nent persons above alluded to, and such as justly entitle their possessors to considerable affection and respect.

1

of divinity, or the belles lettres,-so leaving them alone for a few minutes, without fearing that they will cool, we eat up the elegant extracts. As we act to others, so would we wish them to act towards us-and therefore trust that Mr Jeffrey and Mr Lockhart, in perusing our Magazine, will imitate Christopher North's mode of travelling through the Edinburgh and Quarterly. Perhaps it might not be much amiss if these justly distinguished critics were likewise to imitate our mode of writing, as well of readingBut we are deviating from the line we had chalked out for ourselves in this article-so let us return from our epi

nor can we

his own descent. He favours us, too, the house of that excellent man and with characters of his father and mo- ingenious writer Professor Richardther, which we have no doubt are well son, whose Essays, by the by, on some and truly drawn, especially the fore of the characters of Shakspeare are mer who must have been a very pain among the best in our language, and ful old gentleman ; nor do we wonder prove the Professor to have been inthat his son, although by nature af- deed a Philosopher. fectionate, regarded him with little Cyril's first impressions on looking filial love. Some of the early chapters, out of the window of his bed-roomhowever, in which the miserable cause in the Black Bull we have reason to is stated of their mutual alienation, believe-are thus briefly described : and, on the unhappy father's part, of « • And this,' said I to myself, as I strong dislike, and even aversion, are

gazed from the window of my inn, on the to us somewhat repulsive;

crowd and bustle in the street belowhelp wishing that they had been alto- . this is Glasgow!-this the chosen seat gether different. Such things have of Science and the Muses--this the acabeen, and may be again; but why, demic quiet, in which the mind of youth from the wide range of nature's affec- is to be nursed in the calm abstractions tions, and of this life's fates and for- of philosophy! There was, indeed, ratunes, select such as cannot be dwelt ther a ludicrous contrast between the on with sympathy, and that, instead ideas I had conjured up, and the scene of softening or elevating, shock and before me; and I could scarcely regard almost degrade our being? Cyril, when it without smiling. In the centre of the a mère boy, accidentally shoots his street, waggons, loaded with merchandize brother ; the lamentable event not of different sorts, passed without inter. only turns his father's heart away from mission; and on the trottoirs, two oppothe survivor, but changes love into sing torrents of passengers were pouring hate ; and thenceforth the wretched along with extreme rapidity, and with youth is odious to the very eyes of his looks full of anxiety and business. or parent. There is no want of power

these some would occasionally stop for a in these delineations ; but it is power, and vulgar laugh mingled anon with the

moment's conversation, on which a loud in our opinion, grievously misapplied; prevailing dissonance, and

added unnenor does it appear to us that this rueful catastrophe was in any sense ne

cessarily to the general cacophony. Their cessary; for it is not made very deeply awkward and unguinly, and differed not

gait and gestures, too, were singularly to colour Cyril's after-life, and the only in degree, but in character, from author, feeling, we suppose, the diffi. anything I had before seen." culty of dealing with such a cause of distraction, or with its effects, scarcely

He soon finds his way to the Colever alludes to it afterwards, and then

lege. on occasions of no great interest or

“ At length, the appearance of an animportance. Parental and filial affec- cient

and venerable building, informed me tion are too, we think, such sacred that I stood in presence of the University. things, that it is a pity wilfully to do There is certainly something fine and imthem any--the slightest wrong; and posing in its proud and massive front. It although there are some touches of

seems to stand forth in aged dignity, the pathos in the vain efforts of the son to

last and only bulwark of science and li. feel as a son, in spite of all the cruelty science is regarded but as a source of

terature, among a population by whom and injustice of which he is the victim, it is not possible to regard the fa- profit, and literature despised. On passther, in his sullen, and stubborn, and

ing the outer gate, I entered a small inflexible hatred of his own flesh and

quadrangle, which, though undistinguishblood, without such feelings of repug- ty, yet harmonized well, in its air of Go

ed by any remarkable architectural beaunance and disgust as should never be thic antiquity, with the general character excited in any bosom. Their excita- of the place. This led to another of tion is in direct hostility to the end of larger dimensions, of features not dissiall fictitious narrative.

