has declared himself a Brazilian. His right, therefore, they contend, has ceased, and exactly as happened at our own Revolution, the next in succession is put in his place. The Cortes of Lamego, which pronounced this decision, comprehended almost all the great names in the kingdom, and resembled, in many particulars, the Convention Parliament, which put the crown upon the head of William. Besides, who is there that can bear the idea of an old European kingdom being turned into a colony to a mushroom American empire? Disgusting. TICKLER. NORTH. Be this law and this reasoning right or wrong, our interfering to arrange it would not be a whit more wise or rational than Don Quixote's campaign against the windmills. It is the interest of the people of Portugal to keep on good terms with us; and that being the case, it is of no consequence to us what king reigns over them. TICKLER. Not the value of a Queen Anne's farthing, which now sells, I believe, as low as thirty shillings of the coinage of George the Fourth. NORTH. We have thus concluded our foreign affairs—and Lord Aberdeen may, if he pleases, lay down our Magazine-so far as his own official duties are concerned. Delighted and instructed with the information he has thus gleaned, he may return to the business of his department, a wiser and a better man. TICKLER. But his Lordship's well-known literary taste must of course compel him to proceed. NORTH. True; ill indeed would he deserve the title of Athenian Aberdeen, if he did not every month peruse, with unsatiated appetite, every line of Maga, beginning with the title over the benignant countenance of Geordie Buchanan, and never checking for a moment, until he had fairly mastered the catalogues of the Born, the Married, and the Dead. TICKLER. But what say you of the colonies? NORTH. Nothing. Canada is peevish, but we shall soon settle all that. A most honoured Contributor, and a most excellent Tory-our friend Galt-reigns there in plenitude of power; and the department of woods and forests is under the control of a Lord Warden, (The Teegger,) whose learned lucubrations have figured in the Magazine. Under such control, Sir George Murray may rest contented. The remainder of the empire is as well as can be expected. TICKLER. At home, Corn-Currency-Catholics. NORTH. Good Lord deliver us from the three! Plague-Pestilence, and Famine-Battle-Murder, and sudden Death, are nothing to them! But as we must speak about them, we our weary lips unclose. TICKLER. CORN. Every prospect of a fine harvest, in spite of St Swithin. This will be one grand element of popularity for the Duke's Ministry. John Bull cannot grumble when his belly is full. NORTH. CURRENCY. Mr Peel's bill, we suppose, will be in operation in April. Great is the lamentation thereupon-and we suppose just-even in the impe rishable pages of our own immortal work. But if the world will keep the secret, we mention to them in private, that we never cared any thing about the currency, further than to get as much of it as possible into our breeches pockets. TICKLER. "Good gracious," Mr North-a country banker will exclaim, lifting his spectacles to an angle of 63 degrees upon the top of his ear-" surely ye're no serious. Do ye forget a' the clever articles ye had aboot the ruin the daft measures o' the feelosofers wad bring upon the hail kintra? Are na ye fou, when ye talk sae guselike ?” NORTH. Most encomiastic and eminent of bankers, we reply, we are no that fouthough, perhaps, we may hae a drappie in our ee. Admirable articles they were-them to which you allude-sound in argument-true in feeling-clear in position-powerful in facts. TICKLER. And so the whole country felt. They were articles which made the soul of Ebony glad within his bosom, for they did much "I verily believe, promote his sale." And more such you must have. NORTH. It would have saved much loss, and prevented much mischief, had a few such thinkers as their writer had the management of our financial and commercial affairs. But, after all, I am an old man, a man long cured of listening to the predictions of politicians; and, croyez en un vieux practicien, as old Frederick of Prussia used to say of war, I am not now-a-days frightened by prophecies of our destruction from causes, the prevention of which we have in our own power. If the feelosofers have mismanaged affairs, are they not kicked out? Thank God, they are-to one and all the Duke has said, in the language of Juvenal-aut accipe calcem! Has not Huskisson, the Complete Letter Writer, been ejected in the manner so graphically depicted in the printshops, by the vigorous application of the toe of the Duke's jackboot to his os coccygis? Does not Free Trade stink in the nostrils of the people? Like a dead foumart. TICKLER. NORTH. So will it be with the Currency. If we find that a gold currency, to the exclusion of paper, works mischief, depend upon it, after a little of that mischief-and less now than ever-because the country looks upon the sayings and doings with suspicion-thanks principally to my Magazine-instead of hailing them with an a priori shout of approbation-depend upon it, I say, after the first symptom of its being calculated to do damage appears, we shall come back to the course in which we arrived at a pitch of prosperity unprecedented in the history of nations. No-no-my dear sir-we will never be ruined by that. Until it pleases God to strike us all mad at one stroke of the Dogstar, we shall never be so divested of common instinct as to destroy ourselves, for no reason in the world, but to gratify some cloudy theorists, or to gain a character for consistency in folly. I venture to lay a wager of guineas to shillings, that by this time twelve months, we shall not recollect whether this bill passed or not. TICKLER. CATHOLICS. No Popery! That is our cry now-then-and for ever. Our reasons for it we have so often discussed, my dear North, that we are not called upon to do it now. I think, indeed I am sure, that the events of the last six months have kindled that spirit among us to a warmer degree than it has ever been since the Revolution of 1688. Don't you think so, sir? Yes. The Papists have fairly drawn the sword. NORTH. TICKLER. The return of O'Connell, and the rejection of Mr Vesey Fitzgerald, a man who was fool enough to vote for them all his life, prove that no services to their infamous cause can atone for Protestantism. NORTH. It has proved, also, that