Chapter VI: Part THE LAST (2)

Zumalacarregui possessed great courage, but he made no show of it. It would have been more brilliant if he had had more vanity; and the exposure of his person was always subservient to some object of utility. He had a comprehensive view of military movements, but he never forgot the peculiar nature of his warfare; and he never ambitiously allowed himself to be carried away by plans or manoeuvres beyond the exigencies of his position. As an administrator in forming reserves, in procuring supplies, in discovering resources, in bringing raw battalions to a state of rough efficiency in the shortest possible time, he was unrivalled; yet his mind was not cramped by detail, and when he descended to minute matters, it was because they were really important. He was severe and inflexible, even taciturn and morose; yet he was extremely loved by his troops. At the time that he was commander-in-chief, commissary-general and treasurer, and that all the sums of money, raised or sent, passed through his hands without a check or a receipt, there never was a breath raised against the purity of his moral character. These certainly are the elements out of which great generals are made; and it is not irrational to think that, under other circumstances, the same man, this Navarrese Guerrillero, far superior as such to the brave but improvident Mina, or the active but dull Jauregui, might have expanded into a European hero, and have left a less perishable name.

When the siege of Bilbao was decided on, Zumalacarregui threw his objections to the winds, and set about it with his constitutional ardour. He arrived before it with fourteen battalions, and a miserable battering-train, composed of two twelve-pounders, one six-pounder, two brass four-pounders, two howitzers and a mortar, and with a great penury of corresponding ammunition. The town was garrisoned by a force of four thousand men, well armed, without counting the national guard, and was protected by forty pieces of artillery, mostly of large calibre, mounted on different forts thrown up in favourable positions. But what was of chief advantage to the besieged, and what almost rendered success hopeless, was the free communication from without kept up by French and English vessels of war stationed in the Nervion, a river that runs alongside the town, and joins the sea at some seven or eight miles' distance.

Zumalacarregui fixed his headquarters at a spot called Puente Nuevo, in a small straggling village, just at this side of the town of Bilbao, and under one of its most fashionable and frequented walks. Eraso had begun the investiture of the place a few days previously, and both these chiefs lodged in a small inn named the Three Sisters. Puente Nuevo was completely commanded by an eminence called the Morro, just outside the gates of Bilbao; but the garrison, either from motives of prudence or others, gave the Carlists no inconvenience from that point.

At a short distance to the right of the Durango road, and on a height immediately over the town of Bilbao, is a church, called Our Lady of Begoña; and not far from it is a house, which, from its comparative size and solidity, and from its commanding view of the country around, goes by the name of the Palace. On the second day of the siege, two serious misfortunes befell the besiegers: eighty of the best muskets they possessed were piled in the portico of the church of Begoña, and were all entirely destroyed by a grenade that took them horizontally, killing the two sentinels that were mounting guard over them. The same evening the two largest of the guns, already half-worn out, burst from continued firing, just as something like an impression appeared on the spot it was proposed to breach.

Don Carlos, during this time, was at Durango, a distance of five or six hours. Zumalacarregui, seeing the hopelessness of the operation, and, above all, the discouragement of the men, sent an express to the prince to say, "that he would be obliged infallibly to raise the siege and retire, unless some means were immediately taken to raise the drooping spirits of his army; that they were without clothes, without food, and almost without ammunition; that it was absolutely necessary that a sum of money should be procured and sent to him, which would enable him to pay the troops a part of what was due to them; and that then, as the means of prolonging a siege was out of the question, he would endeavour to carry out his majesty's wishes, and try to take the place by assault."

Cruz-Mayor, the lead of the Camarilla, loved to humiliate Zumalacarregui, and no answer was returned to this letter; but Zumalacarregui was not idle, nor did he allow inaction to dispirit still more the minds of his men. He even attempted an assault, which failed, with the loss of all those who were ordered on this service. Unfortunately for the attacking column, lots were drawn for the troops that were to compose it; and they fell upon a regiment of Navarrese, entirely ignorant of the localities, who, getting confused in cross-paths and lanes at the foot of the walls, were cut off to a man. It was thought that the result of this attack might have been otherwise had it been undertaken by the Biscayan companies, who knew every inch of the ground. The hour, too, was ill judged, for it was at the beginning of nightfall, when it was just dark enough to embarrass those who were attempting the assault, without being sufficiently so to induce the inhabitants and national guards to retire from the walls.

On the 15th June 1835, Zumalacarregui proceeded to the palace of Begoña, not far from the church of the same name, as the best spot for observing the repairs made, and the additional means of defence raised by the enemy during the night. He passed through the middle room on the first story, and, throwing open the window, went out on the iron balcony overlooking the town. The balls were flying so thick and fast that he desired all those who accompanied him to remain within; but, notwithstanding their supplications, he himself remained leaning on the railing of the balcony, his knees nearly touching the ground. The telescope which he used, showing the marksmen in the enemy's works that he was probably a personage of importance, occasioned a general discharge from the nearest battery. It was now exactly eight o'clock in the morning, and a ball from this discharge struck Zumalacarregui in the upper and anterior part of the right leg, on the inner side, about two inches below the knee. From the position in which he was struck, the ball took a downwards direction, and, as no part of the intricate machinery of the knee was injured, there was every reason to suppose that no serious consequences could ensue.

