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when I had pulled my mouth wideopen, beyond even its natural capacity, (which is not trifling, believe me, reader,) I sat for hours, roaring out for a dentist to punch in two or three of my front teeth, that I might get some sustenance introduced through a quill. Even when I perfectly recovered my senses, I was long before I could bear to sit a moment with my mouth shut, from the dread of a return of my imagined danger. Then came the dreaming again-the crawling tortoises; the clammy glutinous liquid; the green fat-but enough of this!

Repeated sufferings like these broke in upon the crust of my constitution, if I may use the trope; so that when I became of age, and possessed of a good fortune without incumbrance, by the demise of my father, and the second marriage of my mother, (who by that step forfeited her jointure, and with it every claim on my regard,) I was in appearance a middle-aged man, and in mind a septuagenary, of the common sort I mean-I, like old Burton, had "neither wife nor children"my early attachment-my beautiful neighbour-the prototype-spare me the repetition, reader!-but she, you know, she-the LADY was lost to me forever! She had but one failing, poor girl-nervousness, just then coming first into fashion; and she took it strongly into her head, that if she married me, I should play the part of the wolf with the Little Red Riding-hood, and eat her up one night in bed. To avoid this unusual and uncomfortable consummation of our nuptials, she discarded my suit altogether, and I lost her forever. To get over the effects of this blow, I resolved to look for consolation in the joys of foreign cookery. I determined to trave!, and I did travel, in pursuit of what I never have been able to discover-the art of allaying an uncontrolable appetite. As for the love affair, I soon swallowed my grief.

I shall not enumerate my adventures in distant countries, nor detail my observations on objects foreign to my purpose. Ne sutor ultra crepidam. I shall therefore merely say, that having eaten frogs in France, macaroni at Naples, ollapodrida in Spain, opium in Turkey, camel's-flesh in Egypt, horse-flesh in Arabia, elephant-flesh in India, cat's-flesh in China, and

hog's-flesh-no, never, never after the affair of the pig-it was a slip of the pen-I returned to England to sit down to plain beef and mutton; convinced that I had come back to the real, healthy, honest standard of good taste. In the broad interval, however, which I have jumped over so rapidly, I had many and many a visiting of direful consequence. At one time I fancied that I was doomed to die of starvation, and the excruciating agonies then endured from cholics and indigestions (proceeding from my even more than natural efforts to eat up to the standard of sufficiency) beggar all description. On another occasion a horrid apprehension oppressed me, that I should one day-but how express myself in English? I cannot ; and I should have been silent perforce, did not the delicacies of the French language come in to my aid—that I should one day, me crever le ventre ! To guard against this expected calamity, I had a pair of stays made—yes, reader, I was the first of the dandies -the lacing and uniacing of which, before and after meals, was attended with torments more horrible than those pelting and pitiless showers, imagined by Dante for the Gluttons of his Inferno.

I forget precisely how many years have elapsed since the exhibition of fat Lambert. It is enough to know, that I went to see the show.. I saw him.-Would that I never had! Oh, Heavens! what agonies has that sight cost me! The by-standers who observed me as I entered the room, burst into a loud and involuntary laugh— and no blame to them; for never was there a more ludicrous contrast than Lambert was to me, and I to Lambert. I am six feet five inches and a half high in my stockings; extremely like Justice Shallow, only taller, "like to a man made after supper of cheeseparings, for whom the case of a treble hautboy would make a mansion ;"and I will venture to say that the skeleton of the Irish giant, dressed in my habiliments, and its back turned, might be taken for my figure by my nearest acquaintance. You all remember, readers, what Lambert's figure was. I do, alas! at any rate!-The very instant I saw him, the notion struck me that I had become his second-self-his ditto-his palpable echo his substantial shadow that the ob

