MULLION.

My dear sir, as Mephistopheles says to Faust, when the red mouse leaps into the lady's mouth at the Brocken ball, "Do not let such trifles disturb the tranquillity of your future hour."

SHEPHERD.

A glass o' something, Macrabin?

MACRABIN.

A gallon of any thing.-Come, Ambrose, another bottle of Charley Wright.

SHEPHERD.

Never mind him, Aumrose; the Advocat maun hae his joke.

TICKLER.

Now for the Stilton.-(Enter fourth course.) Gentlemen, I can recommend mine host's ale, as second to nothing in Leith, alias in the world.

MACRABIN,

I prefer a glass of port, after the manner of the ancients.-No offence, Mr Theodore?

THEODORE.

Waiter, I'll trouble you for a tumbler. The Vin de Grave-there now, hold. Now the Seltzer water! In point of fact, if you ask me, I say, decidedly, water after red cheese.-Still champagne after white-that is, if you commit the atrocity of eating any cheese at all-which I have not been guilty of.

SHEPHERD.

That's the real thing. Now hand round the crewets, Aumrose. I maun hae a thumblefu' of the Glenlivet, just to put the neb on your yill.

TICKLER (aside to AMBROSE.)

Let me see. Some of that sherry of Cockburn's-the 48, I mean-some of Brougham's Madeira-the green seal-port-let us have Cay's twelve-and as for claret, why, you had as well send in two or three bottles of different orders, before we fix for the evening.

ODOHERTY (aside to AMBROSE.)

Begin with Sam's nineteen.

TICKLER.

(Air-Non Nobis.)

Gentlemen, will you have the goodness to fill your glasses?—The King, God bless him!

OMNES.

The King-(three times three.)

(Air-God save the King.)

TICKLER.

Gentlemen, charge your glasses. A bumper.-The Kirk.

OMNES.

The Kirk-(four times four.)-(Air-Bonnie lassie, Highland lassie.)

TICKLER.

Gentlemen, we have drank his Majesty the King, with the usual honours, marking our high estimation of his personal resistance during the late awful and fatal struggle-our respect for the rank which he still holds in our native country, and which, in the hands of a virtuous man, may still afford the means of considerable good-and finally, our hope that George the Fourth may be allowed to descend into the tomb of George the Third, without witnessing with his own eyes the full completion of the overthrow which he has been compelled-we all know how cruelly-to lend his hand to. Gentlemen, we have also drank the Kirk, (by which, in this room, the two established Protestant Churches of these kingdoms have always been meant,) marking our undiminished reverence for institutions, which, in spite of external hostility and internal treason, must and shall continue to possess great and beneficial influence. They have destroyed the union of Church and State, gentlemen; but, in my humble opinion, and I rather think in yours, the State has lost more by this atrocious separation than the Church. She, gentlemen, flourishes

still-or, if a Winter has cropt the leaves, there is a bonny Spring in reserve for her. But the State !-alas! alas! I fear the Spring that brings back her Summer will be a-bloody one.-Gentlemen, every hour brings new confirmation to the view which I took, from the beginning, of the inevitable consequences. Let me now propose a bumper, and therewith a toast, to be drunk standing, and in silence. Gentlemen, I beg leave to drink the Immortal memory of the British Constitution.

OMNES.

The immortal memory of the British Constitution!

SHEPHERD.

(Air-Auld Langsyne.)

The bizziness has certainly made an awfu' sensation a' through the South country. Even Manor Water, I hear, was in a perfect lowe.

A bull, by the by.

ODOHERTY (aside.)

SHEPHERD.

As to the Selkirk folk, they're neither to haud nor to bin'! The hail o' Yarrow wad rise at a whistle the morn, I believe.

THEODORE.

You astonish me. Upon my soul, the London folks take things much more coolly. Notwithstanding all the pother in the Sunday papers, and all that' raff, depend upon it, the Popery bill passed without exciting half the sensation with any one of a dozen bits of mere scandal, recently, which I could men tion-Take Wellesley Pole's case, for example-or even my Lady Ellenborough's, or even that puppy, Tom Peel's. I assure you, sir, the downfall of the constitution was nothing to the downfall of Rowland Stephenson, sir,—as Lord Alvanley said to me

MACRABIN.

The constitution, indeed! what should that be to the London people? Don't we all know that the capital has long since ceased to have almost any sympa thy with the body of the nation?

THEODORE (aside.)

That's a rum one. Hear the villagers!

TICKLER.

To confess the truth, our great Babylon seems to me to be striding fast into another Paris. The thing has been going on for a long time-even for centuries-but I apprehend never at so rapid a rate, by fifty per cent, as during the last twenty or thirty years. The nobility of Great Britain, and the upper gentry, at least the gentry, composing commonly the Lower House of Parliament,-appear latterly to be doing every thing in their power to cut off the old strings, that used, in better days, to connect them with the people at large. Only consider the life these fine folks lead.

THEODORE.

Why, I don't know how you could prevent people from living half the year in town.

TICKLER.

