the million, for not ten in a thousand are, by constitution or custom, capable to understand their transcendent excellence. Tickler. There must, I fear, be some wrong-headedness in the poet, who, from the whole range of human life, deliberately selected a pedlar for his highest philosophical character in a philosophical poem. Shepherd. Dinna abuse pedlars, Mr. Tickler. In Scotland they're aye murder'd. Tickler. Mr. Jeffrey murder'd the pedlar in the Excursion. North. No impertinence, gents. Shepherd. Nae wut without a portion o' impertinence. Shepherd. But then, you see, you may be impertinent, as you was the noo, notwithstanding. North. The first twenty pages of the Excursion enable the reader to know on what grounds, and for what reasons Mr. Wordsworth has chosen, in a moral work of the highest pretensions, to make his chief and most authoritative interlocutor, a pedlar. Much small wit has been sported on the subject, about pieces of tape and riband, thimbles, penknives, knee-buckles, pincushions, and other pedlar-ware; and perhaps such associations, and others, essentially mean or paltry, must, to a certain extent, connect themselves in most, or all minds, with the idea of such a calling. There is neither difficulty nor absurdity, however, in believing that an individual, richly endowed with natural gifts, may be a pedlar and certainly that mode of life not only furnishes, but offers the best opportunity to a man of a thoughtful and a feeling mind, of becoming intimately and thoroughly acquainted with all the ongoings of humble life. Robert Burns was an exciseman. Yet it does not follow from this, that there is wisdom in the choice of such a small retired merchant for the chief spokesman in a series of dialogues, in which one of the greatest poets of England is to take a part. Of many things spoken of in these dialogues, such a pedlar, in virtue of his profession, was an excellent judge; but of many more the knowledge is not only not peculiarly appropriate to a pedlar, but such knowledge as could only, I conceive, have been accumulated and mastered by a man of finished classical education. We fear, therefore, that there is something absurd in his language about Thebes, and "Palmyra central in the desert," nor less so in the profound attention with which he listens to the "Poet's" still more eloquent, most poetical, and philosophical disquisition on the origin of the heathen mythology. But admitting this, none but the shallowest and weakest minds will allow themselves to be overcome by a word. Blot out the word pedlar from the poem, substitute, as Charles Lamb well remarked, the word palmer, and the poem is then relieved from this puny and futile objection. Let his previous history be unknown-his birth and parentage-and let him be merely said to be A MAN of natural genius, great powers of reflection, a humane spirit, and understanding chiefly cultivated by self-education, though not unenlightened by knowledge of history, and especially of long and intimate experience of the habits, and occupations, and character of the poor, and we have a person before us, entitled to walk and talk even with Mr. Wordsworth, and if so, before all the world. Tickler. My dear Shepherd, will you have the goodness to help me to wheel round yonder sofa-bed towards the right flank of the fire! Shepherd. Surely, sir-but you're no gaun to sleep? Tickler. Why, James, I waltzed from eleven last night till three this morning Shepherd. You what? Tickler. Waltzed, and gallopaded, and mazourka'd. Shepherd. The man's mad. (TICKLER lies down on the sofa-bed, and the SHEPHERD covers him cosily with cloaks.) Tickler. Pastor Fido! Shepherd. I wunner what Procusty wou'd hae thocht o' you, sir? Noo-dinna snore nane. Though I snore mysell, I canna thole't in ithers-that's a gude callant-say your prayers-shut your een-and gang to sleep. Hushaby-hushaby-hushaby-hushaby! Remember, me, sir, to a' your freens in the Land o' Nod-a strange shadowy set, an unaccountable generation-leevin' unner laws that hae subsisted syne the Fa', and enjoyin' sic a perfeck system o' misrepresentation, that nae desire hae they o' Parliamentary Reform. Tickler. (indistinctly.) "A plague on both your houses." Shepherd. His een's fast glazin'-there's a bit snorie—and noo I think that may be safely ca'd sleep. (Starting up.) Mr. North, haud ma hauns! North. Hold your hands! What do you mean, James ? Shepherd. I was seized just then wi' a spudderin' impetus to murder Mr. Tickler-and hod there been a knife on the table, I do devootly believe I would hae nicked his craig. North, (taking his crutch from its corner.) I cannot just exactly say, James, that I altogether like the expression in these eyes of yours at present. Burke indeed is dead-but his accomplices are yet alive Shepherd. Oh, man! but you're easily frightened-you're