Either from the extreme pain of the wound, or the shock given to the nervous system, Zumalacarregui fainted. His secretary, Zaratiegui, and the rest of his staff, picked him up in a state of insensibility, and placed him on a chair. The surgeon, Grediaga, a man of considerable acquirements, who was then practising in the sacristy of the church of Begoña, which had been converted into an hospital, was immediately sent for, as well as a young English surgeon of the name of Burgess, belonging to a small body of cavalry called the "Holy Squadron," or the "Squadron of Legitimacy."

This young man, a person of great respectability, and well informed in his profession, has been since as grossly as ridiculously accused of having been bought by the English government to hasten the end of Zumalacarregui, if ever his services enabled him to do so; and it is still said, and believed by many, that the death of the general was owing to poison put into the bandages with which Mr Burgess first dressed the wound. In a country like Spain, where there is much ignorance and deep prejudice, it does not suffice to laugh to scorn accusations of any sort: it is better to meet them seriously, and disprove them by a fact. _Mr Burgess never dressed Zumalacarregui's leg at all._ He spoke no Spanish, and while he was endeavouring to make himself understood and to learn what had happened, Grediaga arrived and put on the first application.

On being asked whither he should be carried, Zumalacarregui immediately said to Cegama, a town three days' journey off, situated in a solitary neighbourhood, and entirely unprovided with any thing like comfort, medicines, or professional assistance. The surprise of all was manifest, but the general was too accustomed to be obeyed not to be so in this instance. He was placed upon an old sofa from which the legs were sawed, and which was carried by eight guides of Navarre, with twenty-four others as a reserve. Neither he nor the chief of his staff and secretary, Zaratiegui, had a single peseta in their pockets, and he received from Mendigana, the paymaster-general, twenty ounces of gold, as a part of the pay that was due to him.

The reason which induced Zumalacarregui to go to Cegama, was indeed a strange one, and a fatal one. It was one he never expressed, but which prompted this revelation from the very instant that he received his wound. There lived in this district a quack of the very lowest capacity, of the name of Petriquillo--a man entirely unimbued with the slightest tincture of medical science, but whose chance cures of gunshot wounds during the time of the Army of the Faith in 1822, had astonished and taken possession of the mind of Zumalacarregui. He even refused to allow the ball to be extracted at a moment when the operation presented no danger, and his only anxiety was to put himself into the hands of this ignorant adventurer.

When the party arrived at Durango, Don Carlos sent word that he would next morning pay a visit to his wounded chief; the frame of mind of the latter may be collected from an exclamation he made on the road, heard by all, and commented on by many--"Truly this is a happy day for the court of the king!"

As announced, Don Carlos came, and the following remarkable conversation took place:--"Well, Thomas, how could'st thou do so foolish a thing as to get wounded?" (The Spanish royal family always use the second person singular.) "Sir, I exposed myself, because it was my duty to do so--besides, I have lived long enough, _and I am firmly convinced that we shall all have to die in your majesty's service_." "Well, but where do'st thou intend going?" "To Cegama, sir." "No, don't go there, it is a long way off: stay here, I'll have thee taken care of." "Sir, I have said I would go to Cegama, and to Cegama will I go: your majesty knows me well enough to be convinced that what I say, I do." "Oh yes! Thomas, that is certain--well, go with God, and take care of thyself."

After this interview, Zumalacarregui instantly set off, as if it was a relief to him to get out of the atmosphere of the court. Between Durango and Bergara he was met by the quack Petriquillo and the cura Zabala. Besides the above-mentioned Grediaga, Don Carlos had desired two other nominal physicians, Gelos and Voloqui, to accompany the general; but these two men were, in fact, as ignorant, and as rash, and as opinionated as Petriquillo himself. Petriquillo took off the dressing from the wound; he made two men rub the patient for four hours from the hip to the ankle, with an unctuous substance known only to himself. He then put on a bandage dipped in some medicament of his own composition. Zumalacarregui suffered extremely during the night.

Next morning a violent fever manifested itself. Mr Burgess, frightened at this treatment, returned to Bilbao, and Zumalacarregui continued his journey, arriving at Cegama on the evening of the 17th.

The surgeon Grediaga still continued, not his services, but his useless advice. As the fever increased, he recommended quiet, diet, and blood-letting. Petriquillo objected to venesection or leeches; he administered food in large quantities, to support the general's strength, and kept the room full of company to keep up the general's spirits.

Five days passed in this way with this treatment, or rather absence of treatment, only diversified by various attempts to extract the ball, though the leg, by the progress of the fever, and the continued application of the knife and probe, was swollen to twice its size, and was in a state of the highest exacerbation.

In the middle of the night of the 23d, a great idea struck Gelos and Petriquillo, the former was sleeping in the same room with Grediaga, and, fearful lest the latter should prevent its accomplishment, rose stealthily at one o'clock in the morning, proceeded with Petriquillo to the room of the general, and they there together _did_ extract the ball.

At daylight, the joy in the house was extreme; the ball was passed through the hands of every inhabitant in Cegama, and was then dispatched in a box to Don Carlos. Petriquillo and Gelos announced, that in fifteen days the general would be at the head of his army before Bilbao.