milar; and having crossed this, a turn to Feelings of a very different kind are the left brought me to a third, of more awakened by poor Cyril's visit to modern construction, which was entirely Glasgow. He is sent to the celebra appropriated to the residence of the Proted University of that city, to be under fessors. There was something tipe and the immediate tuition, and to live in impressive in the sudden transition from

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the din and bustle of the streets which was, however, as I have since discoversurround it, to the stillness and the calmed, that a male domestic formed no part which reign within the time-hallowed of the ordinary establishment of the Lord precincts of the University. I seemed at Provost, and these were a couple of the once to breathe another and a purer at. City Guard, or, as they were more genemosphere; and I thought in my youth- rally called,' Town's Officers,' admitted, ful enthusiasm, that here I could cast off pro loco et tempore, to assume the functhe coil of the world and its contemptible tions of livery servants. I was in the act realities, and yield up my spirit to the lore of divesting myself of my hat and greatof past ages, where

saw nothing round coat, when I heard the following quesmne to intrude the idea of the present." tion put in a bawling voice from the land

The term or session of the College ing place of the stair above. had not commenced, and Cyril was

« * Hector, what ca' ye him ?' advised by the Professor to lose no

" I ettle he's a young Englishman time in waiting on his uncle Mr Spreul. frae the College,' answered Hector. Nothing can be better than everything the other, but I want his name. Didna

““ I carena whare he's frae,' returned relating to this old gentleman. His housekeeper, Girzy, too, is a perfect a'the names to me, that they may be pro

I tell baith you and Duncan, to cry oot jewel. The two figure through a consi, perly annoonced? derable part of the first volume, and

“ Hector lost no time in rectifying his throw fine strong Rembrandtish light mistake, and I speedily heard my name on each other's appearance, manners, reverberated, in a voice like thunder, and character. We understand them through every corner of the mansion, both thoroughly—we feel them both The person from whose lungs this imintensely—and we almost venture to

mense volume of sound proceeded, was. flatter ourselves that the first germ of a large stout man, with a head like a bull's, Girzy may be found in an early num, , and a huge carbuncled nose. His dress ber of this Magazine. But Mr David bespoke him to belong to the same corps Spreul is perfectly original--and his with his brethren below, and he was in picture alone is sufficient to give him fact no other tban the person who offici. who drew it a high character as a por- ated as town-crier, commonly known by trait-painter.

the familiar soubriquet of Bell Geordy. Cyril mixes freely with the best His duty of announcing the guests being society in the city of Glasgow-and somewhat analogous to his usual avocaenjoys himself largely in its many

tion, he appeared to diseharge it con fascinations-not neglecting, however, amore, and proclaimed every successive his academical studies, and making a

arrival in the same monotonous and more than respectable figure in the Lo

stentorian tones, in which he was accus. gic Class.

tomed to give public intimation of the arThe following is his description of rival of a cargo of fresh herrings at the a ditiner-party in the house of the Broomielaw. Bell Geordy, too, was a chief Magistrate of the Second City of wit, and did not scruple occasionally to the Empire :

subjoin in an under tone, some jocular

remark on the character or person of the " On the day, and precisely at the hour guests as he announced them. indicated, I was at the door of the Lord “ The drawing-room into which I was Provost. His house was situated in a ushered, was evidently an apartment not small square, of a sombre and dreary as usually inhabited by the family, but kept pect, the centre of which, instead of be- for occasions of display. The furniture it ing as usual laid out in walks and shrube contained was scanty, but gaudy; the bery, was, with true mercantile sagacity, chairs were arranged in formal order appropriated to the more profitable pur. against the walls; and there were flowers pose, of grazing a few smoky and dirty- stands in the windows, displaying some looking sheep. It was certainly not plea- half-dozen scraggy myrtles, and gerani. sant to approach the house of feasting ums, with leaves approaching to the coamid the plaintive bleatings of these milour of mahogany. The room was cold; serable starvelings; but there was no for the fire, which had evidently been time to be sentimental, and, like the only recently lighted, sent up volumes of Lady Baussiere, I passed on. On being smoke, but no flame; and when I looked admitted into the ball, I was received on it, I remembered to have passed a by two servants in the Royal livery, a dirty maid-servant on the stair, with the circumstance of magnificence for which kitchen bellows in her band. I was certainly not prepared. The truth entrance, I found I was the first of the