I have no objection to their living half the year in town, as you call it, if they can live in such a hell upon earth, of dust, noise, and misery. Only think of the Dolphin water in the solar microscope!

THEODORE.

I know nothing of the water of London personally.

ODOHERTY.

Nor I; but I take it, we both have a notion of its brandy and water.

TICKLER.

'Tis, in fact, their duty to be a good deal in London. But I'll tell you what I do object to, and what I rather think are evils of modern date, or at any rate, of very rapid recent growth. First, I object to their living those months of the year in which it is contra bonos mores to be in London, not in their paternal mansions, but at those little bastardly abortions, which they call wateringplaces their Leamingtons, their Cheltenhams, their Brighthelmstones.

THEODORE.

Brighton, my dear rustic Brighton!

Syncopicé.

ODOHERTY.

SHEPHERD.

What's your wull, Sir Morgan? It does no staun' wi' me.

THEODORE.

A horrid spot, certainly-but possessing large conveniences, sir, for particu lar purposes. For example, sir, the balcony on the drawing-room floor commonly runs on the same level all round the square-which in the Brighthelmstonic dialect, sir, means a three-sided figure. The advantage is obvious.

SHEPHERD.

Och, sirs! och, sirs! what wull this world come to!

THEODORE.

The truth is, sir, that people comme il faut cannot well submit to the total change of society and manners implied in a removal from Whitehall or Mayfair to some absurd old antediluvian chateau, sir, boxed up among beeches and rooks. Sir, only think of the small Squires with the red faces, sir, and the grand white waistcoats down to their hips-and the Dames, sir, with their wigs, and their simpers, and their visible pockets-and the Damsels, blushing things in white muslin, with sky-blue sashes and ribbons, and mufflers and things-and the Sons, sir, the promising young gentlemen, sir-and the Doctor, and the Lawyer -and last, not least in horrification, the Parson.

TICKLER.

The Parson was not counted a bore in the better days of John Bull, when that honest old fellow wore a blue coat and leather breeches, and fumbled with the head of his stick whenever he saw two of his neighbours quarrelling.

Fuimus Troes.

MACRABIN.

THEODORE.

Fuimus Tories, indeed! Ah! my dear fellow, we had no Philipottos in those days.-This claret is mighty nice.

TICKLER.

Confound the Cockneys. If any one remained unconverted, surely the late puffing and blowing in the Times about the projected enclosure of a corner of Hampstead Heath must have done his business. O Jupiter! what a row about the plaster-fiend making a lodgement in the half-mountain region.

SHEPHERD.

I wonner what's a haill mountain wi' them.

ODOHERTY.

Harrow, I suppose-or rather the Devil's Dyke at Brighton-an Alpine precipice, Hogg, such as you would make nothing of going down at the hand gallop, with Wallace and Clavers before you.

TICKLER.

This Times Cockney talks of all England rising in rebellion at the invasion of Hampstead Heath. I suppose we shall then have the Cockney Melodies, Hunt, of course, being the Tyrtæus.

SHEPHERD.

O, dinna blaspheme the dead! That puir man's cauld in his grave lang or

now.

ODOHERTY.

Leigh Hunt in his grave! Then he's the most comfortable ghost I ever heard of; for Theodore and I saw him not a week ago taking a shove in the mouth at old Mother Murly's in St Martin's Lane, with two or three of the underlings of the gallery about him-all in his glory;—and pretty well he looked—didn't he?

THEODORE.

You have made some mistake, Sir Morgan ;-I was not present, sir-not I, indeed. So you disapprove of Brighton, Mr Tickler?

TICKLER.

Brighthelmstone, when I knew it, was a pleasant fishing village-what like it is now, I know not; but what I detest in the great folks of your time, is, that insane selfishness which makes them prefer any place, however abominable, where they can herd together in their little exquisite coteries, to the

noblest mansions surrounded with the noblest domains, where they cannot exist without being more or less exposed to the company of people not exactly belonging to their own particular sect. How can society hang together long in a country where the Corinthian capital takes so much pains to unrift itself from the pillar? Now-a-days, sir, your great lord, commonly speaking, spends but a month or six weeks in his ancestral abode; and even when he is there, he surrounds himself studiously with a cursed town-crew, a pack of St James's Street fops, and Mayfair chatterers and intriguers, who give themselves airs enough to turn the stomachs of the plain squirearchy and their womankind, and render a visit to the Castle a perfect nuisance.

THEODORE (aside to MULLION.)

A prejudiced old prig!

TICKLER.

They seem to spare no pains to shew that they consider the country as valuable merely for rent and game-the duties of the magistracy are a boreCounty Meetings are a bore-a farce, I believe, was the word—the assizes are a cursed bore-fox-hunting itself is a bore, unless in Leicestershire, where the noble sportsmen, from all the winds of heaven, cluster together, and think with ineffable contempt of the old-fashioned chase, in which the great man mingled with gentle and simple, and all comers-sporting is a bore, unless in a regular battue, when a dozen lordlings murder pheasants by the thousand, without hearing the cock of one impatrician fowling-piece-except indeed some dandy poet, or philosopher, or punster, has been admitted to make sport to the Philistines. In short, every thing is a bore that brings the dons into personal collision of any kind with people that don't belong to the world.