At six o'clock, Zumalacarregui began to complain of insupportable thirst, and of pains all through the body; shortly afterwards, general shiverings came on, with convulsions at times. During an interval between these, he received the last consolations of religion; for though far from being a bigot, or even a devotee, Zumalacarregui respected, and practised reverentially, the religion of his country. At eleven o'clock in the morning of the 24th of June 1835, he expired.

On examining the body, it was found that two cuts had been made completely through the calf of the leg in order to get at the ball: Their length was about three inches, and their depth was as great as it could be; for they reached the bone. The whole of the integuments had been divided by Petriquillo, and the sheets of the bed were one mass of blood.

About three hours before the general's death, Petriquillo, unseen, went into the stable, saddled his mule, and departed.

As the dead chief never possessed the uniform of a general, his body was laid out in borrowed garments belonging to the attorney of the place. It was dressed in a black coat and black pantaloons, with a white waistcoat, and over the shoulder was put the riband of the fifth class of St Ferdinand, without the star, for he never had one. Zumalacarregui had troubled himself little about external decorations; and his ordinary dress, a black sheep-skin jacket, red overalls, and a flat scarlet boyna, or cap of the country, which he thought sufficiently good for his body when living, was deemed unworthy of him when he became dust. It was an apt type of what had preceded, and what was to follow: the rude neglected warrior during life--the Duke, the _King's friend_, the grandee of Spain after death.

One word about the cruelty of Zumalacarregui. He _was_ cruel, and what is about to be said is a reason, but it is not put forth as either an excuse or a justification. His cruelty proceeded from no innate or idiosyncratic ferocity. In a less cruel atmosphere he would have breathed a milder spirit. There is an indifference to life in all Spaniards, which, on one side, prompts great deeds, and, on the other, readily ripens into inhumanity. They care little about their own lives, and speedily learn to care still less about the lives of others. In this melancholy warfare there was cruelty on all sides; and, from the execution of Santos Ladron, there followed a series of bloody atonements, each producing each, which strewed the highways with as many bodies as had fallen in the field.

Though the temptation of straying into any thing like a biography has been studiously avoided, there is one anecdote so curious, and not only so explanatory of what has just been said, but so illustrative of the character of both the man and the country, that it will hardly be deemed out of place.

A young grandee of Spain, the Count of Via-Manuel, had been taken prisoner. Zumalacarregui was anxious to save his life, though the circumstance of his rank seemed to make his death the more certain, as being a fitter expiation for many executions which had lately taken place on the Christino side. Zumalacarregui addressed a letter to Rodil, the commander-in-chief of that army, saying that he was anxious to exchange his prisoner for a subaltern officer, and some soldiers that had been lately seized sick in a farm-house, and that he awaited the answer. The distance between the armies was short, and, some hours after, Via-Manuel requested permission to see the general and learn his fate. Zumalacarregui received him in the room when he was just going to dinner, and, in that oriental style so interwoven in the whole web of Spanish customs, offered him a part of the repast that was before him. In ordinary times, this is but a courteous form, and it is rarely accepted; but Via-Manuel, thinking perhaps of the Arab's salt in this Moorish compliment, accepted the invitation, and sat down at the table. They eat, and at the end of dinner an orderly entered and gave a letter to the general. It was from Rodil, and contained only these words--"The rebels were shot this morning." Zumalacarregui, without saying a word, handed the paper to Via-Manuel, rose from table, and went out of the room. The unfortunate count was that night placed, according to custom, in the chapel of the village, and was shot next morning.

This happened in Lecumberri, which was entered shortly afterwards by the troops of the Queen. On leaving it the following day, two Carlist officers were pinioned and shot through the back, on the very spot where Via-Manuel fell. Such was the frightful mode of reciprocal expiation carried on on both sides; but the writer of this notice has, at least, among those painful recollections, the consolation of reflecting, that in this, as in other instances more fortunate, he did all in his power to save the victims.

This little sketch has swelled beyond its intended bulk, but when those who love Spain have passed the Pyrenees, it is difficult not to linger there, even on paper. Amid dangers and difficulties, and even the horrors of civil war, Spain has an attraction which it would be as difficult to explain to those who do not feel it, as to describe the sound of a trumpet to a deaf man. To those who have passed their early years there, Spain is like the shining decoration in a play, which still continues haunting the slumbers of the child that has seen one for the first time.

After the death of Zumalacarregui, Don Carlos took command of the army, with Moreno for chief of his staff, but the latter exercised all real authority. The Pretender was utterly deficient of every thing like military talent, and from the day of Zumalacarregui's death, his cause was not only hopeless, but felt to be so by the queen's party, who shortly regained the large portion of occupied territory which they had recently lost.

Zumalacarregui, from the 1st May 1835 to the 11th of June of that year, had made upwards of three thousand soldiers and a hundred officers prisoners. He left for all inheritance to his wife and daughters something less than forty pounds and four horses.

