believe he invented ower again, when the impident plagiary changed it as he did the ither day-into "Lackey."

North. I merely mean, James, that at bed or board I abhor all deception.

Shepherd. Sae, sir, div1 I. A plated spoon is a pitifu' imposition; recommend me to horn; and then nane o' your egg-spoons, or pap-spoons for weans, but ane about the diameter o' my loof, that when you put it weel ben into your mouth, gars your cheeks swall, and your een shut wi' satisfaction.

Tickler. I should like to have your picture, my dear James, taken in that gesture.

North. Finely done in miniature, by MacLeay.

Tickler. No. By some savage Rosa.

Shepherd. A' I mean, sirs, is sincerity and plain-dealing. "One man," says the auld proverb, "is born wi' a silver spoon in his mouth, and another wi' a wudden ladle." Noo, what would be the feelings o' the first, were he to find that fortune had clapt intil his mouth, as Nature was geein him to the warld, what to a' appearance was a silver spoon, and by the howdie and a' the kimmers sae denominated accordingly, but when shown to Mr Morton the jeweller, or Messrs Mackay and Cunninghame, was pronounced plated? He would sigh sair for the wudden ladle. Indeed, gents, I'm no sure but it's better nor even the real siller metal. In the first place, it's no sae apt to be stown; in the second, maist things taste weel out o' wud; thirdly, there's nae expense in keepin't clean, whereas siller requires constant pipe-clay, leather, or flannen; fourthly, I've seen them wi' a maist beautifu' polish, acquired in coorse o' time by the simple process o' sookin the horn as it gaed in and out o' the mouth; fifthly, there's ten thousand times mair vareeity in the colours; sixthly

Tickler. Enough in praise of the Wooden Spoon.* Poor fellow! I always pity that unfortunate annual.

Shepherd. Unfortunate annual! You canna weel be fou already; yet, certes, you're beginnin to haver-and indeed I have observed, no without pain, that a single caulker somehoo or ither superannuates ye, Mr Tickler.

1 Div-do.

2. Kimmers-gossips.

3 Stown-stolen.

4 The lowest graduate in honours at Cambridge is so called.

MEMORY-INTELLECT.

279

North. James, you have spoken like yourself on the subject of wooden spoons. 'Twas a simple but sapient homily. "Seems, madam! nay, it is." Be that my rule of life.

Shepherd. The general rule admits but o' ae exceptionVermicelli? What that sort o' soup's composed o' I never hae been able to form ony feasible conjecture. Aneuch for me to ken, on your authority, Mr North, that it's no worms.

North. I have no recollection of having ever given you such assurance, James.

Shepherd. Your memory, my dear sir, you'll excuse me for mentionin't, is no just what it used to be

North. You are exceedingly im

Shepherd. Pertinent. Pardon me for takin the word out o' your mouth, sir-but as for your judgment

The

North. I believe you are right, my dear James. memory is but a poor power after all-well enough for the mind in youth, when its business is to collect a store of ideas

Shepherd. But altogether useless in auld age, sir, when the Intellect

North. Is Lord Paramount-and all his subjects come flocking of their own accord to lay themselves in loyalty at his feet. Shepherd. There he sits on his throne, on his head a croon, and in his haun a sceptre. Cawm is his face as the sea and his brow like a snaw-white mountain. By divine right a king!

North. Spare my blushes.

Shepherd. I wasna speakin o' you, sir sae you needna blush. I was speakin o' the Abstrack Power o' Intellect personified in an Eemage, "whose stature reached the sky," and whose coontenance, serenely fu' o' thocht, partook o' the majestic stillness o' the region that is glorified by the setting

sun.

North. My dear boy, spare my blushes.

Shepherd. Hem. (His face can nae mair blush than the belly o' a hen redbreast.) What philosopher, like an adjutantgeneral, may order out on parawde the thochts and feelings, and, strick though he be as a disciplinawrian, be obeyed by that irregular and aften mutinous Macedonian phalanx ?

North. The Philosophy of the Human Mind, I am credibly informed, James, is in its infancy

280

PHRENOLOGY.-PEARS.-THOMAS BROWN.

Shepherd. Aiblins, sir, in its second childhood-witness Phrenology.

North. You have a very fine forehead, James.

Shepherd. Mind, sir, that I wasna sayin that Phrenology was fause. On the contrar, I think there's a great deal o' truth in what they say about the shape and size o' the headbut

Tickler. That with the exception of some half-dozen or so, such as Combe and the Scotts, the Edinburgh Phrenologists are the Flower of our Scottish Fools

North. See their Journal-passim.

Shepherd. That wadna be fair, sir-to judge o' a periodical wark, by merely passin the shop-wundow where it may be lyin exposed like a dead ool,' wi' wings extended on a barndoor

North. Passim and en passant have not the same meaning, James, though I could mention one ingenious modern Athenian who appears to think so.