ODOHERTY.

The world is getting pretty distinct from the nation, I admit, and I doubt if much love is lost between them.

TICKLER.

That was the main evil I foresaw in this Popery bill; that measure, sir, has alienated the hearts of the Clergy-the hearts of the real provincial squires and lairds—it has thoroughly disgusted the mass of the people.

MACRABIN.

Thou hast said it. The harm would have been comparatively trifling, had the thing been the work of any one party in the State. The Protestant strength of the nation would have gathered the more visibly round the banners of the opposite party; and although the measure, once carried, perhaps nobody would ever have attempted, or wished to undo it-we should have had a solid might arrayed through all classes of society, by way of safeguard against farther tricks of the same kidney. But now, where are we? The Whigs, and the Tories, and the Radicals, all laid their heads together; and the remnant that stood aloof, have neither numbers nor talent to command a hearty following.

THEODORE.

I concur in all you have said-yet it must be allowed that Sadler, Chandos, Vyvyan, and Blandford, have done all that could have been desired.

I revere Mr Sadler,

TICKLER.

Si Pergama dextrâ

Defendi possent et hac defensa fuissent.

But what are these among so many?

SHEPHERD.

That lang paper in the last Quarterly was a sair sign. Od, it maun bae garr'd some folk cock their lugs to hear sic things frae them. Is it ken't wha wrote it?

THEODORE.

They spoke of Lord Doodle-but that, I take it for granted, was gammon. The Emperor sported quite diplomatic-didn't know-had not an idea.

ODOHERTY.

I believe the paper was nobody but Croker's-I don't know any other of their people who possess at once such a variety of knowledge, the talent to express it, the courage to wish to express such views there, and influence enough in certain places to be allowed to express them.

He denies it.

THEODORE.

ODOHERTY.

Of course. The common report, however, is, that he is going out of office forthwith, and into opposition.

TICKLER.

Very like. In the meantime, he has done a great service-for the Quarterly can't eat all that, and so there's one grand organ for trumpeting forth the doctrine divine, "whatever is, is right," shut up.

MULLION.

Entirely tant mieux.-Well, what next? Something must come.

ODOHERTY.

Were I the Duke of Wellington, I would not halt at trifles now. Every human being sees clearly that reform in Parliament must come soon. If I were he, it should come very soon indeed. Every body sees that the Church in Ireland must go. Were I he, it should go to-morrow morning.

THEODORE.

What? throw up all at once, pardi ?

ODOHERTY.

Throw up a fiddlestick! You have proclaimed the Popish religion to be no worse, as regards politics, than any other. Upon what pretence, then, shall the immense majority of the Irish people be denied their natural right to have their religion the established religion of their island? As sure as two and two make four, the Duke of Wellington's law, and the Protestant establishment, cannot live together.

MACRABIN.

I never met with any body who thought otherwise.

SHEPHERD.

O weary me! and to hear hoo the ne'er-do-weels spooted about their sincere conviction that they were doin' the only thing for the gude of the Protestant establishment in Ireland! Hoo could they hae the face?

TICKLER.

The face?-poh-poh! My dear Shepherd, these gentry have face for any thing. Only hear Peel bragging about his purity and piety, and all the House hear-hearing him-the spinning spoon!

ODOHERTY.

How grand was his defence of the Swan job! He merely gave Tom a letter of introduction to Sir George Murray, recommending him to the receipt of "any facilities" in Sir George's power, and attesting him to be a young man of most" respectable character," and "ample means," and his "relation." This, from one Minister to another, was a mere trifle, you observe;— and as to the Home Secretary himself having any share in the spoil, why the House surely could not think it necessary for him to offer any answer to such a contemptible libel ?—No, no !-Hear, hear—immense applause.

TICKLER.

Meanwhile the real points, the only points, are passed wholly sub silentio. In point of fact, no human being eyer dreamt that Mr Robert Peel was to draw money for his own personal purse from this grant to his relation. Every body that knew any thing of the matter-certainly every one man in the House of Commons-knew perfectly well that Peel had acted merely on the Vicar of Wakefield's principle, who, if you remember, always took care to lend a fivepound note, or an old pony, or a new great-coat, to a troublesome kinsman, in the sure hope of never seeing his agreeable countenance again.-And who blamed either the Vicar or the Cad? The real charge was, that the grant to the respectable and wealthy second cousin of the political Bayard was a grant enormous in itself—650 square miles of the BEST land in the new colony-and that these 650 square miles were so situated as to interfere between the other settlers and the streams-the Swan river and the Canning-those two noble rivers, which unite their waters, as per map in the Quarterly, in the noble bay, overagainst the which lies, thanks to old Barrow's honest confession, the noble and well-named island of Rotten-nest-that is Rat-nest. On these points the kinsman of Thomas has as yet said nothing.