Imagens da página
PDF
ePub
[ocr errors]

CCLVIII.-LAMENT FOR CARTHON.

THE battle had ceased along the field, for the bard had sung the song of peace. The chiefs gathered round the falling Carthon, and heard his words, with sighs. Silent they leaned on their spears, while Balclutha's hero spoke. His hair sighed in the wind, and his words were feeble. 'King of Morven," Carthon said, "I fall in the midst of my course. A foreign tomb receives, in youth, the last of Reuthamir's race. Darkness dwells in Balclutha; and the shadows of grief in Crathmo. But raise my remembrance on the banks of Lora, where my fathers dwell. Perhaps the husband of Moina will mourn over his fallen Carthon."

His word reached the heart of Clessammor: he fell, in silence, on his son. The host stood darkened around: no voice is on the plains of Lora. Night came, and the moon, from the east, looked on the mournful field, but still they stood, like a silent grove that lifts its head on Gormal, when the loud winds are laid, and dark autumn is on the plain.

Three days they mourned over Carthon on the fourth, his father died. In the narrow plain of the rock they lie; and a dim ghost defends their tomb. There lovely Moina is often seen, when the sunbeam darts on the rock, and all around is dark. There she is seen, Malvina, but not like the daughters of the hill. Her robes are from the stranger's land; and she is still alone.

Fingal was sad for Carthon; he desired his bards to mark the day, when shadowy autumn returned. And often did they mark the day, and sing the hero's praise. "Who comes so dark from ocean's roar, like autumn's shadowy cloud? Death is trembling in his hand! His eyes are flames of fire! Who roars along dark Lora's heath? Who but Carthon king of swords? The people fall! see how he strides, like the sullen ghost of Mor

ven ! But there he lies, a goodly oak which sudden blasts overturned! When shalt thou rise, Balclutha's joy! lovely car-borne Carthon! FROM OSSIAN.

CCLIX.-BURIAL OF OPHELIA.

CROWNER; Coroner: ARGAL; ergo, therefore.

(Two clowns enter with spades, to dig the grave of Ophelia, who had drowned herself.)

1st Clown. Is she to be buried in Christian burial, that willfully seeks her own salvation?

2nd Clown. I tell thee, she is: therefore make her grave straight the crowner hath set on her, and finds it Christian burial.

1st Clown.

How can that be, unless she drowned her.self in her own defense?

2nd Clown. Why, 'tis found so.

1st Clown. It must be se offendendo; it can not be else. For here lies the point: if I drown myself wittingly, it argues an act; and an act has three branches; it is, to act, to do, and to perform: Argal, she drowned herself wittingly.

2nd Clown. Nay, but hear you, goodman delver.

1st Clown. Give me leave. Here lies the water; good: here stands the man; good: if the man go to this water, and drown himself, it is, will he, nill he, he goes; mark you that: but if the water come to him, and drown him, he drowns not himself: Argal, he, that is not guilty of his own death, shortens not his own life.

2nd Clown. But is this law?

1st Clown. Ay, marry is 't; crowner's quest law.

2nd Clown. Will you have the truth on't? If this had not been a gentlewoman, she would have been buried out of Christian burial.

1st Clown. Why, there thou sayest: and the more pity, that great folks shall have countenance in this world to

drown or hang themselves, more than other even Christian. Come, my spade. There is no ancient gentlemen but gardeners, ditchers, and grave makers; they hold up Adam's profession.

2nd Clown. Was he a gentleman ?

1st Clown. He was the first that ever bore arms. 2nd Clown. Why, he had none.

1st Clown. What, art a heathen? How dost thou understand the Scriptures? The Scripture says, "Adam digged;" could he dig without arms? I'll put another question to thee: if thou answerest me not to the purpose, confess thyself.

2nd Clown. Go to.

1st Clown. What is he, that builds stronger than either the mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter?

2nd Clown. The gallows maker; for that frame outlives a thousand tenants.