NEW SCOTTISH PLAYS AND POEMS.[53]

We suspect that in this railway age poetry is at a greater discount than ever. The reason is obvious. Not only the public, who are the readers, but even the poets themselves, have been largely infected by the current mania of speculation. Had the possession of capital been requisite for a participation in any of the thousand defunct schemes which have caused so unprecedented an emigration to the breezy shores of Boulogne, our poetical friends might have claimed for their vocation the credit of a rare morality. But unfortunately, the national gaming-table was open to men of every class. Peer and peasant, count and costermonger, millionaire and bankrupt, were alike entitled to figure as allottees, or even as committee-men, for the simple subscription of their signatures; and amidst the rush and squeeze of the crowd, who thronged towards the portal of Plutus, we were less surprised than pained to observe some of the most venerated votaries of Apollo. We shall not affect to disguise the purpose for which we were there ourselves. But much may be permitted to the prosaic writer which is forbidden to the canonized bard. Ours is a pen of all work--equally ready to concoct a prospectus, or to expose a literary charlatan. We are intensely fond of lucre, and expect, some day or another, to be in possession of the moiety of a plum. We have therefore no vain scruples regarding the sanctity of our calling, but carry our genius like a hooded falcon upon our wrist, ready to let it fly at any manner of game which may arise. We, however, deny in absolute terms the right of a poet to any such general license. He has no business whatever to trespass one foot beyond the limits his own domain. He ought to be thoroughly ignorant of the existence of bulls and bears, stags and ducks, and the rest of the zoology of the Exchange. Consols should be to him a mystery more impenetrable than the Sibylline verses, and the state of the stocks as unaccountable as the policy of Sir Robert Peel. The mischief, however, is done, and we fear it is irremediable. The example of the Poet-Laureate may indeed serve as a kind of excuse for the minor professors of the art. His well-known attempt to _bear_ the Kendal and Windermere line, by a series of ferocious sonnets, is still fresh in the memory of the public, and we trust the veteran has, long ere this, realized a handsome profit. We ourselves made a little money out of the Perth and Inverness, by means of an indignant tirade against the desecration of the Pass of Killiecrankie; and we should, to a certainty, have made more, had not the Parliamentary Committee been weak enough to believe us, and, in consequence, to reject the bill. Yet it may be long before the literary market can recover its healthy tone--ere sonnets once more resume their ancient ascendency, and circulate from hand to hand in the character of intellectual scrip.

We suspect that very few of the poets backed out of the scrape in time. Their sanguine and enthusiastic temperament led them to hold, at all risks and hazards; and they did not, as a body, take warning from the symptoms of a declining market. An amiable friend of ours who belongs to the Young England party, and who has issued a couple of duodecimos in laudation of Bishop Bonner, found himself at the period of the crash in possession of two thousand Caithness and Land's End scrip, utterly unsaleable at any discount, though a fortnight before they were quoted at fifteen premium. He meditates, as we are informed, a speedy retirement to the penal solitudes of La Trappe, as there now seems to be little hope that Louis Philippe will provide a proper refuge for chivalrous misfortune by resuscitating the Order of Malta. The weaver-poet of Camlachie has gone into the Gazette in consequence of an unfortunate speculation in Caledonians. His lyre is as silent as his shuttle; and we fear that in his hours of despondency he is becoming by far too much addicted to drink. A clever young dramatist confessed to us some time ago that he found himself utterly "goosed;" and the last hope of the school of Byron has been forced to deny himself the luxury of inverted collars, as his uncompromising laundress peremptorily refused to accept of payment in characteristic Cemetery shares.

In the gross, this state of things seems deplorable enough; and yet, when we analyse it, there is still some room for comfort. Never, since we first had the honour of wielding the critical lash--for the Crutch is a sacred instrument--in the broad amphitheatre of letters, do we recollect a year less fertile in the product of verse than the present. Our young friends are not possessed with the same supreme and sublime contempt of gold which formed so disinterested a feature of the poets of the by-gone age. They have become corrupted by the manufacturing and utilitarian tenets of the day; and--we shudder to record it--divers of them are violent free-traders. They have all fallen into the snare of the man Broker; and at the very outset of life, in the heyday and spring of their existence, they can count both sides of a shilling with the acuteness of a born Pennsylvanian. Hence it is, we presume, that they have attained to a knowledge of the fact--long ago notorious among the Trade--that poetry will not pay. They look upon genius through the glasses of Adam Smith, weigh the probability of an adequate demand before they venture on the production of a supply, and cut short the inchoate canto upon principles of Political Economy. In a few years, we fear, poetry will be no longer extant, save for the commercial purposes of the advertisements of Messrs Moses and Hyam; unless, indeed, some Welsh or Highland railway company should take the matter up, and double their dividends by bribing a first-rate poet to produce another _Lady of the Lake_. Hence the sparseness of our library table, which renders our old vocation comparatively a sinecure, and leaves us, without the necessity of immolation, to the undisturbed enjoyment of our chair.

We might indeed, were we savagely inclined, discover some Volscians worth our fluttering in the ranks of Young England, or the more sombre group of poetical Oxonian divines. But we look with a kindly eye upon the eccentricities of the one school, and we listen to the drowsy strains of the other with no more active demonstration of disapproval than a yawn. We have high hope of George Sydney Smythe, Lord John Manners, and others, who have already produced some things of evident promise--not mere beaten tinsel, such as the resuscitated Cockneys are again beginning to vend in the literary market--but verses of true and genuine originality. Could we but ensure them against the vitiating effects of politics, it were a light hazard to predict for either of the above gentlemen a far higher reputation than has been achieved by the united efforts of the whole canorous crew which constituted the Melbourne administration. We must indeed except Mr Macaulay, a better poet than a politician, but--the brilliant ballad-writer being removed--what soul could have been contented to fatten upon the spongy lyrics of a Spring Rice, or the intolerable tragedies of a Russell! What food to sweeten the tedium of a solitary imprisonment for life!

