, since we first had the honour of wielding the critical lash—for the Crutch is a sacred instrument—in the broad amphitheatre of letters, do we recollect a year less fertile in the product of verse than the present. Our young friends are not possessed with the same supreme and sublime contempt of gold which formed so disinterested a feature of the poets of the by-gone age. They have become corrupted by the manufacturing and utilitarian tenets of the day; and—we shudder to record it—divers of them are violent free-traders. They have all fallen into the snare of the man Broker; and at the very outset of life, in the heyday and spring of their existence, they can count both sides of a shilling with the acuteness of a born Pennsylvanian. Hence it is, we presume, that they have attained to a knowledge of the fact—long ago notorious among the Trade—that poetry will not pay. They look upon genius through the glasses of Adam Smith, weigh the probability of an adequate demand before they venture on the production of a supply, and cut short the inchoate canto upon principles of Political Economy. In a few years, we fear, poetry will be no longer extant, save for the commercial purposes of the advertisements of Messrs Moses and Hyam; unless, indeed, some Welsh or Highland railway company should take the matter up, and double their dividends by bribing a first-rate poet to produce another Lady of the Lake. Hence the sparseness of our library table, which renders our old vocation comparatively a sinecure, and leaves us, without the necessity of immolation, to the undisturbed enjoyment of our chair.

We might indeed, were we savagely inclined, discover some Volscians worth our fluttering in the ranks of Young England, or the more sombre group of poetical Oxonian divines. But we look with a kindly eye upon the eccentricities of the one school, and we listen to the drowsy strains of the other with no more active demonstration of disapproval than a yawn. We have high hope of George Sydney Smythe, Lord John Manners, and others, who have already produced some things of evident promise—not mere beaten tinsel, such as the resuscitated Cockneys are again beginning to vend in the literary market—but verses of true and genuine originality. Could we but ensure them against the vitiating effects of politics, it were a light hazard to predict for either of the above gentlemen a far higher reputation than has been achieved by the united efforts of the whole canorous crew which constituted the Melbourne administration. We must indeed except Mr Macaulay, a better poet than a politician, but—the brilliant ballad-writer being removed—what soul could have been contented to fatten upon the spongy lyrics of a Spring Rice, or the intolerable tragedies of a Russell! What food to sweeten the tedium of a solitary imprisonment for life!

As for the Oxford school, we fairly confess that its votaries are beyond our comprehension. Amiable they are, no doubt, although ascetic in principle; but they are likewise insufferably tedious. We have attempted at various times, and during different states of the barometer, to make ourselves master of the compositions of Mr Williams and his principal followers. We failed. After skimming over a page or two of mellifluous blank verse, we began to experience a strange sensation, as if a bee were humming through the room. At each evolution of the imaginary insect, our eyes felt heavier and heavier. We made a strong effort to rally ourselves at the description of a crystalline stream, meandering, as we rather think, somewhere through the confines of Paradise; but the hue of the water gradually changed. It became dark and treacly, purled with a somniferous sound, as though the channel had been filled with living laudanum; and in three minutes more we were unconscious of the existence of the income-tax, and as relieved from the load of worldly cares as though we had joined company with the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus.

Surely we have a right to expect something better from Oxford than this. The old nurse of learning must bestir herself once more, forswear morphia, and teach her pupils to strike a manlier chord, else men will cease to believe in the ancient magic of her name. What we want is, power, energy, pathos—not mere vapid sentiment, so diligently distilled that scarce a flavour of the original material is left to enable us to discover its origin. If poetry be a copy or a reflex of life, let it show out lifelike and true; if it be the representation of a dream, at all events let us have the vision, as in the mirror of Agrippa, well defined, though around its edges rest the clouds of impenetrable mystery. Above all things, let us have meaning, not vague allegorical phrases—power if not passion—sense if not sublimity. If the classics cannot teach us these, let us go back to the earlier ballads, and see how our fathers wrote without the aid of metaphysical jargon.

Our present purpose is to deal with Scottish writers, and fortunately we have material at hand. Last month we were in London, engaged in divers matters connected with the state of the nation and our own private emolument, which latter pursuit we as seldom as possible neglect. The cares of a railway witness, in which capacity we had the honour to act, are but few. A bountiful table was spread for us, not in the wilderness, but in an excellent hotel in St James's; breakfast, luncheon, dinner, and supper, followed one another with praiseworthy regularity; the matutinal soda-water was only succeeded by the iced hock and champagne of the vespers, and a beneficent Fairy of seventeen stone, in the guise of a Writer to Her Majesty's Signet, was courteous enough not only to defray the whole of the attending expenses, but to furnish us with certain sums of gold, which we disseminated at our own proper pleasure. In return for the attentions of our legal Barmecide, we submitted to ensconce ourselves for a couple of days in a hot room somewhere about the Cloisters, in the course of which sederunt we held an animated conversation with several gentlemen in wigs, for the edification—as we were given to understand—of five other gentlemen in hats, who sat yawning behind a green table. We take this opportunity of tendering our acknowledgments to the eminent and raucous Queen's Counsel who was kind enough to conduct our cross-examination, and who so delicately insinuated his doubts as to the veracity and candour of our replies. As his knowledge of the localities about Braemar—the district then under question—was about equal to his cognizance of the natural history of Kamschatka, we felt the compliment deeply; and should we ever have the pleasure of encountering our beetle-browed acquaintance during a vacation ramble on the skirts of Schehallion, we pledge ourselves that he shall carry back with him to Lincoln's Inn some lasting tokens of our regard. In the mean time we sincerely hope he has recovered from that distressing fit of huskiness which rendered his immediate vicinity by no means a seat of comfort to his solicitor.

