is literally _thread_-bare--not a loop in the stocking but may be seen
by a man of ninety without spectacles. A fop!--faugh!--who cares for
anything of the dandy or exquisite species?--A braggadocio--another
Munchausen! who kills trouts by the gross, and men by the dozen--who
shoots on the wing--_e.g._ Two individuals of this description once met
in my own presence. They had been in India, and were Indianising for the
benefit and entertainment of the company. Shooting came on the carpet,
and their various achievements were stated. Colonel A---- had shot more
than a dozen water-fowl at one shot.
"I am sure," said he, appealing to his Indian friend--"I am sure,
general, you know it to be true."
"Twelve dozen, by God!" was the emphatic response.
"Who has not heard of my father, the colonel?"--viz., Colonel Cloud--and
yet this colonel proved to be nothing more than plain Mr B----, from the
grand town of Forfar. Oh, how shall I overtake the varied forms that
rise up before me!--as well might I essay to catch and fix every
butterfly from the Emperor of Morocco down to the blue wing. "Upwards
and downwards, thwarting and convolved," the myriads of insects dance
away their hour, and are forgot. And who art thou who thus speakest of
others? A solitary fly! A large blue-bottom, madam, as insignificant and
ephemeral as any amongst them. But of this enough. Let us now introduce
another actor, or rather speaker.
"Well, sir, I am glad I have met you; for I was just going to call upon
you, to tell you that my son John, poor fellow--you know John?--that he
has got a step--what they call a step in the service, and that he has
had a severe fever, but is now quite well; and that he writes to his
sister--such a letter--but I have it here, sir, in my pocket. Pray do,
sir, sit down for a little, and I will read it to you; it is such a
funny letter--you have no notion--and so full of inquiries for
everybody, amongst the rest for yourself, whom it is wonderful that he
remembers--he has such a memory, my Johnnie, and always had. I remember,
when just a little thing not higher than this parasol. But, bless me,
sir, you are not listening!"
"No, ma'am; I beg your pardon; but I have an engagement." (Exit.)
And who does not see, at once, that this is a
"PROSING IDIOT?"
"I was up, yes--yes--up--up--yes, I was up by five
yesterday--yes--yes--yesterday morning. When do you rise, ma'am? I
always rise--yes--yes--rise--I always rise by six--true--true--quite
true--by six, ma'am--it is good--so good--yes--yes--very good, ma'am,
for the health--the health--yes--the health."
Such is the drivel which we have often heard oozing, drop by drop, from
a male creature of the prosy kind.
"THE BLAZING IDIOT."
The blazing idiot is all over self and wonderment. He has done--what has
he not done? He can do--what can he not do? One of this character was
one day entertaining old Quin with the account of an encounter with a
furious bull, in which the blazer had proved too much for the horner,
and held him, in spite of his neck, till he roared for a truce.
"Oh," said Quin, looking around him knowingly on the company, "that is
nothing at all to what I once experienced myself."
The original blazer looked amazement.
"Yes," says Quin, "I--even I, have managed the bull exercise in a higher
style than you, sir. You only held the bull's head down by the horns,
but I twisted his head from his neck, and threw it after his departing
hind-quarters!"
This produced a roar at the idiot's expense, and he shrunk out, to
announce his achievements somewhere else.
Is he a traveller?--Why, then, Munchausen is a fool to him. He has
undergone, achieved, seen, heard, tasted, more wonders than a thousand
Gullivers.
"The bats of Madagascar are large, assuredly, and almost exclude the
sunlight by the breadth of their hairy wings. But the bats are nothing,
sir, to the bees."
"What kind of bees have they?"
"Why, sir, the bees are, 'pon honour, sir, they are as large as your
sheep in this country."
"Why, then, one would require to keep a pretty sharp look-out ahead, in
case of a near encounter with such a winged monster."
"Not at all, sir. They make such a roaring noise, sir, with their wings,
that you can hear them, like the bulls of Bashan, a full mile distant."
"Terrible! But are they numerous?"
"Oh, exceedingly!"
"And what kind of flowers have they to feed on?"
"Why, just ordinary flowers. They cover them all over, and insert their
proboscis into a thousand, without stirring from their position."