As for the Oxford school, we fairly confess that its votaries are beyond our comprehension. Amiable they are, no doubt, although ascetic in principle; but they are likewise insufferably tedious. We have attempted at various times, and during different states of the barometer, to make ourselves master of the compositions of Mr Williams and his principal followers. We failed. After skimming over a page or two of mellifluous blank verse, we began to experience a strange sensation, as if a bee were humming through the room. At each evolution of the imaginary insect, our eyes felt heavier and heavier. We made a strong effort to rally ourselves at the description of a crystalline stream, meandering, as we rather think, somewhere through the confines of Paradise; but the hue of the water gradually changed. It became dark and treacly, purled with a somniferous sound, as though the channel had been filled with living laudanum; and in three minutes more we were unconscious of the existence of the income-tax, and as relieved from the load of worldly cares as though we had joined company with the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus.

Surely we have a right to expect something better from Oxford than this. The old nurse of learning must bestir herself once more, forswear morphia, and teach her pupils to strike a manlier chord, else men will cease to believe in the ancient magic of her name. What we want is, power, energy, pathos--not mere vapid sentiment, so diligently distilled that scarce a flavour of the original material is left to enable us to discover its origin. If poetry be a copy or a reflex of life, let it show out lifelike and true; if it be the representation of a dream, at all events let us have the vision, as in the mirror of Agrippa, well defined, though around its edges rest the clouds of impenetrable mystery. Above all things, let us have meaning, not vague allegorical phrases--power if not passion--sense if not sublimity. If the classics cannot teach us these, let us go back to the earlier ballads, and see how our fathers wrote without the aid of metaphysical jargon.

Our present purpose is to deal with Scottish writers, and fortunately we have material at hand. Last month we were in London, engaged in divers matters connected with the state of the nation and our own private emolument, which latter pursuit we as seldom as possible neglect. The cares of a railway witness, in which capacity we had the honour to act, are but few. A bountiful table was spread for us, not in the wilderness, but in an excellent hotel in St James's; breakfast, luncheon, dinner, and supper, followed one another with praiseworthy regularity; the matutinal soda-water was only succeeded by the iced hock and champagne of the vespers, and a beneficent Fairy of seventeen stone, in the guise of a Writer to Her Majesty's Signet, was courteous enough not only to defray the whole of the attending expenses, but to furnish us with certain sums of gold, which we disseminated at our own proper pleasure. In return for the attentions of our legal Barmecide, we submitted to ensconce ourselves for a couple of days in a hot room somewhere about the Cloisters, in the course of which sederunt we held an animated conversation with several gentlemen in wigs, for the edification--as we were given to understand--of five other gentlemen in hats, who sat yawning behind a green table. We take this opportunity of tendering our acknowledgments to the eminent and raucous Queen's Counsel who was kind enough to conduct our cross-examination, and who so delicately insinuated his doubts as to the veracity and candour of our replies. As his knowledge of the localities about Braemar--the district then under question--was about equal to his cognizance of the natural history of Kamschatka, we felt the compliment deeply; and should we ever have the pleasure of encountering our beetle-browed acquaintance during a vacation ramble on the skirts of Schehallion, we pledge ourselves that he shall carry back with him to Lincoln's Inn some lasting tokens of our regard. In the mean time we sincerely hope he has recovered from that distressing fit of huskiness which rendered his immediate vicinity by no means a seat of comfort to his solicitor.

