10

THE GHOST OF THE GANDER.

paused before a pretty large mob of small ragamuffins, as if
he would address them in his native lingo-but his opened
bill
gave but a gasp, as if the iron hand of adversity clutched
his neck-and all he uttered was a hiss.

North. Poor payment to his supporters.
Registrar. His bill—at sight.

Ambrose (laughing). Very good, Mr Registrar-very good. The wittiest of the witty are you, sir-but, pardon menature gave Ambrose a quick sense of the ludicrous

Registrar. And of the pathetic.

North. Waddled he, think ye, Tickler, all the way from Cross to Cross ?

Tickler. The story ran that he took rest and refuge on the top of the Cheap-and-Nasty.

North. On the road are there no pools?

Tickler. But one; and in he went. 'Twas thick and slaband he came out green mud.

North. After dinner I shall dedicate to him a voluntary and extemporaneous song.

Tickler. No. Now's the time. I shall save you the trouble, Kit-for I have an elegy in my pocket. You know Burns's fine lines, written among the ruins of Lincluden Abbey. My genius is original, and I scorn to imitate even rare Rab-but taking a solitary stroll the evening after the election, through a scene that used to be a favourite haunt of mine of old, I know not how it happened, but Rab's lines came into my mind and sitting down on a tombstone, I saw a Vision.

Ambrose (pale). A ghost, sir?

Tickler. Ay, Brosey-a ghost. You are a topping elocutionist, Ambrose, and I would gladly request you to recite. But my MS. is very cat-paw-ish-and, besides, poets like to tip off their verses trippingly from their own tongues; so here goes

Through Glasgow's fair town, in the dead of the night,
As homeward I went on my way,

Each star in the heavens shone beauteous and bright,
And the goddess in mantle of silvery light

Held her gentle and lady-like sway.

THE GHOST OF THE GANDER.

By the church of ST MUNGO I silently pass'd,
And thought on the days that are gone,
And how long any church might be likely to last
In the new Reformation that's coming so fast-
When the bell of the steeple tolled ONE!

And the sound of that dismal and deafening bell
Was hardly yet out of mine ear,

When there suddenly rose a strange, ominous smell,
And 'twas fearful to think, but too easy to tell,
That the GHOST OF THE GANDER was near!

And lo! the fat Phantom-the Spectre was there!
My nerves they are none of the best-

But I mutter'd my shortest and readiest prayer,
And, holding my nose with particular care,

I gazed on the Goose of the West.

Oh! how changed, since the day when he carried the prize,
Was his carcass, all blister'd and bare!

Yet, changed as he was, you might still recognise
Some features of more than unnatural size,

And THE BADGE he continues to wear.

'Twas a sad and a sorrowful thing to behold
The featherless spirit of woe,

As standing before me he shivered with cold,
Yet thought with affright of his roasting of old,
When by Ambrose he first was laid low!

And while all now was hushed in a stillness profound,
"Twas dismal and doleful to hear

The Phantom, with voice of a tremulous sound,
As he poured forth his griefs to the echoes around,
Unconscious that mortal was near.

"Oh! hard is my lot," did the Gander exclaim,
"Cut off in my prowess and pride,

While Glasgow, fair Glasgow, the scene of my fame,
Makes a jest of my fate-and my well-earned name
Is the sport both of CART and of CLYDE !

"I might have my frailties-but oh! was it meet
That my merits should thus be forgot?

And that here I should stand—for alas for my seat !—
An example of honest ambition's defeat

By a foul and unnatural plot !

11

12

66

MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT.

My place in our National Council of Geese

I almost had reckoned secure ;

And oft did I think how my fame would increase,
And inferior gabbling all suddenly cease-

66

When the Gander advanced on the floor!

But, visions of grandeur and glory, farewell!
My spirit, disturbed and distrest,

To the owls and the echoes the story must tell-
How formerly flourished and recently fell

The unfortunate Goose of the West."

It ceased; and surprised, as I surely well might,
I thought, as I went on my way,

That the very next morning to HIBBERT I'd write
How thus I had learnt from a spirit of night

That "every Goose has his day!"

Omnes. Alas! poor ghost!

Ambrose. He! he he! he!

Registrar. I wonder, sir, you do not pitch your tent-take up house all the summer months among the hills or mountains.