servers laughed at our "double trans- But I must leave the quotation unfinishformation,” for he was become me at ed, and come at last to a full stop; for I ihe same time—that I was exhibiting fear I am trenching upon the privilege as he then was,—and, finally, that I ,-poaching upon the preserve of some was dying of excessive fat. The idea contemporary hypochondriac. If so, if was like an electric shock, and in one any inay have led the way in giving moment I felt that the double identity to the world, like me, their real unexwas completed—that the metamorpho- aggerated Confessions, I can only comsis of Salamis and her lover was acted plain, with the modern poet who acover again in the persons of myself and cused Shakespeare of forestalling his the fat man—that I, short, was thoughts, that they, be they who they Lambert, and Lambert me!-I shot may, have very unhandsomely and out of the exhibition-room-rushed plagiaristically anticipated my own into the street-quitted the confines original lucubrations. And now haof the city-ran up towards Hamp- ving fairly unbosomed my sins, if they stead-hill-tried back again, and made are sins, I trust to receive from a grate off in the direction of the river, endea- fiul public, in whose interest alone have vouring in vain to shake off the horrid I compiled these sheets, the absolution phantasm that had seized upon my which should always follow confesmind. I darted along with lightning- sion. Then, as is usual in these cases, speed, my long legs seemed to fling that having disgorged my over-loaded themselves out spontaneously, as if conscience, I may be allowed to rethey no more belonged to me than turn to my old courses following in Grimaldi's do to him, yet I fancied this the example of Cæsar, who, acthat I crept with the pace of a tor- cording to Cicero, post cænam vomere toise—that my fat totally prevented volebat, ideoque largius edebat. Should my quicker motion—that I should be any harsh hearer or rigorous reader be crushed to death between the hedges, inclined to constrain the bowels of his the turnpikes, or the carriages that compassion, and still deny me pardon, passed me and thus I ran in the mid- to him I beg to propose a question in dle of the road, vociferating for assist- the words of our immortal Bard, which ance, fighting against the foul fiend, he may answer the next time we meet and followed by a crowd of draggle- at dinner,tailed blackguards, till I reached the

If little faults banks of the river, and saw myself re

Shall not be wink'd at, how shall we stretch flected in the stream. Oh, Heavens ! what a delightful sight was that!

When capital crimes, chew'd, swallow'd,

and digested, « Then like Narcissus

Appear before us!”

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our eye,

VINDICIÆ GAELICÆ.

We think it our duty, for the sake and character of the affair: nobody, at of our English Readers, to say a very all events, has spoken or written as if few words about some matters which he did ; and observing with what zeal are so perfectly understood by every the Whig press in England is trumone in Scotland, (however certain peo- peting Sir James Mackintosh, and ple may be interested in disguising magnifying his triumph, we must just what they know and feel,) that it would entreat the forgiveness of our friends be worse than idle to address any words for occupying two or three pages with about them to our readers here-We a very brief and plain statement of allude to the affair of the Rectorship, the true facts of the case. or, as it has been absurdly called, the We are well aware that the Whig Lord-rectorship of the University of news-writers in London are, for the Glasgow. The subject is really so very most part, Scotchmen-more's the humble, that had we seen a single pa- shame and the pity !_but humble in ragraph of common sense about it, in every possible point of view as these any one newspaper, Scotch or English, creatures are, there is not one even of we should have been quite contented them that does not know quite well how with copying it. But the fact is, that gross is the imposition that he has been nobody appears to have comprehended, Lending himself to. They all know what in the smallest degree, the real nature sort of a thing the Rectorship of Glas

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gow is: but their readers do not; and portance; so it is that they do possess THESE must really not be suffered to the right to make this election-and nourish the exquisitely absurd notion more, that they alone possess it. When that Sir James Mackintosh, Knight, people in England read of an Univerhas been here to receive a compliment sity Election, they naturally conceive resembling, even in genus, any of those that the electors are, as with themhigh marks of distinction for which the selves, the men who have finished their first Noblemen and Statesmen of Eng- education at that University, and taken LAND are accustomed to be competitors some of its higher degrees. They on the banks of the Cam or the Isis. know that at Oxford and Cambridge In fact, there is a kingdom of Congo as nobody has a vote in any such matters well as a kingdom of England—but until he has been at least seven years nothing beyond a sucking baby sup- a member of the University-they poses that the two kings are the same know that there the young gentlemen sort of persons in rank and dignity. actually studying in College at the The Rector of Glasgow stands in just time have no more to do with such the same relation to the High Steward matters than the man in the moon, of Oxford or Cambridge.

and knowing that these are persons The “UNIVERSITY” of Glasgow is entitled, for the most part, to be called composed of two things; first, a school men, how should it ever be imagined where boys from twelve years of age,