As a matter of course, we relieved the monotony of our duties by divers modes of relaxation. Greenwich--in the glory of its whitebait, its undeniable Thames flounders, its dear little ducklings enshrined in their asparagus nest, and its flagons, wherein the cider cup shows sparklingly through the light blue _Borage_--was not unfrequented by us in the course of the sultry afternoon. At Richmond, likewise, we battened sybaritically; and more than once essayed to resuscitate our appetite, and awake within us the dormant sense of poetry, by a stroll along the breezy heath of Hampstead, preparatory to a dive into the Saracen, where, doubtless, in the days of yore, Leigh Hunt, Keats, and Hazlitt used to make wild work among the eggs and spinach. Our attendance at the theatres, however, was a matter of rarity. We have no fancy to undergo martyrdom by means of a slow stewing, when the sole palm we can win, in exchange for the sudorific pangs, is the enjoyment of some such shabby-genteel comedy as _The Beggar on Horseback_, or a travestie like that of the _Birds_ of Aristophanes, the only peculiarity of which is its utter want of meaning. As a general rule, we prefer the spectacles on the Surrey side, to those exhibited in the Metropolitan or Westminster districts. There, the nautical drama still flourishes in its pristine force. The old British tar, in ringlets, pumps, and oil-skin castor, still hitches up his trousers with appropriate oath; revolves the unfailing bolus of pigtail in his cheek--swims to shore across a tempestuous sea of canvass, with a pistol in each hand and a cutlass in his teeth, from the wreck of the foundering frigate--and sets foot once more on the British soil, just in time to deliver Pretty Poll of Portsmouth, his affianced bride, (who has a passion for short petticoats and crimson stockings,) from the persecutions of that bebuttoned pirate with the whiskers, who carries more pistols in his girdle than the scalps of an Indian chief, and whose fall, after a terrific combat with basket-hilts and shower of fiery sparkles, brings down the curtain at the close of the third act amidst roars of unmitigated joy. Also we delight to see, at never-failing Astley's, the revived glories of British prowess--Wellington, in the midst of his staff, smiling benignantly upon the facetious pleasantries of a Fitzroy Somerset--Sergeant M'Craw of the Forty-Second, delighting the _élite_ of Brussels by his performance of the reel of Tullochgorum at the Duchess of Richmond's ball--the charge of the Scots Greys--the single combat between Marshal Ney and the infuriated Life-guardsman Shaw--and the final retreat of Napoleon amidst a volley of Roman candles, and the flames of an arseniated Hougomont. Nor is our gratification less to discern, after the subsiding of the shower of saw-dust so gracefully scattered by that groom in the doeskin integuments, the stately form of Widdicomb, cased in martial apparel, advancing towards the centre of the wing, and commanding--with imperious gestures, and some slight flagellation in return for dubious compliment--the double-jointed clown to assist the Signora Cavalcanti to her seat upon the celebrated Arabian. How lovely looks the lady, as she vaults to her feet upon the breadth of the yielding saddle! With what inimitable grace does she whirl these tiny banners around her head, as winningly as a Titania performing the sword exercise! How coyly does she dispose her garments and floating drapery to hide the too maddening symmetry of her limbs! Gods!--She is transformed all at once into an Amazon--the fawn-like timidity of her first demeanour is gone. Bold and beautiful flushes her cheek with animated crimson--her full voluptuous lip is more compressed and firm--the deep passion of the huntress sparkles in her lustrous eye! Widdicomb becomes excited--he moves with quicker step around the periphery of his central circle--incessant is the smacking of his whip--not this time directed against Mr Merryman, who at his ease is enjoying a swim upon the saw-dust--and lo! the grooms rush in, six bars are elevated in a trice, and over them all bounds the volatile Signora like a panther, nor pauses until, with airy somersets, she has passed twice through the purgatory of the blazing hoop, and then, drooping and exhausted, sinks like a Sabine into the arms of the herculean Master, who--a second Romulus--bears away his lovely burden to the stables, amidst such a whirlwind of applause as Kemble might have been proud to earn!

"So," in the language of Tennyson--

"So we triumph'd, ere our passion sweeping through us left us dry,
Left us with the palsied heart, and left us with the jaundiced eye."

"Dryness," however, according to our creed and practice, is not altogether unappeasable, and by the help of Barclay, Perkins, and Company, we succeeded in mitigating its rage. But we confess to the other miseries of the palsied heart and jaundiced eye, so soon as we were informed by the above-mentioned scribe, that our bill had been thrown out upon committee, and that, if we tarried longer in London, it must be upon our own proper charges. We had been so used for the last twelve months to voyage, and to subsist at the expense of joint-stock companies--so habituated to dine with provisional committees, and to hold sweet supper consultations in the society of salaried surveyors--that a reference to our private resources appeared a matter of serious hardship. However, there was no help for it. Some mean and unreasonable share-holders were already growling about a return of some portion of the deposits, and even, to the infinite disgust of the directors, hinted at a taxation of accounts. The murmurs of these slaves of Mammon broke up our little Eden. The Irish egg-merchant, who had been fed for three weeks upon turtle to induce him to give testimony touching the importation of eerocks--the tollman from Strathspey, who nightly meandered to the Coal-hole, in company with the intoxicated distiller--the three clerks who did the dirty work of the committee-room, and were therefore, with wise precaution, stinted in their allowance of beer--the northern bailie, who stuck strenuously to toddy, and the maritime provost, who affected the vintage of the Rhine--the raw uncouth surveyor from Dingwall, who, guiltless of straps, and rejoicing in a superfluity of rig-and-fur over a pair of monstrous brogues, displayed his native symmetry every afternoon in Regent Street, and reciprocated the gaze of the wondering milliners with a coarse guffaw, and the exhibition of his enormous teeth;--All these worthies vanished from the house in a single day, like spirits at the crowing of the cock, and returned to their native hills in a state of comparative demoralization. For our own part, we packed our portmanteau in gloomy silence, and meditated a speedy retreat to the distant solitudes of Loch Awe.

We were eating, as we thought, our last muffin, when our eye was accidentally caught by an advertisement in the _Times_, purporting that a new play was to be immediately produced at the Princess's theatre, and that its title was _The King of the Commons_. A spasm of delight shot through us. We were aware, some time before, that a dear friend, and distinguished fellow-labourer of ours, whose contributions have always been of sweetest savour in the nostrils of fastidious Christopher, had turned his attention to dramatic poetry, and was resolved, for once at least, to launch an experimental shallop upon the stage. Nor did we doubt that this was the enunciation of his attempt. We divined it at once from the subject, so akin to his genius and deep national feelings--we knew the fervour of his love to Scotland, and his earnest desire to illustrate some page of her varied annals--and we resolved accordingly to postpone our departure, and be present at the success or discomfiture of our bold and adventurous brother.