"Yes! And what kind of skeps have they?"
"Oh, just ordinary skeps, like ours in this country."
"Yes! And how do these bees get into the skeps?"
"Oh, _just let them see to that_!"
But these may be termed the magnificent blazers. There is an animal of
this species of very reduced dimensions; and yet, from its numbers and
activity, it is not less provoking and annoying than the giant race. You
cannot mention a long walk which you have taken, but it out-walks you by
at least ten miles. You cannot drink your three bottles at a sitting,
but it empties five. You made, whilst a boy, some hairbreadth escapes,
but they are nothing to what it has escaped. You have had a very bad
fever, and lay a whole week insensible; this creature roared a whole
month. You have broken your tendon Achilles; this unfortunate has cut
all the arteries and tendons of the leg. Go where you will, the land has
been travelled before you. Do what you may, the thing has been done, and
much better done, already. In fact, you are only the copy of the
original before you; a shaping out of a web; a degenerate branch of a
vine in full growth; an Italian alphabet in the presence of a Roman. "I
thought my master a wise man; but this man makes my master a fool," says
the housemaid in Dean Swift; and it is thus that the emmet Blazer
befools you, turn where you may. Whom have we next in this our show-box
of rarities? Step in, sir. Don't stumble on the doorway, like
Protesilaus in setting out for Troy. Oh, I ask your pardon--
"THE BLUNDERING IDIOT."
Sit down there, sir--no, not on that sofa--with your dirty garments, and
shoes bemired; but on that arm-chair, where you may roll about to your
heart's content. Now, sir, be silent; for I see you are about to blunder
out whatever comes uppermost (and that is generally froth and scum),
and listen to me. I am going to read you a lecture. It was owing to your
blundering interference that I am not the Laird of Peatie's Mill at this
moment. You went to my uncle, and, by the way of recommending his
nephew, told him that I was an intimate acquaintance of yours, and that
you and I had many a happy night together at Johnnie Dowie's. Now, you
ought to have known my uncle's views and habits--in short, his
character--and that he had all his life long an utter abhorrence of
anything approaching to dissipation. My uncle instituted inquiry, and
found that what you stated was true, at least to a certain extent; and,
in consequence, cut me off with a shilling, leaving Peatie's Mill to a
miserly, mean fellow, who had once informed him of the approaching
failure of one who owed him money. You need not make any apology now,
the thing is done, and cannot be undone. When I was on the point of
being married to an heiress, with a good person and a fine property, you
came again as my evil genius, denying a report, which I had myself
propagated, of my early indiscretions, and assuring her cousin that I
was totally incapable of anything of the kind; that I was a perfect
Nathaniel, or Joseph, or what not; and, in short, so disgusted the lady
with your praises of me, that she immediately cut me, and married the
master of a coasting vessel. I know what you are going to say; but I
know, too, that you had no business to pop your nose into other people's
business. Besides, at last election, did not you assure the members to
whom you, amongst others, applied in my favour, that I was at heart a
Tory, though I had assumed Whig colours of late; and all this because
you knew his own father had been a violent Tory in old times. This so
disgusted my patron, that I lost the stamps by it. Your blundering
idiocy, sir--without any bad motive to arm it to mischief--has done more
injury to yourself, as well as to others, than would be the very worst
intentions and the most malevolent endeavours. But I spare
you--convinced, as I am, that nothing which I can say will ever drain
the blundering propensity out of your nature. But whom have we here?--
"A BORN IDIOT."
"Well, ma'am, let me have your own story from your own lips."
"Why, sir, do you use no more ceremony with me, knowing who I am, sir?
When your ancestors, sir, were working on the queen's highways, and
breaking stones----"
"I beg your pardon, madam; but it is but a short time since Macadamising
was introduced, and my ancestors happened to live at a period prior to
the breaking of stones on high-roads as a business."
"Well, sir, but you have interrupted me, and I forgot what I was going
to say. Oh ay! I was going to tell you that my ancestors rode in
coaches, when yours drove carts; that mine spent thousands upon
thousands, whilst yours were dealing in tarry-woo and candle grease; and
yet you, sir--you now sit in this cottage of yours (as you must needs
call it)--you have the audacity, and the impertinence, and the
presumption, forsooth, to call my son to account for shooting a few of
your dirty birds over your poor, paltry acres."
