spent my time in ranging the hills, glens, and bogs, to the devastation of the feathered tribes, and the demolition of the dinners of my friends. I am once more stout as buck or bear Fogarty's himself again, as I displayed on the 25th, (the day of Crispin Crispian, as Harry the Fifth remarks,) at a great dinner party on the rocks, where I played a knife and fork to the manifest astonishment of the native tribes. We were quite jolly,-a boat-race in the morning, right well pulled, and a ball in the evening, flanked by a supper by no means to be sneez'd at. There was a good deal of singing,-none, however, equal to Braham's. I have a great mind to write a full account of this affair, as I think it would make a decentish article for the Star of Edina. Thorp sung, pretty well, a song of his own composition, in honour of the Coronation-day. It is well enough for one not yet hardened in the ways of poetry. 1. "Come round me, ye lads, that I value the best, 2. "Then why should not we, in a full flowing cup, 3. "This day is a glorious one, boys-let us quaff 4. "Let Lords, Dukes, and Earls, keep feasting away Let the shrill trumpet sound, and the champion's horse neigh- We'll have mirth here at home, and our dance on the green. 5. "We have ladies as lovely and brilliant as they, 6. "We have Princes in plenty among us, 'tis true- The goblet's our star, and our ribbon is seen gay; Round the waists of our sweethearts, who dance on the green. 7. "Then come, let us close with LONG LIFE TO OUR KING, It is superfluous to say that the even- On the 26th, I got the last Number by express, and a right good one it is. But what a sputter about personalities! If I were in North's place, I should not give myself a moment's uneasiness about the crying out of the whigs, who are the most personally abusive animals of the species. They only cry now because they are hurt. I perceive rather an impertinent allusion to my poetry, by Mr Trott of London. I know that shaver. I remember one night, or morning, after coming from the eccentrics, meeting him at the Cyder Cellar, in a state of civilation; and he was so impertinent about Hireland, that, to avoid disputes, I was obliged to throw him up stairs into the street. This is the meaning of his slap at Blar ney-but I do not value him a handful of turf. * I am more annoyed at the news which I see in last night's paper, that Blarney Castle is going to the hammer, and that the breach old Noll made in its battlements, will be nothing to the gutting it will receive in consequence of the assault of the auctioneer. This is an unkind cut indeed, but I hope the new purchaser will be a man of soul. On the 27th, I seized my gun-buckled on my shot-pouch and powder-horn, whistled to my dogs, (I back Sheelah against any pointer in the county,) and set forward to look for a covey of partridges. I found it shot seven-but made a better hit on my return-for I met the hospitable Lord of Barley-hill-one of the fairest fellows in the West-country. I dined with him slept at his house and next morning had a fine dash at a fox, with his famous pack. We found in high style, and he led us a chase of about sixteen miles. I cannot say that I came in for the brush, being, through some accident, thrown out rather early. I attributed this to my late illness, for Donnelly was in prime order. But though not distinguished at the hunt, I flatter myself I distinguished myself after dinner, by putting every man under the table, and retiring with head unhurt, at three next morning. On the 29th, I shifted my flag to Myro's Wood, where I still continue. The house is full of company, and we are all as gay as larks. I wrote my last canto in half an hour before dinner, in a room full of people, which is not to be done by your every-day bards. I read it in the course of the evening, and it was voted to be a 66 singularly wild original and beautiful poem," as Lord Byron says of Christabel. Lord Bantry was quite flattered that the scene of so fine a lay should be placed on his estate, and invited me to spend a month with him. I am beginning to think the Leg of Mutton School of Poetry is the only one which is worth the attention of a true poet. Its principles are really invariable. I shall consult Aristotle to see what he says about it, for I have a great mind to join the corps. On the 30th, we enjoyed a fine cruize in the Lord Exmouth, a noble yacht, and fitted up in great style. My noble host is a prime seaman, and handles the rudder well; he cruized round the harbour till dinner time, and took a few fish on our way-returned at six, just in ripe order for the venison.This is the last entry in my Journal; for these last two days I have been too busy to write any thing; and, besides, I hear the dinner bell. *We must interpose onr authority to prevent this dispute between our contributors going any farther. There should be peace and good will between our men.