trives not merely to elude your piscicidal arts, but to outwit you at your own game, by homicidally causing you by a false step to get yourself drowned in the river;-but to murder one out of two wellknown fish (videlicet B, him who used to lie below the bridge) and then, that nobody but yourself shall murder the remaining half-brace of the two well-known fish (videlicet A, him who is still lying above the bridge), to play to your friend the part, not only of a finished fisherman, but of a finished liar-exhibits -we must say-to our uncorrupted mind, such a picture of complicated villany, that we do not hesitate for a moment indignantly to declare, that the fiend in human shape, who could not only perpetrate such enormities, but instigate and instruct the angling youth of England to imitate, and perhaps surpass them (nothat is impossible in nature), deserves —if not no longer to be permitted to exist on the surface of our globecertainly to be cut off, by ban of excommunication, from Fire and Water. Yet is the ineffable enormity of the sin sunk in the inconceivable silliness of the system. Two wellknown fish! One above and the other below the bridge, and all the angling vicinage occupied during a whole season in attempting to entrap the two first capital letters of the alphabet, A and B But what comes here? We call that poaching, cross-fishing with the double rod. Our good friend the "Bungler," in maxim xviii, says the learned are much divided in opinion as to the propriety of "whipping with two flies." Now, here come a couple of unconscionable Edinburgh cockneys whipping with forty. Human nature cannot stand that-incipient convulsions are in our midriff. The conceited coofs had heard of the double rod from Maule or Goldie, or some other top-sawyers, and they too must try it! From opposite stances they regard each other with mutual and equal anxiety, as to the movements and measures most likely to be next carried into immediate effect by the perplexed brethren of the braes. The imitative being a strong instinctive principle in human nature, (also in more mere ani mals than is generally thought-for there are others almost as much so as the monkey and the penguin,) do take notice-we beseech us-how,the moment one begins to attempt to wind up, the other is working at his reel too, like a Jew at a barrel-organ. No line could stand that, were the machinery brought into actual play; but great impediments have been encountered-nor does it seem probable-judging from the posture of affairs-that for some time they will be overcome by the gentlemen of the opposition. They are shouting across one of the widest pools keen complaints of some fishing-tacklemonger in London--for our choicest Edinburgh cockneys get every thing "from town." "Of course," they have been diddled; and the machinery is at a stand-still. Perhaps 'tis better so, than that both lines should have been broken on the wheel. Meanwhile all the forty flies are flying in the air-and even at this distance, we see they are a strange set. Not a few are larger than hummingbirds-many are manifestly sea-troutfies, gay but not gaudy-and (oh! grant gracious heaven that we do not split!) what possible contrivances can those others be that are dangling among the insects? Artificial minnows! by Dædalus! That is merciful. But those-yes, they are-those are real worms, and very large worms too-so much so, that we thought they were eels. Cross-fishing with the double-rod by a couple of Edinburgh Cockneys, evidently belonging to no particular profession-the line laden with salmon flies, artificial minnows, and natural worms! We experience considerable curiosity to observe the effect of a sudden descent of all that furniture into the liquid element. There! now we call that making a splash. Fish are easily alarmed; but they soon recover from an ordinary fright, and do not remain all day beneath a bank, because they had the misfortune of catching a gruesome glimpse of your countenance pretty early in the morning. Out of sight out of mind-you seldom for more than a few minutes disturb their tranquillity by merely looking at them; but the effect of a splash of this sort is more lasting; for on venturing from their various places of retreat to in spect warily the cause of their uneasiness, they are "perplexed in the extreme," and of "their wondering find no end,"-above all at the artificial minnows. What they can be, the wisest trout cannot hazard a conjecture, but doubts not that they must be very dangerous; salmon flies, it is true, they have all frequently seen before, but not behaving as they now do, and they too are shrewdly suspected of being novelties that bode mischief to the people; while as for the worms-foul enormous lobsthey would be permitted to putrify in a general famine. But what's the matter now? The pea-green cockney has broken his top, and he in the fiery tartan has got entangled in a tree. Angry words are beginning to be bandied-exaggerated accusa tions of aggravated crimes-the mutual rage has been exacerbated by its first gesticulations having been misinterpreted from such an inconvenient distance-and now-oh, fie! the gentlemen are brandishing at one another the butt-ends of their rods-all the cross-tackle having disappeared-and-(loud cries of shame! shame! oh! oh!) they are throwing stones at one another across the Tweed-a regular bicker! We have for many years acted on the