On my

greens at the top; roast sirloin, at the acquired the true attić pronunciation inbottom; ham and boiled mutton vis-a- culcated in Mrs Blenkinsop's academy. vis, at the sides; and goose and turkey at Miss Jacky, too, was particularly kind and the opposing corners. Dr Mac Turk said pressing in ber attention to my wants.grace, and the worthy divine's solicita. Let me help you to some of thir collups.' tions for a blessing were no sooner con- - Thae patties I can recommend.' cluded, than the guests, with one accord, “Take a bit of yon turkey.' cried havoc, and commenced the worl: of “ My attention was soon diverted from destruction. Hector, Duncan, and Bell my fair neighbour to a fat and jolly-lookGeordy, felt that now was the tug of ing person at the upper end of the table, war, and trotted about the table with who, from the comic twinkle of his eye, unwieldy alacrity, perspiring at every and a certain buffoonery of manner, i pore. • Duncan, a clean plate.'--' Geor- concluded to be a sort of privileged joker dy, fetch me a platefu'o' white soup.'- and a wit. His good things, of whatever

Hector, rin for some oʻthe turkey. Get character they might be, were proved, by twa or three slices o' the breest. Mak the expectation that sat on the countehaste, or the best o't will be gane,' were nances of those around him, and the guf. the sounds which on all sides met the faws by which they were followed, to be ears of the assiduous triumvirate. At well adapted to the taste of his audience. length the choler of Bell Geordy was Deglutition paused whenever this merry soused by the number of simultaneous and obese personage gave symptoms of demands for his services; for, though being pregnant with a joke; and an elacting as chief ministering angel on the derly lady, who, relying on her age and occasion, patience was not numbered constitutional gravity, ventured to neglect among his angelic attributes; and, stand this precaution, paid the penalty of her ing stock-still

, he exclaimed in a loud rashness, in being nearly choked while in and angry voice, 'What for do ye sit the act of eating, from the sudden and there, craik, eraikin' a'at yae time? Ye uncontrollable laughter into which she ken weel aneuch I can sair but yin at was thrown, by an unexpected explosion aince,' wiping the dew from his forehead of his wit. as he spoke. Tak my word, ye'll come “ On the right of the Provost, sat á nae speed by't; and he that craiks the person who seemed to divide the admiraloudest shall be last sair't.'

tion of the company with the 'stout gen“ The voice of the enraged Provost, tleman' at the other end of the table. His who ordered bim instantly to hold his walk indeed was different. He did not peace, and resume bis services, silenced attempt those broad and tranchant witti. any further appeal on the part of Bell cisms, in which lay the principal strength Geordy, who returned to his functions, of his rival, but confined himself to storybut with a dogged air, and more leisurely telling, a department in which he shone than before.

without a competitor. In the narratives “ Partial repletion had now blunted the themselves I found little interest and no edge of the hunger of the party, and vo- point, and had they been told by a less skil. Tacity was reduced to appetite. Conver- ful narrator, they would probably, even in sation commenced, and jocular remarks Glasgow, have been considered flat and vere heard and laughed at in the intervals insipid. The principal charm of the perof eating. I had the honour of sitting formance appeared to consist in the innext Miss Jacky Shortridge, who, having vincible gravity with which incidents, at spent a year at Mrs Blenkinsop's semi- once coarse and trivial, were detailed, nary for young ladies, at Doncaster, con- and the unrelaxed solemnity of visage sidered herself quite au fait in the man- maintained by the speaker, wbile laughners of the best society in England. She ter, loud and vehement, shook the sides expressed her regret, that those of her of his auditors. To me all this was new, native city were deficient in that polish and I listened with curiosity, though not and elegance indispensable to a person of yet neophyte enough to participate in the refined taste and English education; that enjoyment which it evidently diffused 80 few families in Glasgow kept carriages; among the rest of the company. that the theatre was so badly attended; “ The dinner was not, as is usual with and expressed strong hopes that • Pa' such entertainments, served up in a sucwould allow her to spend next winter cession of courses, and was without any with her aunt, married to a cornfactor in of those little agrémens which the middle Leith, who, of course, could introduce classes in England consider necessary to her into the first society in Edinburgh. their comfort, Sweets and solids simulThe language of the Glasgow people she taneously garnished and loaded the board, considered quite shocking to any person and,'when removed, were succeeded by who had spent a year at Doncaster, and the wine and the dessert. The gentlemen