The first night of a new play is always attended with some agreeable excitement. If the author is a known man upon the boards--a veteran of some six comedies, all of which have found their way into the provinces, and are usually selected by the leading Star on the occasion of his or her benefit--the general audiences are desirous to ascertain whether his new effort is equal in point of merit to the rest. The critics, most of whom have failed in their own proper persons, are by no means indisposed to detect the occurrence of blemishes--friends hope that it may succeed, and unsuccessful rivals devoutly trust it may be damned. If the author is unknown, and if no very flagrant efforts have been made to pre-puff his performance, he has at all events the chance of an impartial hearing. Let the play go on smoothly to the middle; let no very glaring absurdities appear; let the actors really exert themselves, and display any thing like interest or talent in their business, and young Sophocles is generally sure of a favourable verdict. Our dear friends, the public, are always well disposed towards a winning man. One cheer elicits another, and applause, once commenced, goes on at a multiplied ratio. No doubt, the case may be reversed, and the sound of a solitary catcall from the pit awake the slumbering serpents, and become the signal for universal sibilation.

The danger is, that an unknown author, unpuffed, may be ruined for want of an audience. We have no great faith in the panacea of free tickets, issued by the lessee for the simple purpose of getting up a house. The worth of a production is usually estimated by its current value, and we doubt if a favourable bias can be produced in the minds of any, by means of gratuitous pasteboard. Puffing, again, often defeats its own object. It creates doubt in the anticipations of some, jealousy in those of others and is also apt to create a _prestige_ which the result may not justify. When we are told, on the authority of newspaper paragraphs, that _Bianca Franconi, or the Seven Bloody Poignards of Parma_, is to take the town by storm,--that nothing equal to it in merit has been produced since the days of Shakspeare,--that the critic who had the privilege of attending the first rehearsal, emerged from the theatre with his blood in a state of congelation, owing to the sepulchral tones and vehement gestures of Mr Charles Kean, who represents the part of Giacomo degli Assassinazioni, the Demon Host of the Abruzzi;--when we listen to this preliminary flourish of trumpets, we are apt to screw our imaginations a peg too high, and may chance to derive less rapture than we had anticipated from the many scenes of murder which garnish the _dénouement_ of the drama.

A greater virtue than fidelity is not in the celestial catalogue. We should at all times be ready to accompany a friend, either in a triumphal ovation or in a melancholy march to the scaffold,--to place the laurel on his head, or the funereal handkerchief in his hand. It was an exuberance of this feeling which determined us to be present at the first representation of _The King of the Commons_; and being firmly convinced of the truth of the adage, that there is safety in a multitude of councillors, we sent round the fiery cross to such of our fellow-contributors as were then in London, requesting them to favour us with their company to an early dinner at the Parthenon, as a proper preliminary to the more serious business of the evening.

Some half-dozen of the younger hands responded punctually to our call. They came dropping in in high glee, with a rather mischievous expression of countenance, as though they anticipated fun; nor had they been five minutes in the room, before we discovered, to our unspeakable consternation, that every man was furnished, either with a catcall or a railway whistle! Here was a proper business! We knew very well that the articles which our dramatic friend contributes to Maga, have found more favour in the eyes of the public than the lucubrations of all the rest of us put together, and yet we had been foolish enough to assume, that, after the manner of the brethren, we had been convoking a literary Lodge. In fact, we had made no allowance for that indescribable delight which prompts you irresistibly, and without thought of succour, to cram your horse at the ditch into which, six seconds before, the friend of your bosom has been pitched from the back of his runaway mare, and wherein he is now lying with his head fixed inextricably in the mud, and his legs demonstrating in the air a series of spasmodic mathematical propositions. Not that, in the slightest degree, the dispositions of the lads were evil. If the play turned out well, we knew that they would be found cheering with the most uproarious, and probably raving for the next week about the merits of their fortunate compeer;--but if, on the contrary, it should happen that our brother had overestimated his powers, little doubt existed in our mind, that each contributor would exert himself on his peculiar instrument as vigorously as Herr Koenig, on the cornet-à-piston, nor seek to excuse himself afterwards on any more elaborate plea, than the right of every Briton to participate in a popular amusement.

The dinner went off well. We were, however, cautious to confine each man to his solitary pint, lest their spirits should prove too exuberant at the moment of the rising of the curtain. Coffee over, we wended our way to the theatre, where we arrived just in time to hear the expiring crash of the overture. The first glimpse of the well-filled house assured us that there was no fear of the play falling still-born for want of an adequate audience. Boxes, pit, and gallery were equally crammed. We took our seat in the midst of the band of catcallers and whistlemen, and proceeded to the inspection of the bill as diligently as though it were an exponent of the piece. It must be confessed that our friend has not been very fortunate in the selection of his names. Early associations with the neighbourhood of Mid-Calder, a region abounding in cacophonous localities, seem to have led him a little astray. Adam Weir, Portioner in Laichmont, is a name which may be found figuring in the _Cloud of Witnesses_, or in that very silly book, Mr Simpson's _Traditions of the Covenanters_. It might sound admirably in a tale of the "hill-folk," but we totally repudiate and deny the propriety of enrolling Sir Adam Weir of Laichmont in the list of King James's Bannerets. Buckie of Drumshorlan likewise, though he may turn out on further acquaintance to be a fellow of infinite fancy, appears to us in print the _eidolon_ of a Bathgate carter. Madeleine we acknowledge to be a pretty name, but it loses its effect in conjunction with a curt patronymic. However, these are minor matters. It may be allowable to us, who drew our first trout from the Linnhouse Water, to notice them, but English ears may not be so fastidious. Tomkins, to the Chinese, is probably a name as terrible in sound as Wellington.