As a matter of course, we relieved the monotony of our duties by divers modes of relaxation. Greenwich—in the glory of its whitebait, its undeniable Thames flounders, its dear little ducklings enshrined in their asparagus nest, and its flagons, wherein the cider cup shows sparklingly through the light blue Borage—was not unfrequented by us in the course of the sultry afternoon. At Richmond, likewise, we battened sybaritically; and more than once essayed to resuscitate our appetite, and awake within us the dormant sense of poetry, by a stroll along the breezy heath of Hampstead, preparatory to a dive into the Saracen, where, doubtless, in the days of yore, Leigh Hunt, Keats, and Hazlitt used to make wild work among the eggs and spinach. Our attendance at the theatres, however, was a matter of rarity. We have no fancy to undergo martyrdom by means of a slow stewing, when the sole palm we can win, in exchange for the sudorific pangs, is the enjoyment of some such shabby-genteel comedy as The Beggar on Horseback, or a travestie like that of the Birds of Aristophanes, the only peculiarity of which is its utter want of meaning. As a general rule, we prefer the spectacles on the Surrey side, to those exhibited in the Metropolitan or Westminster districts. There, the nautical drama still flourishes in its pristine force. The old British tar, in ringlets, pumps, and oil-skin castor, still hitches up his trousers with appropriate oath; revolves the unfailing bolus of pigtail in his cheek—swims to shore across a tempestuous sea of canvass, with a pistol in each hand and a cutlass in his teeth, from the wreck of the foundering frigate—and sets foot once more on the British soil, just in time to deliver Pretty Poll of Portsmouth, his affianced bride, (who has a passion for short petticoats and crimson stockings,) from the persecutions of that bebuttoned pirate with the whiskers, who carries more pistols in his girdle than the scalps of an Indian chief, and whose fall, after a terrific combat with basket-hilts and shower of fiery sparkles, brings down the curtain at the close of the third act amidst roars of unmitigated joy. Also we delight to see, at never-failing Astley's, the revived glories of British prowess—Wellington, in the midst of his staff, smiling benignantly upon the facetious pleasantries of a Fitzroy Somerset—Sergeant M'Craw of the Forty-Second, delighting the élite of Brussels by his performance of the reel of Tullochgorum at the Duchess of Richmond's ball—the charge of the Scots Greys—the single combat between Marshal Ney and the infuriated Life-guardsman Shaw—and the final retreat of Napoleon amidst a volley of Roman candles, and the flames of an arseniated Hougomont. Nor is our gratification less to discern, after the subsiding of the shower of saw-dust so gracefully scattered by that groom in the doeskin integuments, the stately form of Widdicomb, cased in martial apparel, advancing towards the centre of the wing, and commanding—with imperious gestures, and some slight flagellation in return for dubious compliment—the double-jointed clown to assist the Signora Cavalcanti to her seat upon the celebrated Arabian. How lovely looks the lady, as she vaults to her feet upon the breadth of the yielding saddle! With what inimitable grace does she whirl these tiny banners around her head, as winningly as a Titania performing the sword exercise! How coyly does she dispose her garments and floating drapery to hide the too maddening symmetry of her limbs! Gods!—She is transformed all at once into an Amazon—the fawn-like timidity of her first demeanour is gone. Bold and beautiful flushes her cheek with animated crimson—her full voluptuous lip is more compressed and firm—the deep passion of the huntress sparkles in her lustrous eye! Widdicomb becomes excited—he moves with quicker step around the periphery of his central circle—incessant is the smacking of his whip—not this time directed against Mr Merryman, who at his ease is enjoying a swim upon the saw-dust—and lo! the grooms rush in, six bars are elevated in a trice, and over them all bounds the volatile Signora like a panther, nor pauses until, with airy somersets, she has passed twice through the purgatory of the blazing hoop, and then, drooping and exhausted, sinks like a Sabine into the arms of the herculean Master, who—a second Romulus—bears away his lovely burden to the stables, amidst such a whirlwind of applause as Kemble might have been proud to earn!

"So," in the language of Tennyson—

"Dryness," however, according to our creed and practice, is not altogether unappeasable, and by the help of Barclay, Perkins, and Company, we succeeded in mitigating its rage. But we confess to the other miseries of the palsied heart and jaundiced eye, so soon as we were informed by the above-mentioned scribe, that our bill had been thrown out upon committee, and that, if we tarried longer in London, it must be upon our own proper charges. We had been so used for the last twelve months to voyage, and to subsist at the expense of joint-stock companies—so habituated to dine with provisional committees, and to hold sweet supper consultations in the society of salaried surveyors—that a reference to our private resources appeared a matter of serious hardship. However, there was no help for it. Some mean and unreasonable share-holders were already growling about a return of some portion of the deposits, and even, to the infinite disgust of the directors, hinted at a taxation of accounts. The murmurs of these slaves of Mammon broke up our little Eden. The Irish egg-merchant, who had been fed for three weeks upon turtle to induce him to give testimony touching the importation of eerocks—the tollman from Strathspey, who nightly meandered to the Coal-hole, in company with the intoxicated distiller—the three clerks who did the dirty work of the committee-room, and were therefore, with wise precaution, stinted in their allowance of beer—the northern bailie, who stuck strenuously to toddy, and the maritime provost, who affected the vintage of the Rhine—the raw uncouth surveyor from Dingwall, who, guiltless of straps, and rejoicing in a superfluity of rig-and-fur over a pair of monstrous brogues, displayed his native symmetry every afternoon in Regent Street, and reciprocated the gaze of the wondering milliners with a coarse guffaw, and the exhibition of his enormous teeth;—All these worthies vanished from the house in a single day, like spirits at the crowing of the cock, and returned to their native hills in a state of comparative demoralization. For our own part, we packed our portmanteau in gloomy silence, and meditated a speedy retreat to the distant solitudes of Loch Awe.