"Ma'am, I only warned him off my preserves, and did it in civil
language, too; but your son, taking his cue, I have no doubt, from so
accomplished a parent, used improper and ungentlemanly language to me,
and threatened to horsewhip me; so I thought it was only justice to
myself to put him into the hands of my man of business."
"Your man of business, sir! And who gave you, or your father's son, a
man of business, pray? What business may you have to manage, which a
servant lass may not conduct to a favourable conclusion with a
three-pronged grape?"
"Madam, I will stand this no longer. This house is my own. Depart!"
There she goes, wagging her tail and tossing her head, the Born Idiot!
But here comes a change of person, in
"THE CANTING IDIOT."
But, hush! I hear the voice of psalmody. She has taken to what she terms
a "sweet psalm," and must not on any account be disturbed.
It is true that there are odd stories abroad of her early life, and some
rather suspicious reports respecting a certain serjeant of a certain
regiment. Suspicions, too, have been entertained of her being concerned
in the burning of a certain will, by which her husband became possessed
of property to a comfortable extent; but she has no family, and of late
years has taken to religion, and, some say, occasionally to a less safe
stimulant. Be that as it may, Mrs Glaiks is at the head of all manner of
female associations of a religious character. She is a perfect adept in
judging of young preachers and evangelical discourses. If she pronounce
her verdict, the matter is settled; there is no appeal, not even to her
poor henpecked husband, whose conscience, every now and then, requires
all her care and eloquence to soothe. She has already taken possession
of this world by a _trick_, and she means to take the next by _force_.
She is urgent with the Lord, in season and out of season, and has been
at great pains in converting a handsome young man, who was addicted to
wine and its usual accompaniments. She says that she has been the
unworthy instrument, in God's hand, of his soul's salvation; and meets
with him more frequently in private than John Glaiks approves of. Pass
on, Mrs Glaiks--
"If honest worth to heaven rise,
Ye'll mend ere ye come near it."
But what a mighty fuss is here! The door flies wide open, till the
hinges crack again, as _in_ there rolls, in all the majesty of a new
suit of clothes, and a mighty self.
"THE POMPOUS IDIOT."
Reader! it is not Samuel Johnson, nor his Leader Bozzie. These were both
pompous enough, God knows; but they were not idiots--it is "my Uncle
Thomas." My Uncle Thomas was once a colonel in the Galloway Militia, and
has long retired in single blessedness, to live upon a small family
inheritance, which is scarcely sufficient to support himself, with a
_man in livery_ and a servant girl, to work his means, and act as
chambermaid. My uncle rises every morning at seven, rings his bell, and
calls his servant to shave and dress him. All this is done in solemn
silence; for it would be presumption in John to utter a word, unless he
be spoken to. My uncle, having surveyed his full, round person in the
glass, takes possession of his arm-chair, then pokers the fire; looks
out at his window; scolds a turkey-cock for spreading his feathers and
keeping up a row in the back court; rings the bell again, and says--
"Why, sir, what do you stare at? Let me have breakfast."
Breakfast with my uncle is a serious concern. The cups are not in order;
the bread is burned to a cinder; the butter is rancid, and the cream is
only fit to feed pigs with. However, he has at last breakfasted, and
been again surveyed and brushed by John, and is now prepared for the
onerous duties of the day. These consist, first, in taking snuff, which
he does regularly with three raps on the box-lid, a gaze around, to see
if he is observed, and a knowing plunge of the forefinger and thumb into
the midst of the powder. But his box is empty, though in fact half-full,
and John, having been well scolded, is despatched to his own shop,
Donald Mackechnie's, for the real Irish. The box is impressed with the
family arms, and the family motto, "_dum vivo spero_." At last the
supply arrives; his gold-headed cane, presented to him when colonel of
the Galloway Militia, is taken in hand; his hat is brushed, and planted
in proper attitude on his head; and forth he sallies, in his
pepper-and-salt habiliments, to scold the schoolboys for neglecting to
take off, or even touch, their hats, as he passes along what he terms
his gravel-walk, which is nothing more nor less than a cart-road leading
to a stone-quarry. A cow has escaped from under the care of his keeper,
and poor Davie Proudfoot, the herd-boy, is in hot pursuit. The cow is
directing her steps, somewhat unceremoniously, towards the colonel's
favourite walk, and he is loudly appealed to by the boy, to assist him
in "wearing" the brute. My uncle stares with ineffable rage and contempt
upon the unfortunate tender of cattle.