that in a Scotch University boys are up to sixteen or seventee", are instructed not only admitted to do that from in the first elements of Classical learn- which these men are excluded-but ing—for they do not know even the that they alone are admitted to do so ? alphabet of the Greek tongue when Yet such is the fact. Not only have they are matriculated—and also, in the the persons whose education is at an first elements of Mathematics, Logic, end no concern in this election ; even Ethics, &c.; and secondly, of an in- those whose education is going on have stitution in which lectures are deliver nothing to do with it after they have ed on Medicine, Law, and Theology, ceased to belong to the school part of for the benefit of those of rather riper the seminary. The moment one of years. The boys who attend the school hese boys becomes a stripling, he beare dressed in gowns of red frieze, the comes of course a student either of sleeves of which they convert, by cast- divinity, or of medicine, or of law ing knots and inserting brickbats, into from that momentthat is to say, from very decent weapons of offence, during the moment he is seventeen or eighthe hours of relaxation which their teen years old at the utmost,-he masters permit them to enjoy. In ceases to wear the red frieze gown, every sense of the word, they are boys and has nothing whatever to say as to many of them, indeed, might be more this most pure and enlightened franproperly styled children-and miser- chise. He is a non togatus : he cannot ably filthy little urchins the far greater wear the gown: and he consequently part of them are. To dream of com- cannot vote. He has left the school, paring them with the boys of Eton, or and he is no longer entitled to balance Westminster, or Winchester, or Har- and reward the merits of the Sir

either in regard to external ap- James Mackintoshes, and the Mr pearance, or manners, or what is of Francis Jeffreys of the age. The only higher importance than all, in regard grown men who do possess the privito SCHOLARSHIP, would be about as lege of voting along with about A absurd, as it would be to compare a THOUSAND noisy and illiterate urchins, Spouting Club in Cheapside with the are the Professors—about twenty in British House of Commons. The number. Charter House boys, for example, are In former times, the absurdity of a hundred miles above them in every having such mere boys for electors, species of respectability.

was productive of no bad effects-or But-It is in these boys alone that rather it was productive of no effects the right of electing what they call at all, good, bad, or indifferent. The their Rector Magnificus has been, and lads made it a rule to obey the direcis now vested. No doubt they acquired tion of their respective masters--so the right at a period when children that, in effect, the election lay with were not the wearers of the red frieze the Professors of the University.--But gown-but that is a matter of no im- a variety of causes has operated so as

row,

to produce an entire change as to all this. First of all, the Professors themselves were so imprudent as to introduce politics-the Rector has a vote in the deliberation of the Senatus Acudemicus, and the Whigs must try to have a Whig, the Tories a Tory. Accordingly, for many years a disgraceful scene was exhibited-one Professor recommending one man, another Professor recommending another Boys of thirteen or fourteen years of age attending the prelections of both these Professors, deciding which of their teachers had given the sager advice-cabals of all sorts-jealousyspleen-the suspicion at least of professorial favour or disfavour, following according to the vote given-in a word, a shameful disruption of the most important ties which bind together those whose duty it is to speak with authority, and those whose duty it ought to be to listen with silence and respect. This degrading spectacle was repeated for a succession of years-but it was at length terminated by the good sense of the Professors. Weary of the disgusting occurrences which were continually taking place, they laid their heads together, and agreed that a Whig should have it the one election, and a Tory the next.—“ Time about fair play," is a good old adage; and, more especially, as the Rectorship is really a thing of no sort of importance in any point of view whatever, perhaps this was just as equitable an arrangement as any that could have been suggested to that learned and respectable body-and, on the whole, the arrangement worked well."

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Gentlemen of eminence, in some way or other, but all belonging to the neighbourhood of Glasgow, were elected. Mr Campbell of Blythswood (one of the best of tories) was elected-he was a member for the city, and possessed of great estates in that part of that country, and his ancestors had conferred benefits on the University itself. Mr Kirkman Finlay was elected he was at that time a Whig, or at least was thought to be so—but he was one of the first and most intelligent merchants in the world, and the majority of the electors were the sons of the merchants and manufacturers of Glasgow-he was, moreover, the Chief Magistrate of their city, and he was its representative in Parliament for the time. Lord Archibald Hamilton was

elected he was a man of talents, and a member of a noble family, which in former times conferred obligations of the most important kind on the University of Glasgow.-So far all was well. But THE WHIGS, who everywhere, but especially in Scotland, are the enemies of every thing like repose and order, thought that by a little management they might convert this paltry election into an instrument for serving some of their own paltry purposes, and THEY determined to flatter the boys, thereby win them to themselves, and in defiance of the Professors of both parties, perpetuate this precious Rectorship as a sort of possession for themselves. They for whom nothing, either in object or in means, can ever be too low, resolved to set these children permanently at variance with their preceptors, that they might have the opportunity, for it really amounts to nothing more, of spouting a couple of Whig orations per annum, in the Common-hall of Glasgow College. And it appears, that by dint of the most despicable but unwearied intriguing, they have at length attained this magnificent object of their ambition.