North. For an old man, Sam, fondish of literature, nothing like a suburban summer residence like the Lodge. I confess I cannot do now without a glance at the new publications— and you cannot get that in rural retirement. A well-chosen library, consisting of the same everlasting books, aggravates the wretchedness of a wet day in the country—and it is desirable that the key of the room be lost, or something incurably wrong with the lock. The man who reads only all the best authors is sure to have a most unmeaning face.

Registrar. I would rather read all the worst.

Tickler. That you might have a countenance beaming with intelligence. Members of Parliament seem to read no books at all. I know no jabber so sickening as jabber about "the House." A puppy of a Representative conceives all human knowledge confined to a "Committee of the whole House," to which he believes all things under the sun have been "referred," or made the subject of a "motion." He loses his seat, sings small, and for the rest of his life

Registrar. Is a sumph. For a year or two he is occasionally

A SUMMER STORM, BY C. WHITEHEAD.

13

heard intimidating one of the Seven Young Men,' with, "when I was in Parliament;" but people above the salt look incredulous or contemptuous, and the quondam statesman restricts himself on "Divisions" to his poor wife.

North. No politics, Sam. Pray, did either of you ever read The Solitary, a poem, in Three Parts, by Charles Whitehead? Both. No.

North. It is full of fine thoughts and feelings, and contains some noble descriptions. Some of the stanzas committed themselves to my memory-and I think I can recite three, suggested by the quiet of the scene for they are pregnant with tempest.

"As when, of amorous night uncertain birth,
The giant of still noontide, weary grown,
Crawls sultrily along the steaming earth,

And basks him in the meadows sunbeam-strown,
Anon, his brow collapses to a frown,

Unto his feet he springs, and bellows loud,

With uncouth rage pulls the rude tempest down,
Shatters the woods, beneath his fury bowed,

And hunts the frighted winds, and huddles cloud on cloud.

"Nor rests, but by the heat to madness stung,
With headlong speed tramples the golden grain,
And, at a bound, over the mountains flung,
Grasps the reluctant thunder by the mane,
And drags it back, girt with a sudden chain
Of thrice-braced lightning; now, more fiercely dire,
Slipt from its holds, flies down the hissing rain;

The labouring welkin teems with leaping fire

That strikes the straining oak, and smites the glimmering spire.

"And yet at length appeased he sinks, and spent,
Gibbers far off over the misty hills,

And the stained sun, through a cloud's jagged rent,
Goes down, and all the west with glory fills;
A fresher bloom the odorous earth distils,

A richer green reviving nature spreads,
The water-braided rainbow melting, spills
Her liquid light into the air, and sheds

Her lovely hues upon the flowers' dejected heads."
1 See ante, vol. i. p. 235, note 2.

14

NORTH'S MEMORY.

Registrar. You have a miraculous memory, sir.

North. I have indeed. I can remember nothing that does not interest me and months of my existence in every year now, Sam, are a blank. That faculty called Recollection, in me is weak. When I try to exert it, I seem to "hunt half-a-day for a forgotten dream." But the past comes upon me in sudden flashes-without active will of my own-and sometimes one flash illuminates the whole mental horizon, and lo! lying outspread below what was once a whole present world. No idea of past time distinguishes it as a dream—I am, as it were, born again-Heaven and earth re-created-and with the beautiful vision, believed to be a reality, is blended the burning spirit of youth.

Registrar. That is Imagination, sir-Genius-not Memory. North. No, Sam, it is neither Memory, nor Imagination, nor Genius, but a mysterious re-revelation-made not by but to my soul-the same as happens to all men in sleep.

Registrar. Is it true, sir, that you have by heart all Spenser's Faery Queen?

North. As great a lie as ever was uttered. But thousands and tens of thousands of small poems lie buried alive in my mind; and when I am in a perfectly peaceful mood, there is a resurrection of the beautiful, like flocks of flowers issuing out of the ground, at touch of Spring. I am in a perfectly peaceful mood now. And since you like to hear me recite poetry, my dear Registrar, I will murmur you a few stanzas, that must have committed themselves to my memory, for I feel assured I did not write them, yet I have no recollection of them—mind that word—and perhaps they will take their flight now, like a troop of doves that on a sudden are seen wheeling in the sunshine, and then melt away from the eye to be seen nevermore.

Come forth, come forth! it were a sin

To stay at home to-day!

Stay no more loitering within,

Come to the woods away!

The long green grass is filled with flowers,
The clover's deep dim red

Is brightened with the morning showers
That on the winds have fled.