Rob Roy

"—Brandies—Barils and barricants, also tonneaux.—At Nantz 29—Velles to the barique at Cognac and Rochelle 27—At Bourdeaux 32—Very right, Frank—Duties on tonnage and custom-house, see Saxby's Tables—That's not well; you should have transcribed the passage; it fixes the thing in the memory—Reports outward and inward—Corn debentures—Over-sea Cockets—Linens—Isingham—Gentish—Stock-fish—Titling—Cropling— Lub-fish. You should have noted that they are all, nevertheless to be entered as titlings.—How many inches long is a titling?"

Owen, seeing me at fault, hazarded a whisper, of which I fortunately caught the import.

"Eighteen inches, sir."—

"And a lub-fish is twenty-four—very right. It is important to remember this, on account of the Portuguese trade—But what have we here?— Bourdeaux founded in the year—Castle of the Trompette—Palace of Gallienus—Well, well, that's very right too.—This is a kind of waste-book, Owen, in which all the transactions of the day,—emptions, orders, payments, receipts, acceptances, draughts, commissions, and advices,—are entered miscellaneously."

"That they may be regularly transferred to the day-book and ledger," answered Owen: "I am glad Mr. Francis is so methodical."

I perceived myself getting so fast into favour, that I began to fear the consequence would be my father's more obstinate perseverance in his resolution that I must become a merchant; and as I was determined on the contrary, I began to wish I had not, to use my friend Mr. Owen's phrase, been so methodical. But I had no reason for apprehension on that score; for a blotted piece of paper dropped out of the book, and, being taken up by my father, he interrupted a hint from Owen, on the propriety of securing loose memoranda with a little paste, by exclaiming, "To the memory of Edward the Black Prince—What's all this?—verses!—By Heaven, Frank, you are a greater blockhead than I supposed you!"

My father, you must recollect, as a man of business, looked upon the labour of poets with contempt; and as a religious man, and of the dissenting persuasion, he considered all such pursuits as equally trivial and profane. Before you condemn him, you must recall to remembrance how too many of the poets in the end of the seventeenth century had led their lives and employed their talents. The sect also to which my father belonged, felt, or perhaps affected, a puritanical aversion to the lighter exertions of literature. So that many causes contributed to augment the unpleasant surprise occasioned by the ill-timed discovery of this unfortunate copy of verses. As for poor Owen, could the bob-wig which he then wore have uncurled itself, and stood on end with horror, I am convinced the morning's labour of the friseur would have been undone, merely by the excess of his astonishment at this enormity. An inroad on the strong-box, or an erasure in the ledger, or a mis-summation in a fitted account, could hardly have surprised him more disagreeably. My father read the lines sometimes with an affectation of not being able to understand the sense—sometimes in a mouthing tone of mock heroic—always with an emphasis of the most bitter irony, most irritating to the nerves of an author.

"O for the voice of that wild horn, 
On Fontarabian echoes borne, 
The dying hero's call, 
That told imperial Charlemagne, 
How Paynim sons of swarthy Spain 
Had wrought his champion's fall.

"Fontarabian echoes!" continued my father, interrupting himself; "the Fontarabian Fair would have been more to the purpose—Paynim!—What's Paynim?—Could you not say Pagan as well, and write English at least, if you must needs write nonsense?—

"Sad over earth and ocean sounding. 
And England's distant cliffs astounding.

Such are the notes should say 
How Britain's hope, and France's fear, 
Victor of Cressy and Poitier, 
In Bordeaux dying lay."

"Poitiers, by the way, is always spelt with an s, and I know no reason why orthography should give place to rhyme.—