2

Shepherd. Words that hae the same soun' ought to hae the same sense- -though, I admit, that's no aye the case-for itherwise langage misleads. For example, only yestreen at a party, a pert, prim, pompous prater, wi' a peerie-weerie expression about the een, asked me what I thocht, in this stormy state o' the atmosphere, would become o' the Peers? I answered, simply aneuch, that if wrapped up in fresh straw, and laid in a dry place, safe frae the damp, they would keep till Christmas. The cretur, after ha'in said something, he supposed, insupportably severe on me for the use o' feegurative langage on sic a terrible topic, began to what he ca'd "impune ma opinion," and to grow unco foul-mouthed on the Duke of Wellington. I thocht o' Saughton-ha'; but that painfu' suspicion was soon removed frae ma mind, for I fand that he was speakin o' the Peers in Parliament, and me o' jargonells.

North. Timothy, is not James very pleasant?

Tickler. Very.

Shepherd. There's the doctrine o' the association o' Ideas. Thomas Broon, wha kent as muckle about poetry as that poker, and wrote it about as weel as that shovel, and criticeesed it about as weel as thae tangs, pretended to inform mankind at 2 Peerie-weerie-insignificant.

1 Ool-Owl.

ACTIVITY OF THE MIND.

281

large hoo ae idea took place o' anither, for he was what is ca'd a great metaphysician. The mind, he said—for I hae read his lectures-had nae power-frae which I conclude that, according to him, it's aye passive-a doctrine I beg leave maist positeevely to contradick, as contrar to the haill tenor o' ma ain experience. The human mind is never, by ony chance, ae single moment passive-but at a' times, day and nicht

North. แ Sleep hath her separate world, as wide as dreams!" Shepherd. Tuts. What for are you aye quotin that conceited cretur Wudsworth? Canna ye follow his example, and quote yoursel ?

North. I should despise doing that, James-I leave it to my brethren of mankind.

Shepherd. Day and nicht is the mind active; and indeed sleep is but the intensest state o' wakefu'ness.

Tickler. Especially when through the whole house is heard a snore that might waken the dead.

Shepherd. Just sae. It's a lee to say there can be sic a state as sleep without a snore. In a dwawm or fent man nor woman snores nane- -for that is temporary death. But sleep is not death-nor yet death's brither, though it has been ca'd sae by ane wha should hae kent better-but it is the activity o' spiritual life.

1

Tickler. Come, James, let us hear you on dreams.

Shepherd. No-till after sooper-whan we shall discuss Dreams and Ghosts. Suffice it for the present to confine mysel to ae sentence, and to ask you baith this question-what pheelosopher has ever yet explained the behaviour o' ideas, even in their soberest condition, much less when they are at their wildest, and wi' a birr and a bum break through a' established laws, like "burnished flees in pride o' May," as Thomson says, through sae mony speeders' wabs, carryin them awa wi' them on their tails up alaft into the empyrean in amang the motes o' the sun?

North. None.

Shepherd. The Sowl has nae power!!! Hasna't??? Hae Ideas, then, nae power either? And what are Ideas, sir? Just the Sowl hersel, and naething but the Sowl. Or, if you wad rather hae't sae, the Evolutions and Revolutions, and 1 "Death and his brother Sleep."-SHELLEY.

Transpositions and Transfigurations, and Transmigrations and Transmogrifications o' the Sowl, the only primal and perpetual mobile in creation

North and Tickler. Hear! Hear! Hear!

Shepherd. What gies ae idea the lead o' a' the rest? And what inspires a' the rest to let him tak the lead-whether like a great big ram loupin through a gap in the hedge, and followed by scores o' silly sheep-or like a michty coal-black stallion wi' lang fleein mane and tail, galloping in front o' a thousand bonny meers, a' thunderin after the desert-born-or like the despot red-deer, carryin his antlers up the mountain afore sae mony hundred handsome hinds, bellin sae fiercely that the very far-aff echoes are frichtened to answer him, and dee fently awa amang the cliffs o' Ben-y-Glo?

North. Tickler!

Tickler. North!

Shepherd. Or like the Sovereign Stork, that leads "high overhead the airy caravan

Tickler. Or like the great Glasgow Gander, waddling before his bevy along the Goose-dubs————

Shepherd. Haw! haw! haw! What plausible explanation, you may weel ask, could ever be gien o' sic an idea as himwere you to be aloo'd to confine yoursel even to his doup, an enormity alike ayont' adequate comprehension and punishment!-But the discussion's gettin ower deep, sir, for Mr Tickler-let's adapt oursels to the capacities o' our hearers -for o' a' conversation that is, if not the sole, the sovereign charm.

Tickler. An old saying, Hogg-throw not pearls before

swine.

Shepherd. It aye strikes a cauld damp through me, Mr North, to hear a man, for whom ane entertains ony sort o' regard, wi' an air o' pomposity geein vent to an auncient adage that had served its time afore the Flood, just as if it were an apothegm kittled by himsel on the verra spat. And the case is warst ava, when the perpetrawtor, as the noo, happens to be in his ain way an original. Southside, you some times speak, sir, like a Sumph.

Tickler. James, what is a Sumph?

Shepherd. A Sumph, Timothy, is a chiel to whom Natur has 1 Ayont-beyond.