We were eating, as we thought, our last muffin, when our eye was accidentally caught by an advertisement in the Times, purporting that a new play was to be immediately produced at the Princess's theatre, and that its title was The King of the Commons. A spasm of delight shot through us. We were aware, some time before, that a dear friend, and distinguished fellow-labourer of ours, whose contributions have always been of sweetest savour in the nostrils of fastidious Christopher, had turned his attention to dramatic poetry, and was resolved, for once at least, to launch an experimental shallop upon the stage. Nor did we doubt that this was the enunciation of his attempt. We divined it at once from the subject, so akin to his genius and deep national feelings—we knew the fervour of his love to Scotland, and his earnest desire to illustrate some page of her varied annals—and we resolved accordingly to postpone our departure, and be present at the success or discomfiture of our bold and adventurous brother.

The first night of a new play is always attended with some agreeable excitement. If the author is a known man upon the boards—a veteran of some six comedies, all of which have found their way into the provinces, and are usually selected by the leading Star on the occasion of his or her benefit—the general audiences are desirous to ascertain whether his new effort is equal in point of merit to the rest. The critics, most of whom have failed in their own proper persons, are by no means indisposed to detect the occurrence of blemishes—friends hope that it may succeed, and unsuccessful rivals devoutly trust it may be damned. If the author is unknown, and if no very flagrant efforts have been made to pre-puff his performance, he has at all events the chance of an impartial hearing. Let the play go on smoothly to the middle; let no very glaring absurdities appear; let the actors really exert themselves, and display any thing like interest or talent in their business, and young Sophocles is generally sure of a favourable verdict. Our dear friends, the public, are always well disposed towards a winning man. One cheer elicits another, and applause, once commenced, goes on at a multiplied ratio. No doubt, the case may be reversed, and the sound of a solitary catcall from the pit awake the slumbering serpents, and become the signal for universal sibilation.

The danger is, that an unknown author, unpuffed, may be ruined for want of an audience. We have no great faith in the panacea of free tickets, issued by the lessee for the simple purpose of getting up a house. The worth of a production is usually estimated by its current value, and we doubt if a favourable bias can be produced in the minds of any, by means of gratuitous pasteboard. Puffing, again, often defeats its own object. It creates doubt in the anticipations of some, jealousy in those of others and is also apt to create a prestige which the result may not justify. When we are told, on the authority of newspaper paragraphs, that Bianca Franconi, or the Seven Bloody Poignards of Parma, is to take the town by storm,—that nothing equal to it in merit has been produced since the days of Shakspeare,—that the critic who had the privilege of attending the first rehearsal, emerged from the theatre with his blood in a state of congelation, owing to the sepulchral tones and vehement gestures of Mr Charles Kean, who represents the part of Giacomo degli Assassinazioni, the Demon Host of the Abruzzi;—when we listen to this preliminary flourish of trumpets, we are apt to screw our imaginations a peg too high, and may chance to derive less rapture than we had anticipated from the many scenes of murder which garnish the dénouement of the drama.

A greater virtue than fidelity is not in the celestial catalogue. We should at all times be ready to accompany a friend, either in a triumphal ovation or in a melancholy march to the scaffold,—to place the laurel on his head, or the funereal handkerchief in his hand. It was an exuberance of this feeling which determined us to be present at the first representation of The King of the Commons; and being firmly convinced of the truth of the adage, that there is safety in a multitude of councillors, we sent round the fiery cross to such of our fellow-contributors as were then in London, requesting them to favour us with their company to an early dinner at the Parthenon, as a proper preliminary to the more serious business of the evening.

Some half-dozen of the younger hands responded punctually to our call. They came dropping in in high glee, with a rather mischievous expression of countenance, as though they anticipated fun; nor had they been five minutes in the room, before we discovered, to our unspeakable consternation, that every man was furnished, either with a catcall or a railway whistle! Here was a proper business! We knew very well that the articles which our dramatic friend contributes to Maga, have found more favour in the eyes of the public than the lucubrations of all the rest of us put together, and yet we had been foolish enough to assume, that, after the manner of the brethren, we had been convoking a literary Lodge. In fact, we had made no allowance for that indescribable delight which prompts you irresistibly, and without thought of succour, to cram your horse at the ditch into which, six seconds before, the friend of your bosom has been pitched from the back of his runaway mare, and wherein he is now lying with his head fixed inextricably in the mud, and his legs demonstrating in the air a series of spasmodic mathematical propositions. Not that, in the slightest degree, the dispositions of the lads were evil. If the play turned out well, we knew that they would be found cheering with the most uproarious, and probably raving for the next week about the merits of their fortunate compeer;—but if, on the contrary, it should happen that our brother had overestimated his powers, little doubt existed in our mind, that each contributor would exert himself on his peculiar instrument as vigorously as Herr Kœnig, on the cornet-à-piston, nor seek to excuse himself afterwards on any more elaborate plea, than the right of every Briton to participate in a popular amusement.