1st Clown. I like thy wit well, in good faith; the gallows does well; but how does it well? It does well to those that do ill: now thou dost ill, to say the gallows is built stronger than the church; Argal, the gallows may do well to thee. To't again: come.

2nd Clown. Who builds stronger than a mason, a shipwright, or a carpenter?

1st Clown. Ay, tell me that, and unyoke.

2nd Clown. Marry, now I can tell.

[blocks in formation]

2nd Clown. Mass, I can not tell.

1st Clown. Cudgel thy brains no more about it; for your dull donkey will not mend his pace with beating; and when you are asked this question next, say, a grave maker; the houses that he makes, last till doomsday. (Exeunt.) FROM SHAKSPEARE.

CCLX-DOCTOR SLOP.

IMAGINE to yourself a little squat, uncourtly figure of a Dr. Slop, of about four feet and a half, perpendicular hight, with a breadth of back, and sesquipedality of body, which might have done honor to a sergeant in the horseguards.

Imagine such an one, for such, I say, were the outlines of Dr. Slop's figure, coming slowly along, foot by foot, waddling through the dirt upon the vertebræ of a little diminutive pony, of a pretty color, but of strength, alack! scarce able to have made an amble of it, under such a fardel, had the roads been in an ambling condition. They were not. Imagine to yourself Obadiah, mounted upon a strong monster of a coach-horse, urged into a full gallop, and making all practicable speed the adverse way.

Pray, let me interest you a moment in this description. Had Dr. Slop beheld Obadiah a mile off, posting in a narrow lane directly toward him, at that monstrous rate; splashing and plunging like a demon through thick and thin as he approached; would not such a phenomenon, with such a vortex of mud and water moving along with it, round its axis, have been a subject of juster apprehension to Dr. Slop, in his situation, than the worst of Whiston's comets; to say nothing of the nucleus; that is, of Obadiah and the coach-horse? In my idea, the vortex alone of them was enough to have involved and carried, if not the doctor, at least the doctor's pony, quite away with it.

What, then, do you think must the terror and hydrophobia of Dr. Slop have been, when you hear, (which you are just going to do,) that he was advancing thus warily along toward Shandy Hall, and had approached within sixty yards of it, and within five yards of a sudden turn, made by an acute angle of the garden wall, and in the dirtiest part of a dirty lane, when Obadiah and his coachhorse turned the corner, rapid, furious; pop! full upon him? Nothing, I think, in nature can be supposed more

terrible than such a rencounter; so imprompt! so ill-prepared to stand the shock of it, as Dr. Slop was!

What could Dr. Slop do? He crossed himself. He had better have kept hold of the pommel. He had so; nay, as it happened, he had better have done nothing at all. For in crossing himself, he let go his whip. And in attempting to save his whip between his knee and his saddle's skirt, as it slipped, he lost his stirrup; in losing which, he lost his seat; and in the multitude of all these losses, the unfortunate doctor lost his presence of mind. So that, without waiting for Obadiah's onset, he left his pony to its destiny, tumbling off it diagonally, something in the style and manner of a pack of wool, and without any other consequence from the fall, save that of being left, (as it would have been,) with the broadest part of him sunk about twelve inches deep in the mire.

Obadiah pulled off his cap twice to Dr. Slop; once as he was falling, and then again when he saw him seated. Illtimed complaisance! Should not the fellow have stopped his horse, and got off and helped him? He did all that his situation would allow; but the momentum of the coachhorse was so great, that Obadiah could not do it all at once. He rode in a circle three times round Dr. Slop, before he could fully accomplish it any how. At last, when he did stop, it was done with such an explosion of mud, that Obadiah would better have been a league off. In short, never was a Dr. Slop so beluted and so transubstantiated, since that thing came into fashion. FROM STERNE.

CCLXI. THE SUPPER.

BERLIN; pro. Ber-lin'. Gou; (goo,) relish.
SECHSER; about a cent and a half.

In a neat little village not far from Berlin,
Was a house called THE LION, a very good Inn;
The keeper a person quite ready to please;
Each customer serving with infinite ease.

« AnteriorContinuar »