those who prated about the Popish influence returning only a dozen members to Parliament, were mere idiots. It has proved, that if we grant Emancipation, we introduce at least 100 members into the House of Commons, bound by all that they deem sacred to overthrow the constitution of the country. TICKLER. Alarm prevails now, where nothing but sneers were heard before; and by a just retribution, the Irish pro-Popery members, (we thank thee, eloquent and able, stanch and true STANDARD, for teaching us that word,) are the first to suffer. Your Vesey Fitzgeralds, Sir John Newports, Villiers Stuarts, Spring Rices, &c. &c. will be the first to go-the first to afford a practical illustra tion of the justice and moderation of the triumphant Papists. NORTH. I rejoice, Mr Tickler, to see the country firmly possessed of this truth. I hail the accession to our side of the Marquis of Chandos, and the young nobility, gentry, and scholars, of almost all the rising youth of the country, whether distinguished for birth, or talent, or influence; and we cheer forward the establishment of the Brunswick Clubs, with the loudest compass of our lungs. All that the Protestants of the empire have to do, is to speak, and THEIR VOICE 18 DECISIVE. TICKLER. Yes, my trusty feer, their voice is decisive, even if the Minister seem dubious or hostile. How much more so when the Minister is their stanch and uncompromising friend; in one word, when he is the Duke of Wellington? NORTH. Another cup of coffee. As to any doubts about him, give them to the winds The Dawsons-I utter the name with pain, for many reasonsmay seem to slink from their principles amid a general hooting of contempt, and some sighs of sorrow. But who compares the Duke of Wellington with them? TICKLER. Nobody who is permitted by his friends to walk without an attendant through city or suburb. Yet the Protestants of the empire must not desert him. If they be silent, it will be hard for him to resist the ceaseless clamours of his enemies. NORTH. That is not a sad-but a serious-solemn truth. Let them be steadylet them come forward to shew that they are in earnest in resisting the encroachments of Popery, and We hope not-for we are not going to say any more. We are old, now, consider, worthy world, and our hand does not dash off sheet after sheet with that impetuous rapidity that made in former times the devils to stare. We must now take our ease The young should labour, but the old should rest. TICKLER. Your life, sir, has been busy and various. NORTH. Ay, Heaven knows, our toils indeed have been immense; and until we came to the management of this Magazine, our pleasures but few. But we are anticipating. Soon-very soon, perhaps, may the aged body of old Kit be consigned to the tomb TICKLER. Hush-hear Mr Gurney sobbing in his closet! NORTH. When his Memoirs will see the light at last TICKLER. O let them not, I pray, be a posthumous work! NORTH. His maligners then will see who it is they have slandered-what wild work they have wrought with a heart too sensitive, too tremblingly alive to the cruel censures of a censorious world——— TICKLER. Gurney-blow your nose-and no blubbering. NORTH. Springs of action will be then developed, which will puzzle the politiciandeeds developed, which will, in all probability, render it necessary that the history of fifty of the most important years of the world should be rewritten. When it is published, alike indifferent to him will be the voice of praise or of But the readers of Blackwood's Magazine will, we trust, drop a tear of goodhumoured and grateful recollection over the page that tells the chequered fortunes of their guide, philosopher, and friend. TICKLER. Why, Gurney's grief is infectious. Forgive the pensive tear. NORTH. 'Tis an idle thought, Tickler, but methinks that my bones would not rest in a city churchyard. Let them be deposited beneath the greensward of the burial-place of my native parish, by the side of her TICKLER. My dear North, you know I have undertaken the interment NORTH. Remember, that on turning off from the turnpike road into the lane, with its old hawthorn hedges TICKLER. Fear not, sir, fear not-the coffin shall there be taken out of the hearse, and borne aloft on the shoulders of six chosen villagers NORTH. You yourself walking, as chief mourner, at my head With all my heart. But first a toast—in brandy—for after Turkish coffee, Bourdeaux is best. Here is THE 144TH NUMBER OF BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE! Hip, hip, hurra, hurra, hurra, hurra, &c. ad libitum. Hip, hip, hurra! And now one cheer more for the honour of Lord Eldon! Hark-how the echoes ring! TICKLER. Every room in the house has caught it. NORTH. And another, for as true a Tory, in other words, as good a man, as Scotland ever saw-his noble father not excepted-Lord Melville. Hip, hip, hurra,— hurra! TICKLER. Some basely forgot, or rather, deserted him, during his short retirement. But We knew better. OUT or IN, we honour the MAN. NORTH. That's the way to do things. THE 144TH No.! This is the Magazine which idiots and knaves endeavoured to put down-and which blockheads and fools predicted, over and over again, would not live out the month. TICKLER. Many a precious blockhead has kicked the bucket, hopped the twig, Kit, since the first prating of such predictions. NORTH. And it is pleasant to the conscience of an old man, to know that the death of many of them must be laid directly at the door of No. 17, Prince's Street. The braying of asses is unquestionably much diminished-and that justifies the belief that the asses themselves are far fewer in number, though I do not wish the breed to be wholly extinct. TICKLER. They are fewer in number-for while he breathes the vital air, your ass will bray. NORTH. (Sings.) Let us laugh at the asses, while here at our glasses, The toast that we're drinking can give them the lie. Is Virtue and Merit, Wit, Learning and Spirit, Is Honour, and Genius, and Fancy to die? Even talent like Campbell's, when caught in Whig trammels, 'Mid Misses and Masters, content is to shelve; While we are as clever and joyous as ever, Though our Numbers, up-mounting, have reach'd Twelve times Twelve. Alas, for the London !-three times it was undone ; Like the hues of the morning, its pages adorning, And cutting down Whigs to the left and the right. In obscurity's slough, must go burrow and delve, Our Maga will number TWELVE HUNDRED TIMES TWELVE ! |