"What, sir!--what mean you, sir, to ask a colonel in His Majesty's
service _to turn a cow_?"
My uncle has gone, in quest of an appetite, beyond his usual bounds, and
having observed a person passing over the grounds of a neighbouring
laird, with a gun under his arm, and of a questionable appearance, he
determines to inform Lord Douglas, the neighbouring laird, as he usually
designates his lordship, of the fact; and for this purpose, in order to
receive information, he calls at the door of a cottage. A little girl,
about ten years of age, makes her appearance, and is accosted with--
"Lassie, where is your mother?"
"Mither, oh, mither--she's butt the house; but what do you want wi'
her?"
"You are an ill-educated girl," says my uncle. "Why don't you say 'sir'
to me when you address me? But go and tell your mother to speak to
me--away!"
"Mither! mither! haste and come here--there's a _man_ wantin to speak to
you."
This was more than my uncle could stand: so he instantly decamped,
gold-headed cane and all, to ruminate over the indignities to which he
had been subjected.
"Go," said he one day to John, when acting as butler to the colonel, his
master, and the young laird of Puddentuscal, who had been invited to
dinner--"go to catacomb seventeen, and bring us a bottle of vintage
twenty-six."
"Catacomb here, and vintage there," replied John, with a comical
expression on his face, "that's the last bottle on the table I've got
frae Peter Cruikshanks, for the twa cheeses we selt him."
My uncle died one day, but had taken previous care to have himself
carried shoulder-high to the grave. "_Sic transit gloria mundi!_"
"Miss Smiles! Oh, Miss Smiles, I am happy to see you, you have been
_such_ a stranger! But how is your mother? I was sorry to hear of her
late dangerous indisposition, and that you were obliged to call in the
assistance of a doctor."
"Oh yes," replies
"THE SIMPERING IDIOT"
with an everlasting smile on her countenance. "Poor mamma was so
ill!--he--he--he! we really thought she would have died--he! But then Dr
Blister was so attentive and funny. Oh la!--oh la! how he did laugh, and
made such a deal of fun, that poor mamma absolutely sat up in bed, and
he!--he!--he!--laughed, absolutely laughed outright. But, really, Mrs
Wotton, really that is such a beautiful little pony which you have got
feeding on the green, and it looked so comical at me in passing--he!
he!--and your little boy, Bobby, rides it so gracefully--ha! ha!--and he
fell so prettily. But be not alarmed, Mrs Wotton, the boy is only a
little, just a very little hurt about the head--he! he!--only about the
head, ma'am. I assure you don't be alarmed. Pray--pray,
don't!--he!--he! I think I see little Bobby tumbling heels up, head
down. A pretty boy, indeed, your little Bobby. But, bless me, Mrs
Wotton, don't ring the bell--he!--he! I saw Bobby carefully carried into
the gardener's cottage at the gate, with the whip still in his hand,
and--but he did not bleed severely----Oh la!--oh la! I hope I have not
alarmed you, ma'am. Good-morning--good-morning."
There goes that insensible piece of everlasting giggle. She has no more
heart than that poker, and no more mercy than an enraged cobbler, making
use of it to chastise a drunken spouse. There she goes from house to
house, from morn to night, with all the external marks of contentment
and high delight, and yet with an inward feeling of envy and ill-will,
which is a perfect hell. But here comes, with a copy of the "Laus
Stultitiae" by Erasmus, in one pocket, and a play of AEschylus in the
Other.
"THE PEDANTIC IDIOT"
Oxford bred--pure Oxford, ma'am. You cannot possibly utter a sentiment
which he does not roll you off in pure Iambics, nor mention a fact which
does not suggest another, at least eighteen centuries old.