Mr Francis Jeffrey was the first person elected after the system of dispute was revived. He is a person of considerable talents, and at one time he was a person of considerable reputation in the world of letters. He is an eminent barrister and reviewer, and he had received his education at the University of Glasgow; and, altogether, nobody certainly could have had much right to say that he was not entitled to receive from such a body of electors any such mark of attention as they might have it in their power to bestow. But how did Mr Jeffrey acquit himself on the occasion? Why, just as a clever man, who happens from excess of vanity to mistake himself for a man of genius, is very apt to do-like a ninny. He went to Glasgow not in the modest style of his predecessors, to make a little speech to the boys, and eat a great dinner with their masters, but he went with a mighty train of

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LEADING WHIGS.""He made a speech, the tendency of which was but too perceptible in the midst of all his youthful electors. He was attended by men all of them politicians, most of them political partizans of a very humble class. He instituted a prize, produced a medal, and did all he could

to create a sensation in favour of him- Joseph Hume, could, for any other self, a Whig, the Whig friends who than a party purpose, have been ambiwere by his side, and the great, the tious of such a distinction, would be deathless cause of “ liberal principles too absurd. We can scarcely be so unall over the world !" The flattery, charitable as to innagine that Sir James, that would have been nauseous and even as he is situated in some partisickening to any thing in the shape of culars, could have deemed it possible men, went down, and little Jeffrey, that such a “cock-chicken's feather" the Rector magnificus, came back to should do his cap any service. But, his chums in Auld Reekie, crowing laying all these preliminary matters and clapping his wings, as proud as out of view, we really must be permitever a bantam-cock that scratched a ted to say, that we are sorry to find barley-corn out of a dunghill. that Whig calumnies, and Whig flat

But the great matter was to make teries, have been able to persuade even assurance doubly sure of a Whig suc- a knot of children, that two such names cessor for this worthy. The whole of could be put in competition in any the Professors, (with just two excep- Christian country. We shall not stoop, tions,) anxious to have done with the however, to waste one word upon this fret and fever which the Liberals had matter, since we are addressing, it is excited, joined in proposing to the to be hoped, grown readers. boys Sir Walter Scott-thinking, of But now comes the grand affair of course, that that great name would the speeches. Mr Jeffrey's claims a unite all suffrages, and that even the little notice in the first place, because Whigs would be ashamed of opposing it was the first delivered; and we have any of their own paltry schemes and no hesitation in saying, that we consiprejudices to the election of Him of der it to have been as precious a diswhom all Scotland has so much reason play of dishonesty and dirtiness-(we to be proud. But no—Sir Walter was mean public political dishonesty, and a Tory, and that was check-mate to public political dirtiness,) — as ever the pacific Professors : for it was suf- disgraced the lips of a man of any ficient to set every Whig engine at thing like talents. It was dishonest work with redoubled zeal and energy, throughout, dishonest in cute tt intus, for the noble purpose of bringing in because it said nothing of politics, the -whom ?-Sir James Mackintosh !!! only thing that was in the speaker's And accordingly, in due season, west- mind. Is there that sucking pig in ward once again moved our illustrious Brentford that can be persuaded that Aristarchus, and he and his two hum- any man, laying politics entirely out ble adherents and worshippers in the of view, would ever dream of mentionSenatus, and a majority of the child- ing the name of Sir James Mackintosh ren, did elect that “ chevalier sans in the same breath with that of Sir peur et sans reproche.”

Walter Scott, to a body of British Now, we have, imprimis, to observe, youth-above all, of Scottish youththat neither Sir Walter Scott nor Sir and this, too, within the walls of a James Mackintosh had any right, or building reared and maintained solely title of any sort, to be Rector of the Uni- for the promotion of LITERATURE ? versity of Glasgow. Neither of them be- Is there that “thrice-sodden ass," who longed, in any sense, to that Univer- believes that Francis Jeffrey in his sity-neither of them had been edu- heart conceives Sir James Mackintosh's cated there, nor even lived in its vici- pamphlets, either in or out of the nity; and there was no propriety what- Edinburgh Review, to be equal in meever in introducing the novelty of a rit with the works of the greatest and Rector that had no

sort of connexion most popular author of this most rich with the institution; and, according- and inventive age of English literaly, we have no doubt neither of them ture? What is it that Mr Francis would ever have dreamt of such a wished to convey, (for the question is thing. Sir Walter, it is now well not as to what he really thought) when known, never heard of the affair at all he dared to speak of Sir James Mackuntil the election was over; and we intosh as being superior to Sir Walter are willing to believe that the case Scott“ in what is properly called may have been-in so far—the same learning ?” What does the doctissimus with Sir James Mackintosh. To sup- Francisculus mean by “ learning ?"

any Scotchman, at all above Did he ever read IVANHOB? Did he

pose that

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