The dinner went off well. We were, however, cautious to confine each man to his solitary pint, lest their spirits should prove too exuberant at the moment of the rising of the curtain. Coffee over, we wended our way to the theatre, where we arrived just in time to hear the expiring crash of the overture. The first glimpse of the well-filled house assured us that there was no fear of the play falling still-born for want of an adequate audience. Boxes, pit, and gallery were equally crammed. We took our seat in the midst of the band of catcallers and whistlemen, and proceeded to the inspection of the bill as diligently as though it were an exponent of the piece. It must be confessed that our friend has not been very fortunate in the selection of his names. Early associations with the neighbourhood of Mid-Calder, a region abounding in cacophonous localities, seem to have led him a little astray. Adam Weir, Portioner in Laichmont, is a name which may be found figuring in the Cloud of Witnesses, or in that very silly book, Mr Simpson's Traditions of the Covenanters. It might sound admirably in a tale of the "hill-folk," but we totally repudiate and deny the propriety of enrolling Sir Adam Weir of Laichmont in the list of King James's Bannerets. Buckie of Drumshorlan likewise, though he may turn out on further acquaintance to be a fellow of infinite fancy, appears to us in print the eidolon of a Bathgate carter. Madeleine we acknowledge to be a pretty name, but it loses its effect in conjunction with a curt patronymic. However, these are minor matters. It may be allowable to us, who drew our first trout from the Linnhouse Water, to notice them, but English ears may not be so fastidious. Tomkins, to the Chinese, is probably a name as terrible in sound as Wellington.

But see!—the curtain rises, and displays an interior in Holyrood. James White—you are a lucky fellow! That mechanist is worth his weight in gold; for, what with stained windows and draperies and pilasters, he has contrived to transform our old gloomy palace, where solemnity sits guardian at the portal, into as gay a habitation as ever was decked out for a southern potentate. Francesco and Bernardo—that is, Buckie and Mungo Small—have some preliminary talk, for which we care not; when suddenly the folding-doors fly open, and enter James the Fifth of Scotland, surrounded by his nobles.

Unquestionably the greatest of living British actors, Macready, has never wanted honours. This night he has them to the full, if deafening applause can testify the public goodwill; and of a truth he deserves them all, and more, were it but for that king-like bearing. There is no mock majesty in his aspect. Admirably has he appreciated the chivalrous character of James, who in many points seems to have borne a strong resemblance to the English Richard—as gallant and fearless, as hasty and bountiful—more trusting perhaps, but yet not more deceived. There is now a cloud on the royal brow. Some of the nobles have delayed, upon various pretexts, to send their vassals to the general muster on the Borough Muir, preparatory to an inroad upon England, and James cannot urge them on. Somerville and some others, who have no mind for the war, are pleading their excuse, greatly to the indignation of the King, who considers the honour of Scotland more bound up with the enterprise than his own.

He thus reproaches his nobles, who would fain instigate him to peace, but who on this occasion, as on many others, were opposed to the opinions, not only of the clergy, but of the people.

After some more such dialogue, the nobles promise obedience and retire, leaving James convinced of their lukewarmness, though unsuspicious of their treason, and more determined than ever to trust implicitly to the devotion of the people.

Some good passages had occurred before, but this was the first palpable hit in the play. The word Flodden came home like a cannon-shot to the heart of every Scotsman in the house, and a yell arose from the pit, as though the general body of bordering surveyors who packed it, were ready for another insurrection.

Buckie of Drumshorlan, who, it seems, is a notorious reiver, or, as he phrases it—"an outcast—a poor Scottish Ishmaelite,"—a fact, however, unknown to the king, whom he had rescued from the waters while attempting to cross the Avon in a spate—now comes forward, and gives information against Sir Adam Weir of Laichmont, as an agent of the English court, and a corrupter of the treacherous nobility. James determines to expiscate the matter in person; and accordingly, in the next scene, we are transported to a wood near Laichmont, where Madeleine Weir, the grandchild of the knight, and Malcolm Young, her cousin, are apparently bird-nesting, but in reality, though they know it not, making love. For poor Malcolm is an orphan, dependent entirely on Sir Adam, who will not let him become a soldier, but has condemned him to holy orders. It is, in short, the story—nearly as old as the world—of disappointed hope and love; though Madeleine, with a sweet innocence which we suspect is rarely to be found save on the stage, seems unconscious of the true state of her feelings with reference to her early playmate. Their tête-à-tête is interrupted by the entrance of King James, of course in disguise, and now beset by sundry ruffians who have left their mark on the royal costard; and Malcolm, like a tight St Andrews student, springs to the rescue. This effects the introduction of the King to the house of Laichmont, where we find Sir Adam—a hoary, calculating traitor—in great anxiety to find a messenger to communicate an English dispatch to the disaffected lords of Scotland. We pass over his colloquy with his neighbour, Laird Small—an elderly idiot, whose son Mungo holds the post of usher at Holyrood, and who now agrees with Sir Adam to unite the two estates by a marriage between the said Mungo and Madeleine. This scene, which is pure dramatic business, is pleasantly enough conducted, although in point of probability, and considering the ambition of the knight, he might have looked for a better match for his daughter than a coxcomb of an usher, heir though he was of some plashy acres in the rush-covered confines of Mid-Calder. We have observed, however, that love of district is as deep a passion in the human mind as love of country; and the intense yearning of the Switzer for his clear Lucerne, may not transcend the tide of parochial patriotism which swells the bosom of the native of the Kirk of Shotts.