But see!--the curtain rises, and displays an interior in Holyrood. James White--you are a lucky fellow! That mechanist is worth his weight in gold; for, what with stained windows and draperies and pilasters, he has contrived to transform our old gloomy palace, where solemnity sits guardian at the portal, into as gay a habitation as ever was decked out for a southern potentate. Francesco and Bernardo--that is, Buckie and Mungo Small--have some preliminary talk, for which we care not; when suddenly the folding-doors fly open, and enter James the Fifth of Scotland, surrounded by his nobles.

Unquestionably the greatest of living British actors, Macready, has never wanted honours. This night he has them to the full, if deafening applause can testify the public goodwill; and of a truth he deserves them all, and more, were it but for that king-like bearing. There is no mock majesty in his aspect. Admirably has he appreciated the chivalrous character of James, who in many points seems to have borne a strong resemblance to the English Richard--as gallant and fearless, as hasty and bountiful--more trusting perhaps, but yet not more deceived. There is now a cloud on the royal brow. Some of the nobles have delayed, upon various pretexts, to send their vassals to the general muster on the Borough Muir, preparatory to an inroad upon England, and James cannot urge them on. Somerville and some others, who have no mind for the war, are pleading their excuse, greatly to the indignation of the King, who considers the honour of Scotland more bound up with the enterprise than his own.

"I was the proudest king--too proud perhaps--
I thought I was but foremost in a band
Of men, of brothers, of true-hearted Scots;
But pshaw!--it shall not move me."

He thus reproaches his nobles, who would fain instigate him to peace, but who on this occasion, as on many others, were opposed to the opinions, not only of the clergy, but of the people.

"What! to hear
His threats, and worse than threats--his patronage?
As if we stoop'd our sovran crown, or held it
As vassal from the greatest king alive!
No; we are poor--I know we are poor, my lords;
Our realm is but a niggard in its soil,
And the fat fields of England wave their crops
In richer dalliance with the autumn winds
Than our bleak plains;--but from our rugged dells
Springs a far richer harvest--gallant hearts,
Stout hands, and courage that would think foul scorn
To quail before the face of mortal man.
We are our people's king. For you, my lords,
Leave me to face the enemy alone!
I care not for your silken company.
I'll to my stalwart men--I'll name my name,
And bid them follow James. They'll follow me--
Fear not--they'll follow!"

After some more such dialogue, the nobles promise obedience and retire, leaving James convinced of their lukewarmness, though unsuspicious of their treason, and more determined than ever to trust implicitly to the devotion of the people.

"Will they be traitors still? and play the game
Was play'd at Lauder Bridge? and leave their king
Unshielded to the scorn and laugh of England?
I will not think so meanly of them yet!
_They are not forward, as their fathers were
Who died at Flodden, as the brave should die,
With sword in hand, defiance in their hearts,
And a whole land to weep and honour them._
If they desert me--well, I can but die,
And better die than live a powerless king!"

Some good passages had occurred before, but this was the first palpable hit in the play. The word Flodden came home like a cannon-shot to the heart of every Scotsman in the house, and a yell arose from the pit, as though the general body of bordering surveyors who packed it, were ready for another insurrection.

Buckie of Drumshorlan, who, it seems, is a notorious reiver, or, as he phrases it--"an outcast--a poor Scottish Ishmaelite,"--a fact, however, unknown to the king, whom he had rescued from the waters while attempting to cross the Avon in a spate--now comes forward, and gives information against Sir Adam Weir of Laichmont, as an agent of the English court, and a corrupter of the treacherous nobility. James determines to expiscate the matter in person; and accordingly, in the next scene, we are transported to a wood near Laichmont, where Madeleine Weir, the grandchild of the knight, and Malcolm Young, her cousin, are apparently bird-nesting, but in reality, though they know it not, making love. For poor Malcolm is an orphan, dependent entirely on Sir Adam, who will not let him become a soldier, but has condemned him to holy orders. It is, in short, the story--nearly as old as the world--of disappointed hope and love; though Madeleine, with a sweet innocence which we suspect is rarely to be found save on the stage, seems unconscious of the true state of her feelings with reference to her early playmate. Their _tête-à-tête_ is interrupted by the entrance of King James, of course in disguise, and now beset by sundry ruffians who have left their mark on the royal costard; and Malcolm, like a tight St Andrews student, springs to the rescue. This effects the introduction of the King to the house of Laichmont, where we find Sir Adam--a hoary, calculating traitor--in great anxiety to find a messenger to communicate an English dispatch to the disaffected lords of Scotland. We pass over his colloquy with his neighbour, Laird Small--an elderly idiot, whose son Mungo holds the post of usher at Holyrood, and who now agrees with Sir Adam to unite the two estates by a marriage between the said Mungo and Madeleine. This scene, which is pure dramatic business, is pleasantly enough conducted, although in point of probability, and considering the ambition of the knight, he might have looked for a better match for his daughter than a coxcomb of an usher, heir though he was of some plashy acres in the rush-covered confines of Mid-Calder. We have observed, however, that love of district is as deep a passion in the human mind as love of country; and the intense yearning of the Switzer for his clear Lucerne, may not transcend the tide of parochial patriotism which swells the bosom of the native of the Kirk of Shotts.