a great cooart North, (cautiously restoring the crutch to its corner, while he still eyes the SHEPHERD.) Well then-well-James. Shepherd. Wheesht, sir-wheesht. Speak loun, and ring the bell saftly-for eisters, and we'll cheat Tickler oot o' the brodd. (Enter the establishment with the oyster board--the Council oj Five Hundred.) North. Now, my dear James, let us suck them up silently—not to disturb Timothy's dreams. Shepherd. Excessive sappy? North. Very. Shepherd. Young though lusty-their beards are no grown yetay, here's ane wi' a pair o' whuskers North. The natural history of the oyster―― Shepherd. Oh sir! but I'm fonder and fonder every day o' the study o' natural history. North. You have Bewick, I know, James, a: your finger ends Shepherd. Na-you ken nae sic thing. I hae little or no knowledge at my finger ends, or ma tongue-tip either-it lies a' in my brain and in my heart. When, at times, the ideas come flashing out, my een are filled wi' fire-and when the emotions come flowin' up, wi' water; at least in the ae case there's brichtness, and in the ither a haze. Aften the twa unite, like a cloud, veilin', but no hidin', the sun-like radiance on dew, showin' it mair translucent ere it melt awa' on the spring buds or the simmer flowers-an evanescence o' liquid lustre, out o' whose bosom the happy thochts flee awa' to ither regions o' delicht, like bees obeyin' their instincts, that lead them, without chart or compass, to every nook in the wilderness where blaws a family o' heather-bells. North. I know you have the Journal of a Naturalist, published by Mr. Murray-a delightful volume-perhaps the most so-nor less instructive than delightful-given to natural history since White's Selborne.* Shepherd. You gied me't, and I never lend byeucks you gied mefor to lend a byeuck is to lose it-and borrowin's but a hypocritical pretence for stealin' and shou'd be punished wi' death Tickler. Without benefit of clergy. Shepherd. True, indeed, sir: a clergyman cou'd be o' nae benefit to sic an unjustified sinner. North. But there is another work, James, called "The British Naturalist," published by Whittaker, Treacher, and Arnott, Ave-Maria-Lane, which I must send out to you by the carrier Shepherd. What for no gie't to me the noo, and I'll put in my pouch? North. 'Tis not in the Snuggery. Indeed, at present, both volumes are with Mrs. Gentle. The author is not only well versed in natural science, but he is a close observer of nature. He has a keen eye and a fine ear, and writes, not only with perspicuity, but like almost all good naturalists, with eloquence. He views his subjects in those masses in which we find them grouped in nature; and the plant or the animal *The Rev. Gilbert White was born at Selborne, in Hampshire, and spent his life on his paternal estate adjacent to that village. He devoted his leisure to literature, and the study of nature, and the fruit of his researches appeared in his "Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne", a delightful book, as popular at this day, as on its publication more than half a century ago. Mr. White died in 1793, aged seventy-three.-M. has been taken in conjunction with the scenery, and the general and particular use-and when that arose easily, the lesson of morality or natural religion. Shepherd. A plan, I jalouse, at aince natural and feelosofical. North. The woodcuts of the various animals and insects are designed and executed by Mr. W. H. Brooke-and those of the Lake and the Brook by Mr. Bonner, from drawings by Harry Wilson, Esq., who, by the way, has recently published some interesting Views of Foreign Cities. Shepherd. What mean ye, sir, by the Lake and the Brook? North. Why, the first volume of the British Naturalists consists of parts, entitled the Mountain, the Lake, the River, the Sea, the Moor, and the Brook. Shepherd. Be sure to remember not to forget to keep it in your mind, sir, to attend to drappin' a hint to Mrs. Gentle, that ye hae promised to send out the two volumms o' the British Naturalist to Altrive and shou'd they only be in boards, you had as weel get them bun', plainly but strangly, for wee Jamie's mad about a' crawlin', creepin', soomin', and fleein' things, and I think o' getting him made an Honorary Member of the Wernerian Society. North. I will send you out, at the same time, my dear James, “Menageries," written, I am told, by my most able and ingenious philosophic friend, Charles Knight, Editor (?) of the Library of Entertaining Knowledge. The "Tower Menagerie," containing the natural history of the animals contained in that establishment, with anecdotes of their character and history Shepherd. That wull be a feast to my darling. North. illustrated by portraits, taken from life, by that admirable artist, William Harvey, and engraved on wood by Branston and Wright, who stand in