In the second act, Sir Adam somewhat incautiously selects James himself as the messenger to the nobles; and here we cannot altogether acquit our friend from the charge of great improbability. That blemish excepted, the scene is a good one, especially in the part where James, with the true vanity of a poet, becomes ruffled at the account of the common criticism on his verses. In the next scene, James extracts the secret of his love from Malcolm—a character which, by the way, was admirably performed by Mr Leigh Murray—and the whole mystery of the sadness of her cousin is revealed to the agitated Madeleine. We have an idea that dramatic love-scenes must be very ticklish in composition; at least of this we are aware, that in real life they are peculiarly perplexing. We never felt so like a booby as when we first attempted a proposal; and, to our shame be it said, we experienced far less pain from the positive refusal of Jemima, than from the consciousness that, at that moment, we must have appeared inexpressibly absurd. And so it is, we apprehend, with the great majority of lovers. They keep beating about the bush for months, and never seem absolutely to know what they would be at. The great majority of marriages are the result of accident. We have known several proposals follow the overturning of a chaise. A sharp race from the pursuit of an infuriated bull—the collision of a steam-boat—even a good rattling thunder-storm, will bring to a proper understanding parties who, under ordinary circumstances, and with no such pretty casualties, might have dawdled out years of unprofitable courtship, and finally separated for ever in consequence of some imaginary coldness, for which neither one nor the other of them could have assigned a plausible reason. Now, within the limits of a five-act play, there is no space for dawdling. The flirtation must always be of the warmest, and the engagement consequent thereon. A friend to whom your hero can tell his story, is of immense advantage in the drama, more especially when the young gentleman, as in this case, is under difficulties, and the young lady playfully concealed behind a whinbush, for no other purpose than that of learning the cause of his secret sorrow. Let us see how our friend manages this.

Obedient to dramatic rule, Madeleine faints away at the discovery; and the good-natured king, without however discovering himself, determines to secure the happiness of the youthful couple.

This brings us to the third act, where the accusing Buckie again makes his appearance, and denounces Sir Adam Weir, not only as a traitor, but as a plunderer of his own kin. He avers the existence of a nephew, who, were a multiplepoinding instituted, would be found to have good right to a considerable slice of Laichmont, not to mention divers other dividends; and he pledges himself to compear at Holyrood on an early day, at the peril of his head, to prove the truth of his allegations. With reference to the correspondence with the nobility, James speaks thus:—

Sir Adam Weir delivers the important packet to the king to be conveyed to the traitors, and James immediately hands it over to Buckie, with a strict charge that it shall be produced that evening in the court at Holyrood. His majesty having no further business at Laichmont, departs in hot haste for Edinburgh.

It is now full time for old Sir Adam to exercise his parental authority over Madeleine in the matter of her nuptials with Mungo Small, who has at last arrived at Laichmont. The aged reprobate having already sold his king and country, cannot be expected to have any remorse about trafficking with his own flesh and blood; and accordingly he shows himself, in this interview, quite as great a brute as the elder Capulet. Nay, to our apprehension, he is considerably worse; for he not only threatens the meek-eyed Madeleine with starvation, but extends his threats of vengeance to the unoffending Malcolm in case of her refusal to wed with the gentle County Mungo. Madeleine is no Juliet, but a good Scots lassie—brought up, we hope, in proper knowledge of her breviary, if not of her catechism, and quite incapable of applying to the Friar Laurence of Mid-Calder for an ounce of deceptive morphia. She has a hankering for St Ninian's and the holy vocation of a nun.

But Madeleine is not yet to get off quite so easily. Young Master Small is introduced to ensnare her with his manifold accomplishments, and certainly he does exhibit himself as a nincompoop of the first water. With all respect and affection for our brother, we hold this character to be a failure. There is, we maintain, a vast difference between vanity, however preposterous, and sheer undaunted drivel, which latter article constitutes the staple of Master Mungo's conversation. Not but what a driveller may be a fair character for a play, but then he ought to drivel with some kind of consistency and likelihood. Far are we from denying that there are many fools to be found in Scotland; we even consider it a kind of patriotism to claim our just quota of national idiocy. Our main objection to Mungo is, that he represents, so far as we have seen, no section of the Scottish Bauldy. If he resembles any thing, it is a Cockney of the Tittlebat Titmouse breed, or one of those absurd blockheads in the plays of Mr Sheridan Knowles who do the comic business, wear cock's feathers in their hats, and are perpetually inquiring after news. There is a dash of solemnity, a ludicrous assumption of priggism, about the Scottish fool which Mr White has entirely evaded. Ass though he be, the northern dunderhead is neither a man-milliner nor a flunky; and yet Mungo Small is an arrant compound of the two. We put it to the public if the following scene is facetious:—

Fancy such a capon as this holding office at the court of James the Fifth!

The mock account of the tournament which follows, would be pleasant reading were it not for the total incongruity of the narrator with the scene which he describes. The actor who performed this part was evidently quite at home in the representation of the smallest Cockney characters. He brought out Mungo as the most pitiful little reptile that ever waddled across the stage, and in consequence the audience, for the first and only time, exhibited some symptoms of disapprobation. What had gone before was really so good—the performers had so ably seconded the efforts of the author—the interest excited by the general business of the play was so great—that this declension, which might otherwise have been overlooked, was felt to be a positive grievance. Our chosen band of contributors had hitherto behaved with great decorum. They had cheered lustily at the proper places, pocketed their whistles, and although the house was remarkably warm, not a man of them had emerged between the acts for the sake of customary refreshment. All at once, in the middle of the tournament scene, the shrill sharp squeak of a catcall greeted on our ear, and turning rapidly round, we detected a Political Economist in the act of commencing a concerto. It was all we could do to wring the instrument from the villain's hand. We threatened to make a report of his contumacious conduct to head-quarters, and menaced him with the wrath of Christopher; but his sole reply to our remonstrance was something like a grumbled defiance; and very glad were we when the offending Mungo disappeared, and a pretty scene between Madeleine and Malcolm, made the audience forget the ill-omened pleasantries of the Cockney.