-C. N. The yellow leaf has fall'n, THE YELLOW LEAF. And the stubble braes are brown, The mountain burns are roaring, And the swallows a' are flown; The school-boy with his fellows, Cowers in aneath the lea, And wide and wild o'er the bleak dry land, Flies the grey gull frae the sea. But its no that summer's fled the bower, Nor the stubble fields are brown, Nor for the hill-burns roaring, And a' the birds that's flown, Nor yet to see the schoolboys Stand cowering in the lea, That my weary heart is press'd with dule, And the tear is in my ee. But a' because I see no more, Lies with the gather'd flowers, The foreign turf in a far far land, Grows o'er my brother's tomb, And low beneath yon lone grave stone LETTER FROM MB SHUFFLEBOTHAM, On Cheese, Civilization, North Country Ballads, &c. [We had, as Hamlet says, after our usual custom in the afternoon, seated ourselves, as majestically as our gout would permit, in our arm chair of state, to ruminate upon a little article, which we intend shall be cayenne to the palate of the public. Somehow or other, we were a little misty, and the struggle to screw our ideas "to the sticking place" ended, as such attempts sometimes do after dinner, in that state of quiescent pleasure, beyond the reach of opium, during which we read an almanack, or a newspaper nine days old, always returning to the top of the page, to save the troublesome duty of turning over the leaf. Our quiescence, however, was suddenly interrupted by one of those ite nerant bands of musicians who play, after dusk, about the streets of our own "good town." As it happened, they struck up, within twenty yards of our window, a little simple air, which, deep as we are in Scottish and Irish melody, was entirely new to us. It struck through us with a thrill like the discovery of a new sense. We hobbled to the window, laid our ear to the pane, although a sharp current of air blew into our neck through a crevice in the sash, and drank until the liquid eloquence of the melody was drained to the last drop. We had hobbled back again to our fire-side, with a strong feeling of enthusiasm, and a chilliness about the small of our back, and had just swallowed a bumper of claret, by way of corrective, when the following letter was handed in. We have a good deal of respect at bottom, for old Shufflebotham, though he is sometimes given to prosing, and we were just in the humour for him. Indeed, the old fellow never writes so passably as when he is not, as he calls it, upon his Ps and Qs," a state which inevitably renders him marvellously ab surd and formal. We accordingly made up our mind to keep our little Crystal of Merum Sal, as a gem for the concluding number of this volume, and to insert the old boy's letter just as it was, " in puris naturalibus ;" and we hereby give warning, that no one need read it unless he be as we were, in what philosophers call "a state of negative electricity." C. N.J 66 TO CHRISTOPHER NORTH, ESQ. DEAR AND HONOURED SIR, I dare say you'll be thinking that old Shufflebotham has fairly forgotten you; but I've only been out a brace of weeks, from a bout of my old complaint, at which-as we've had our turn for the muggy weather-you'll not wonder. I reckon, that on the rheumatic score, you and I are much of a muchness. I did not like very well to write neither, till I had the ewemilk cheese to send; and if you have been thinking it long in coming, the fault is neither mine, nor Dinah's, nor Ralph Hepple's, who says he left it for Dickinson three weeks ago. It's to be hoped you'll think we are improving in the manufacture; and, doubtless, the improvement of all sorts of cheese is a proof of the agricultural progress of a countryside, as it were, just as ballads are of the mental. It requires a handing down, as I may say, from father to son, to esta blish a well-charactered cheese, and this, when done, not only betokens the improvement of the dairy, but likewise of the taste of the country round about, which encourages it. As for the ballads, Dinah says you only encourage me in my whims and nonsense; but nobody shall persuade me that they are not a barometer of the refined part of the manners of a district, just as the stocks in London are of the wealth that's passing from one to another. I've heard you say that yourself. There's nobody knows, Mr North, but people who have a natural feeling for these sort of things, what a hold some of them take of the imaginations of us country-folk, who have never been debauched by living in the smoke, and bustle, and finery of towns, as these conceited Londoners do, that ye're so hard upon, though, after all, some of them are clever chiels too; but that's neither here nor there; you your self would hardly believe, on a time, what pleasure a body like me takes in looking over an old thumbed "Ballantbook." Roger sometimes brings one in from some of the hind-folk; and what a pleasant sensation the very sight of the poor awkward-looking cuts, and the worse doggrel, which minds one of young days, can afford. The view of the "King and the Cobler," the "Young Man's Garland," or "Robin Hood," with their queer scrawls of men in odd hats, and broad tailed coats, upon chequered pavements, or amongst scrubby trees, brings up many a sweet dreamy recollection. But we are wonderfully improved since these times. Burns and Bewick, as I sometimes say, have been the great reformers, the Luther and Calvin both of the souls and bodies of the "ballants." If you give a halfpenny to the lads now, they'll bring you in a neat leaf, with may be one of Burns's best songs, or some other, marvellously smoothed down, since the "sixteenth of May" used to be a crack song in every ale-house. And for cuts, may be a gay decent imitation of one of Bewick's best tail-pieces, with the beasts and birds looking something like Christians; for before his time one never knew what they were. But you'll wonder what has put all this balladsinging into my head; and I should have told you before-however, I must begin at the beginning.