principle of non-interference. Let private individuals or public nations fight as they choose, either at close quarters, or across channelsso long as they dont meddle with us, we don't meddle with them-we care nothing for the balance of power. But that big blockhead in the tartan shies a strong stone; and 'tis as perilous to be here in this unprotected position, as in the trenches before Antwerp. Shall we fly or shew fight? We used to excell equally in hipping, hoching, and flinging, (we speak not now of wrestling;) and surely if his flints reach us, ours will reach him-and as poor Pea-green appeared to us to be shamefully used by Tartan, we shall assist him against the Celt born of Irish parents in the Canongate. There-we call that battering in breach. Christopher continues hipping, hoching, and fling ing stones at his enemy across the Tweed, invisible all the while as Apollo or the Plague, when, beneath his arrows, dogs, mules, and men of the Grecian army, fell festering at their ships. Coleridge says that the dullest wight is sometimes a Shakspeare in his sleep. We say that every wight is at all times, more or less, a Shakspeare, broad awake. Mark, more or less; and a Shakspeare, not to a high, but a respectable degree, is Christopher North. Saw you never a Bird-an old Eagle-gambolling in the air like a madman-heaven knows why; when all at once steady. ing himself on the wing, "a thing most majestical," slowly away he saileth in among the blue mist of the mountains, or some old forest's profounder gloom? "O sylvan Tweed! Thou wanderer through the woods," not for the sake alone of such pas time, "Though dear to us the angler's silent trade, Through peaceful scenes in peacefulness pursued," come we now-in the creeping hours of age-to wander, rod in hand, along thy houseless solitudes, and by thy cottaged banks and braes, where children are playing among the primroses, and in the fields below are seen all the cheerful ongoings of half-agricultural, half-pastoral life! Sweet relief from carking care to world-wearied man! But oh! how more than sweet the sense of yet unabated gladness in the serenities of nature, of gratitude for all her goodness, as tender and far more profound than ever touched our spirit in sensitive but thoughtless youth! Then all was joy, or all was grief-bliss keen as anguish-hope bright as faith-fear dark as despair. Now all spiritual affections are more mildly mingled; the mind's experi ences and its intuitions coalesce; and human life is seen lying-in a less troubled-in a more ́solemn— in a holier light! Printed by Ballantyne and Company, Paul's Work, Edinburgh. THE LIFE OF A DEMOCRAT-A SKETCH OF HORne Tooke, . 963 LOCH AWE, 984 EDINBURGH: WILLIAM BLACKWOOD, 45, GEORGE STREET, EDINBURGH ; AND T. CADELL, STRAND, LONDON. To whom Communications (post paid) may be addressed. SOLD ALSO BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS OF THE UNITED KINGDOM. PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE AND CO. EDINBURGH. POETRY is now a drug; all the European markets are overstocked; there is a universal glut; prices have fallen far below prime cost; the sons of the Muses are all bankrupt; they flourish only in the Gazette. Prose is a drug too; and thus your bookseller's shop has absolutely the smell of an apothecary's; citizens sicken and hold their noses as they pass by; and are glad to get beyond the suburbs for a mouthful of fresh air. Yet drug as it is, people will be composing poetry; pounding verses with pestle and mortar; making out prescriptions; and offering their medicines in small paper parcels to that patient, the public, in spite of her plainly expressed repugnance to pill and potion; nay, some seem resolved that she shall swallow, and seek by manual dexterity or violence to insinuate or force them down her throat. They will take no denial from Maga; but insist on subjecting her to a perpetual course of medicine, enough to destroy the strongest constitution, and to bring even her auburn locks in a few years with sorrow to the grave. Will our poetical correspondents, without taking offence, where none is given, permit us now openly to say, that, with a few exceptions, about which there can be no mistake, we receive their contributions with mixed feelings of pity, disgust, and indignation? Many thousand times have we requested, in the most gentlemanly terms, that they would send their verses elsewhere; but no-like deaf adders, they will not hear the voice of the charmer, charm he ever so wisely; and our affairs are now in such a condition, that we almost despair of ever being able to relieve ourselves from the superincumbent load of poetry that has been long accumulating upon us-often from quarters, too, the most cruelly unexpected, and against which the most watchful prudence cannot always be on its guard. Oh heavens! have druggists no bowels? They should remember that Maga has; that we have; that the myriads have, who seek and find in her pages the balm of life. Once more, then, we beseech them to desist; and they may depend on it that they will soon find their reward in the unspeakable satisfaction of a calm * Collections from the Greek Anthology. By the late Robert Bland and Others. A New Series; comprising the Fragments of Early Lyric Poetry, with Specimens of all the Poets included in Meleager's Garland. Longman and Co. and John Murray, London. 1833. VOL. XXXIII. NO. CCIX. 3 K |