The fourth act is remarkably good. Of all the Scottish nobles, Lord Seton and Hume have ever been the dearest to James; his belief in their enduring faith and constancy has enabled him to bear up against the coldness and disaffection of the others; but the time has now arrived when his confidence in the honour of at least one of them is destined to be shaken. One of the bishops—Mr White does not specify his diocese—accuses Lord Seton of holding correspondence with the leader of the English host. The charge is not believed—nay, hardly entertained—until Seton himself being sent for, to some extent admits the fact of having received a messenger.

After all, it turns out that Seton is perfectly innocent—that the message he has dispatched to English Lord Dacre is one of scorn and defiance—and that the old Cacofogo of the church, who might have belonged to The Club, has been rather too hasty in his inferences. Macready—great throughout the whole scene—outshone himself in the reconciliation which follows; and we believe our friend the Political Economist was alone in his minority when he muttered, with characteristic adherence to matter of fact—"Why the plague didn't that fellow Seton clear himself at once, and save us the whole of the bother?" We return for a moment to Laichmont, where there is a regular flare-up between old Sir Adam and Malcolm, the latter pitching it into the senior in superior style. An officer from the court arrives, and the whole family party are ordered off instanter to Holyrood.

The last act shows us King James vigilant, and yet calm, in the midst of the corrupted barons. It is some weeks since the latter have seen a glimpse of an English rouleau, and their fingers are now itching extremely for an instalment. They are dismissed for the moment, and the king begins to perform his royal functions and redeem his promises, by procuring from the Cardinal-Legate letters of dismission from the church in favour of Malcolm Young. The court is then convoked, and Buckie—public prosecutor throughout—appears with a pair of wolf's jaws upon his head, which we hold to be a singular and somewhat inconvenient substitute for a wig. The indictment is twofold. The first charge is against Sir Adam for falsehood, fraud, and wilful imposition; in consequence of which, his nephew, described as a lad of considerable early promise, has been compelled to betake himself to the king's highway, in the reputable capacity of a cutpurse. This missing youth turns out to be identical with the cateran of Drumshorlan. The second charge is more serious. It relates to the public treachery of Weir; in proof of which, Buckie produces the packet containing the dispatches to the Lords. All is confusion and dismay.

After this act of magnanimity, our readers will readily believe that all the other personages in the drama are properly disposed of—that pardon and reconciliation is the order of the day—and that the lovers are duly united. So ends one of the most successful dramas which has been produced for a long time upon the stage. Our own judgment might possibly have been swayed by partiality—not so that of the thousands who have since witnessed its repeated and successful representation. Were we to venture upon any broad criticism, after a careful perusal of this play, and of The Earl of Gowrie, we should be inclined to say that Mr White sins rather upon the side of reserve, than that of abandonment. We think he might well afford to give a freer rein to his genius—to scatter before us more of the flowers of poesy—to elevate the tone of his language and the breadth of his imagery, more especially in the principal scenes. It may be—and we almost believe it—that he entertains a theory contrary to ours—that his effort throughout has been to avoid all exaggeration, and to imitate, as nearly as the vehicle of verse will allow, not only the transactions, but the dialogue of actual life. But, is this theory, after all, substantially correct? A play, according to our ideas, is not intended to be a mere daguerreotype of what has passed or is passing around us; it is also essentially a poem, and never can be damaged by any of the arts which the greatest masters in all times have used for the composition of their poetry. Much must be said in a play, which in real life would find no utterance; for passion, in most of its phases, does not usually speak aloud; and therefore it is that we not only forgive, but actually require some exaggeration on the stage, in order to bring out more clearly the thoughts which in truth would have remained unspoken. In the matter of ornament, much must be left to the discretion and the skill of the author. We are as averse as any man can be to overflowing diction—to a smothering of thoughts in verbiage—to images which distract the mind by their over-importance to the subject. But the dramatic author, if he carefully considers the past annals of his craft, can hardly fail to remark that no play has ever yet achieved a permanent reputation, unless, in addition to general equable excellence, it contains some scenes or passages of more than common beauty and power, into the composition of which the highest species of poetry enters—where the imagination is allowed its unchecked flight, and the fancy its utmost range. Thus it was, at all events, that Shakespeare wrote; and if our theory should be by any deemed erroneous, we are contented to take shelter under his mighty name, and appeal to his practice, artless as it may have been—as the highest authority of the world.

But, after all, we are content to take the play as we find it. Of The Earl of Gowrie, Mr White's earlier production, we have left ourselves in this article little room to speak. In some points it is of a higher and more ambitious caste than the other—written with more apparent freedom; and some of the characters—Logan of Restalrig for example—are powerfully conceived. It is not, however, so well adapted for the stage as the other drama. James the Sixth, according to our author's portraiture, is a far less personable individual than his grandsire; and the quaint mixture of Scots and Latin with which his speeches are decorated, would sound strangely and uncouthly in modern ears, even could a competent actor be found. We would much rather see this play performed by an amateur section of the Parliament House, than brought out on the boards of Drury Lane. If the Lords Ordinary stood upon their dignity and refused participation in the jinks, we think we could still cull from the ranks of the senior bar, a fitting representative for the gentle King Jamie. We have Logans and Gowries in abundance, and should the representation ever take place, we shall count upon the attendance of Mr White, who shall have free permission for that evening to use the catcall to his heart's content.