"The day is very fine, ma'am, very fine indeed. 'And thus, from day to
day'--you remember the quotation in Shakspere--it is prettily said, but
not delicately. I do not like the words 'rot, and rot;' yet, if one take
into account the age, ma'am, the age of Shakspere--I don't mean the
years which he lived, but the age of the world in which he lived--if you
take into consideration the age, such words as rot were not deemed
ungenteel. 'Like a bare bodkin,' and 'groan and sweat'--all these
phrases have got somehow into bad repute now; but they were once seen in
the most polite company. Have you read the 'Laus Stultitiae' of Erasmus,
sir; or, as it is more frequently expressed in Greek terms, the
Encomium Moriae? It is quite unique, sir; so full of genuine fun,
expressed in beautiful Latin, with scraps of Greek intermixed. What
think you of the 'Prometheus' of Euripides?--is it not sublime and
terrific?--such a thunder of language and meaning intermingled! These
old fellows--these ancients--were the boys. What are our moderns to
them? What is Southey to Virgil, or Scott to Homer, Tom Moore to
Anacreon, or the lyrics of Burns to those of Horace? Oh, _fons
Blandusiae_! how soft, how sweet, how beautifully _simplex munditiis_!
And then his _'quem verum aut heroa,' 'Coelo tonantem credimus
Jovem'_. But I am, perhaps, trespassing on your patience; if so, I ask
your pardon, and bid you good-morning."
There he goes--a creature of nut-shells, one who deals with the husk but
never with the kernel--a bag of chaff, with scarcely a per-centage of
honest grain--a sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal--a thing of shreds
and patches--a Joseph's coat of many colours. I was heartily tired of
the classical pedant; but there are pedants, ma'am, in all situations
and professions. There are even pedantic chimney-sweeps--men in sooty
garb, who brandish the brush and display the dirt-bag with an air of
importance, and whose loud and penetrating "sweep" has a peculiar force
with it. There is, for example, your next neighbour, Mrs Manage, who
makes more cheeses from less milk than any one of her neighbours; whose
butter has a higher flavour than any in the market; and who kills you,
from morn to night, with plans of savings, and profits, and
improvements. She even rides her hobby whilst asleep; for she often
starts, and mutters the name of a favourite milcher. And there is Mr
Clark. Ah, my dear, good-natured, companionable, ever-to-be-remembered
Mr Clark! You were indeed the prince of fishers. You had travelled over
a great part of Scotland, like my friend Stodart, fishing; and, really
and in truth, you had done and seen wonders. I am sorry, very sorry,
indeed, to place you amongst the "pedants;" but truth, my dear sir--my
dear shade, compels me to do so. Set you once upon fishing, and there
was no end of it--from Dan to Beersheba, on you went. Here you killed a
salmon of fourteen pounds weight, after playing him up pool and down
stream for at least six hours; there, you hooked another, which broke
your line, and curvetted away to the tune of
"I care for nobody, no not I,
If nobody cares for me."
Again, you filled your basket ere twelve o'clock, and gave up fishing
merely because you could carry no more. And then, such adventures! One
day you lost yourself in the mist--found a tethered horse--wandered for
hours, and then encountered the same tethered horse again. At another
time, you came upon a cottage in the muirland with a lame crow; and,
after much wandering, came again upon the same object. You once changed
your flies _three_ times, and at last pulled _him_ out by a knot upon
the line, at which he took _greedily_. Was it not you who filled your
basket with trouts of a pound weight each, and then, in leaning over a
bank to land another, your basket-pin gave way, and they all tumbled
dead into the gullet? Did not you jump _in_ after them; and were you not
carried down into the bumbling pool; and had it not been that you got a
hold of a _heather cow_, would not you have been absolutely drowned?
After all this testimony, which you know--I mean _knew_ (alas! my dear
friend, that I should say _knew_!)--to be true, can I avoid placing you
amongst the _fishing pedants_? Yet, as the angel did in Sterne (an angel
who has had a deal of work to do in his time), do I now drop a tear upon
what I have written, and all _but_ blot it out for ever. Honest Mr
Clark! you were indeed the king of fishers; but, then, all your fish
weighed fisher's weight--you added at least seventy-five per cent. to
the avoirdupois!