the first rank of their profession. Shepherd. He'll wear his dear een out-God bless him-on the lions, teeggers, and leopards-for though a lamb in gentleness of disposition, the fiercer the animal, the deeper drauchts o' delight drinks his imagination frae the rings o' their een, and the spats on their hide, sae wildlike wi' the speerit o' the sandy deserts, yet mair beautifu' than ony tame creatures that walk peaceably aroun' the dwellin's o' men. North. The literary department has been superintended by E. T. Bennet, Esq, F. L. S., an active member of the Zoological Societyand much valuable assistance afforded by N. A. Vigors, the Secretary Shepherd. Erudite, I doot not, on a' manner o' monsters North. Zoologists, James, of the first order. To the same gentleinen we owe a similar work, equally beautiful-"The Gardens and Menagerie of the Zoological Society, Vol. 1, Quadrupeds Shepherd. Pit it intil the parshel. But dinna tak the trouble o' payin' the carriage-for I'll no grudge it, nor a couple o' caulkers to the carrier, wha's a steady man, and never sleeps in his cart, nor, when she's heavily laden, even up-hill, loups on to ease himsell on the tram -a dangerous practice, that has made many an honest woman a widow, and many weans orphans. North. Your head, my dear James, is now touching Howitt's "Book of the Seasons." Prig and pocket it. 'Tis a jewel. (The Shepherd seizes it from the shelf, and acts per order.) Shepherd. Is Nottinghame far intil England, sir? For I wou'd really like to pay the Hooitts a visit this simmer. Thae Quakers are, what ane might scarcely opine frae first principles, a maist poetical Christian seck. There was Scott o' Amwell, wha wrott some simplish things in a perseverin' speerit o' earnestness; there is Wilkinson, yonner, wha wonns on a beautifu' banked river, no far off Peerith, (is't the Eamont, think ye?) the owther o' no a few poems delichtfu' in their domesticity -auld bachelor though he be-nae warld-sick hermit, but an enlichtened labourer o' love, baith in the kitchen and flower garden o' natur';-lang by letter has me and Bernard Bartoon been acquent, and verily he is ane o' the mildest and modestest o' the Muses' sons, nor wanting a thochtfu' genie, that aften gies birth to verses that treasure themselves in folk's hearts;-the best scholar amang a' the Quakers is Friend Wiffen, a capital translator, Sir Walter tells me, o' poets wi' foreign tongues, sic as Tawso, and wi' an original vein too, sir, which has produced, as I opine, some verra pure ore;--and feenally, the Hooitts, the three Hooitts,-na, there may be mair o' them for aught I ken, but I'se answer for William and Mary, husband and wife, and oh! but they're weel met; and eke for Richard, (can he be their brither?) and wha's this was tellin' me about anither brither o' Wullie's, a Dr. Godfrey Hooitt,* ane o' the best botanists in a' England, and a desperate beetle-hunter? North. Entomologist, James. A man of science. Shepherd. The twa married Hooitts I love just excessively, sir. What they write canna fail o' being poetry, even the maist middlin' o't, for it's aye wi' them the ebullition o' their ain feeling, and their ain * John Scott, a Quaker poet, resided, during the greater part of his life, at Amwell; and wrote a poem called after that village. He died in 1783. Bernard Barton, also a Quaker, resided at Woodbridge, in Suffolk, from 1810 to 1849 (when he died), as clerk in a bank. He published several volumes of poetry,-much of it very good. Wiffen, whose original poems are called "Aonian Hours," was librarian to the Duke of Bedford, at Woburn Abbey, where he composed his prose History of the Russell Family, and translated Tasso and De la Vega into English verse. Ho died in 1836. William and Mary Howitt (man and wife) published their first work in 1823. It was called The Forest Minstrel, and bore their joint names on the title-page. The Book of the Seasons was principally written by William Howitt, and it is a singular circumstance, that it was offered to six of the leading publishers of London, and by them refused. Mr. Howitt was so disgusted with them and it, that he desperately told the person in whose hands it was, to tie a stone to the manuscript, throw it over London Bridge, and let him hear of it no more. At last, Colburn & Bentley (then in partnership) brought it out, in 1831, and it has been a great hit, having run through seven editions, some of them very large. The Howitts have contributed largely and successfully, in prose and verse, to English literature, and have been very busy as translators from the German and Danish. Their eldest daughter is an artist and author of much promise. Richard Howitt has written some poems-chiefly sonnets. Dr. Howitt, a good botaaist practises as a physician in Nottingham. Both are brothers to William.-M. VOL. IV.-22 |