Not less pleased are we with the delightful book of Highland Minstrelsy from the pen of Mrs David Ogilvy, and so characteristically illustrated by our friend R. R. M'Ian, which now claims our attention. We are glad to find, in one young writer at least, a return to a better and a simpler style than that which has been lately prevalent—a strong national feeling not warped or perverted by prejudice, and a true veneration for all that is great and glorious in the past. These poems are, as the authoress informs us in her preface, intended to bear upon "the traditions, the sentiments, and the customs of a romantic people"—they are rather sketches of the Highlanders, than illustrations drawn from history—they are well conceived, and clearly and delicately executed.

Indeed, notwithstanding the mighty harvest which Sir Walter Scott has reaped, there is a wide field still open to those who comprehend the national character. It is, however, one into which no stranger may hope to enter with the slightest prospect of success. A more lamentable failure than that committed by Mr Serjeant Talfourd in his attempt to found a tragedy upon the woful massacre of Glencoe—a grosser jumble of nonsense about ancestry and chieftainship—was, we verily believe, never yet perpetrated. At the distance of six years, we can vividly remember the tingling of our fingers for the pen when we first detected the Serjeant upon his northern poaching expedition; nor assuredly should he have escaped without exposure, had not the memory of Ion been still fresh, and many graceful services to literature pled strongly within us in his behalf. But our authoress, if not born, has been bred in the heart of the mountains—she knows, we are sure, every rood of great Strath-Tay from Balloch to the roaring Tummel—she has seen the deep pass of Killiecrankie alike in sunshine and storm, and sweet must have been the walks of her childhood in the silent woods of Tullymet. It is among such scenes as these—in the midst of a brave, honest and an affectionate people—that she has received her earliest poetical impulse, and gratefully has she repaid that inspiration with the present tribute of her muse.

We hardly know to which of her ballads we should give precedence. Our favourite—it may be from association, or from the working of Jacobite sympathies of which we never shall be ashamed—is the first in order, and accordingly we give it without comment:—

"The Exile at Culloden.

"Eilan Mohr" and the "Vow of Ian Lom," the renowned Seannachie of the Highlands, are both fine poems, but rather too long for extract; and as we do not doubt that this volume will erelong be found in the boudoir and drawing-room of many of our fair countrywomen, we have less hesitation in leaving them to a more leisurely perusal.

The young authoress will, we trust, forgive us if we tender one word of advice before parting with her on the heights of Urrard—a spot which was once—and we hope will be again—the home of more worth, beauty, and excellence, than is often to be found within the circle of a single family. She ought to be very cautious in her attempts to write in the Scottish dialect. Few, even of those who have habitually heard it spoken from their childhood, can discern the almost indefinable line which exists between the older and purer phraseology, and that which is more corrupt. The very spelling of the words is a matter of considerable difficulty, and when not correctly written, the effect is any thing but pleasing. With this hint and another extract we shall return the volume to better keeping than our own, with our sincere approval of its contents, and our admiration for the genius of the writer.

"

The Old House of Urrard.

We cannot altogether dismiss the book without bearing testimony to the merits of M'Ian, a rising artist and thorough Highlander, already favourably known to the public by his Sketches of the Clans, and other admirable works. Few pictures have ever affected us more than his Highland prisoner, exhibited last year in the Royal Academy, into which he has thrown a far deeper feeling, both of poetry and romance, than is at the command of many of his brethren, whose names are more widely bruited than his own. We send him across the Border our cordial greeting, and our best wishes for his continued success and prosperity.

And here we should have concluded this article in peace and amity with all men—haunted by no other thoughts save those of sweet recollection—and as innocent of blood as our terrier pup, who, we are gratified to observe, is at this moment vainly attempting to enlarge a casual fracture in our slipper. But our eye has accidentally lighted upon a fugitive volume, half smothered beneath a heap of share-lists; and mindful of our duty, however painful, we drag forth the impostor to his doom. Morning and other Poems, by a Member of the Scotch Bar! Why, the very name of the book is enough to betray its spurious origin. The unfortunate person who has rashly attempted to give currency to his verses by assuming a high and honourable position, to which, we believe from the bottom of our soul, he has not the remotest pretension—has not even taken the pains to ascertain the corporate name of the body with which he claims affiliation, and bungles even in the title-page. With the members of the Scottish Bar we have some acquaintance—nay, we think that—from habitual attendance at the Parliament House, being unfortunately implicated in a law-plea as interminable as that of Peebles against Plainstanes—we know almost every one of them by headmark, from the Pet of the Stove, whose snuff-box is as open as his heart, to the saturnine gentleman who is never seen beyond the precincts of the First Division. We acquit every one of them of participation in this dreary drivel.

It may be that the gods have not made all of them poetical—and, for the sake of the judges, we opine that it is better so—yet some rank amongst our dearest and most choice contributors; nor, we believe, is there one out of the whole genuine fraternity of educated and accomplished gentlemen who could not, if required, versify a summons, or turn out a Lay of the Multiplepoinding, equal, if not superior, to Schiller's Song of the Bell. It is rather too much that the literary character of the bar of Scotland is to be jeopardied by the dulness of the author of Morning and other Poems. Why has he not the courage, instead of sheltering himself under a legal denomination common to some three hundred gentlemen, to place his own name upon the title-page, and stand or fall by the bantlings of his own creation? Does he think, forsooth, that it is beneath the dignity of a barrister to publish verses, or to hold at any time a brief in the court of Apollo? If so, why does he attempt to thrust forward his vocation so wantonly? But he knows that it is no disgrace. The literary reputation of the bar is so high, that he actually assumes the title for the sake of obtaining a hearing, and yet merges his own individuality, so that he may be enabled to slink away in silence and obscurity from the ridicule which is sure to overwhelm him.