-I went the other day to bring my nephew Roger home from school, which he was obligated to leave on account of a fever that had got among them; and a speat of rain coming down the river, we stopped at O- to give the beasts a feed till the wet was over. The land 1. Though I must go to a foreign land, lady had left the door ajar, as she was righting the table and setting me down a warm glass of rum and water, and Roger a sup of ale, when a callant in the kitchen began that song I've heard ye admire, Mr North,—at least when your cherry-cheeked favourite, as ye used to call her, poor little Thomasine Charlton sang it," He's far ayont the hills the night, but he'll be here for a' that." The lad lilted well, and there's a charm even in the worst of these simple ballads, when sung with feeling and a clear voice. I know that most of the tunes I hear about our onstead, are far behind your real Scottish airs-for Scotland and Ireland after all are the lands of song; but still they have a swatch of feeling about them, poor ditties though they be, and you may call them, if you like, a sort of half way house between your soul-stirring melodies and the fond modern things one gets deaved with, when one's fool enough to patronize, as they call it, the players at a race or assize time. However, as I was saying, the lad sung gaily-" Whisht," says I to Roger, "set the door open, shut thy mouth, and cock thy lugs, for the life of thee-here's something to stop a gap with;" and accordingly they soon gave us another specimen. Both words and tune were new to me and the last appeared to be Irish; but to my judgment, though I'm what your scientifical folk would call no judge at all, I've heard worse stuff. Not that I would name it in the same day with your friend Mr Hogg, or Mr Cunningham, or Dr Scott, or Mr Jennings; but still, what with the fine feeling of the ditty, and what with the simplicity of the ballad, it went down. 2. I've been in many a foreign land, Though I must go to a foreign land, Her William will come home in time; When he ended, some observations seemed to be making, probably of the sentimental sort, in their homely fashion; but you would have been pleased with the bold way in which the singer, who had really a fine manage able voice, broke in with an air that has been familiar to me ever since I was "penny-can-high," as the saying is, but of which I never was aware of the merit till now. I have forgot what we used to call it, but it goes now by the title of "My Love is newly listed." It is just one of those ditties which Gay would have putinto the Beggar's Opera, -monotonous, yet original,-full of 1. mannerism, yet with a vein of unexpected feeling. It embodies, in a faint degree, that mixture of passions, which is the top of what you call musical expression, and which is so wonderful in your Scottish air of "Dinna think,” where bitterness and love, grief and contempt, mix and get the better of one another, as the colours do on a bit of shot-silk. The lad gave the emphatic places a touch of sarcasm half plaintive, half playful, particularly at the conclusion, and seemed to feel the intention of the tune in a way that pleased me mightily. O, the snow it melts the soonest when the winds begin to sing; 2. The snow it melts the soonest when the wind begins to sing; 3. O, the snow it melts the soonest when the wind begins to sing; 4. O, never say me farewell here-no farewell I'll receive, For you shall set me to the stile, and kiss and take your leave; But I'll stay here till the woodcock comes, and the martlet takes his wing, Since the snow aye melts the soonest, lass, when the wind begins to sing. The next was an even-down ballad both in words and music; and, in its noble contempt of mood, tense, person, and propriety in general, might almost vie with the verse I have known you quote, Mr North, from the old ditty of Lord Derwentwater. "Macintosh was a gallant soldier, He carried his musket on his shoulder ;- Still, to my silly old notion, there was something redeeming about it. 1. O, I'll cut off my yellow hair, A musket give to me, And wheresoe'er thou goest, there, My love, I'll follow thee; And when our foes we must engage Upon some foreign strand, Howe'er the bloody battle rage, I'll stand at thy right hand. VOL. X. 2. But when the battle's over, What will my Nancy say? |