Morning, and other Poems! It was impossible for the author to have stumbled upon a more unfortunate subject in support of his pretensions. Of all imaginable themes, that of morning is least likely to inspire with enthusiasm the soul of a Scottish barrister. Few are the associations of delight which that word awakens in his mind. It recalls to him the memory of many a winter, throughout which he has been roused from his comfortable nap at half-past seven, by the shrill unquellable voice of Girzy, herself malignant and sullen as the bespoken warning of the watchman. He recollects the misery of shaving with tepid water and a blunt razor by the light of a feeble dip—the fireless study—the disordered papers—the hasty and uncomfortable breakfast, and the bolting of the slippery eggs. Blash comes a sheet, half hail half slush, against the window—the wind is howling without like a hurricane, and threatens to carry off that poor shivering lamplighter, whose matutinal duty it is to extinguish the few straggling remnants of gas now waning sickly and dim, in the dawn of a bad December morning. What would he not give if this were a Monday when he might remain in peace at home! But there is no help for it. He is down for three early motions on the roll of the most punctual Ordinary that ever cursed a persecuted bar; so he buttons his trot-cosey around him, and, without taking leave of the wife of his bosom—who, like a sensible woman as she is, never thinks of moving until ten—he dashes out, ankle-deep in mud and melting snow, works his way up a continuous hill of a mile and a half in length, with a snell wind smiting him in the face, his nose bluemigating like a plum, and his linen as thoroughly damped as though it had been drawn through the wash-tub. Just as he begins to discern through the haze the steeple of Knox's kirk, nine strokes upon the bell warn him that his watch is too slow. He rushes on through gutter and dub, and arrives in the robing-room simultaneously with ten other brethren, who are all clamorously demanding their wigs and gowns from the two distracted functionaries. Accomodated at last, he hurries up the stairs, and when, through the yellow haze of the house, he has groped his way to the den where early Æacus is dispensing judgment by candle-light, he finds that the roll has been already called without the appearance of a single counsel. Such, for half the year—the other half being varied by a baking—are the joys which morning brings to the member of the Scottish bar. Few, we think, in their senses would be inclined to sing them, nor, indeed, to do our author justice, does he attempt it. His notions of morning occupations are very different. Let us see what sort of employment he advises in an apostrophe, which, though ostensibly addressed to Sleep, (a goddess with two mothers, for he calls her "Daughter of Jove and Night, by Lethe born,") must, we presume, have been intended for the edification of his fellow-mortals.

Here is a pretty fellow! What! First breakfast, then a walk, then the byre, the ewe-bught, the pig-stye, and the kennel, and after all that, without wiping the gowkspittle of the tares from your jacket, or the stickiness of Cato's soss from your fingers, you would sit down to a second breakfast, like a great snorting gormandizer, and never say good-morning to your wife and children until you have finished your third roll, and washed down that monstrous quantity of fried ham with your fifth basin of bohea! But no—we turn over a couple of pages, and find that we have done our friend injustice. He is a poet, and, according to his idea of that race, they subsist entirely upon porridge or on sowens.

Our theory is, that this man is a medical student. We have a high regard for the healing faculty; nor do we think that, amongst its ranks, there is to be found more than the ordinary proportion of blockheads. But the smattering of diversified knowledge which the young acolytes are sure to pick up in the classes, is apt to go to their heads, and to lead them into literary and other extravagances, which their more sober judgment would condemn. They are seldom able, however, to disguise their actual calling; and even their most powerful efforts are tinctured with the flavour of rhubarb or of senna. This youth has been educated in obstetrics.

He is an adept in the mysteries of gestation—an enthusiast so far in his profession, and cannot even contemplate the approach of morning without the feelings of a genuine Howdie. Mark his exordium—

It is a great pity that one so highly gifted should ever have been tempted to forsake the muse for any mere mundane occupation. But in spite of his modest request that sundry celestial spirits—

we are not altogether without hopes that he will reconsider the matter, avoid too hard work, which, in his own elegant language, might make him

and not only delight us occasionally with a few Miltonic parodies as delectable as these, but be persuaded in time to assume the laureat's wreath. As for the pretext that he is getting into practice—whether legal or medical—that is all fudge. He informs us that "the following pages were written, during the author's leisure hours, some years ago, before the superior claims of professional occupations interfered to make such pursuits unlawful, and would probably have remained unpublished, but for the accident of a talented friend's perusal." Moreover, he says that "his conscience will not reproach him with the hours which the preparation of these poems for the press has filched from graver business—

We assure him that it need not do so. No man who has glanced at this volume will accuse him of knowing the difference between a process of Ranking and Sale and a Declarator of Legitimacy; and he may comfort himself with the conviction that his literary pursuits are quite as lawful at the present time as they were some years ago. No importunate solicitor will ever interfere to divert him from them. The man who cannot compass an ordinary distich will never shine in minutes of debate; nor have we the slightest expectation that a three-guinea fee—even were he entitled to receive it—would ever supply the place of that unflinching principle of honour, which he thus modestly, and not unprophetically acknowledges to be the mainspring of his inspiration—

The following imprecation, which we find in "Morning," inspires us with something like hope of the continuance of his favours:—

We dare not say Amen to such a wish. On the contrary, in the name of the whole Outer-House, we demand a supplementary canto. Let him submit it to the perusal of his "talented friend," and we dare answer for it that the publishers will make no objection to stand sponsors for a new volume on the same terms as before.