t would be more
_apropos_ to wear a full-blown rose, quite ripe, and ready to drop off
the stalk for want of being pulled--heigh-ho!" "But pray, my lady," said
I, "how do you like the concert?" "Alas!" said she, languishingly, while
she laid her hand upon my shoulder, "what are these bodiless sounds and
vibration to me? and yet what an exquisite sweetness in the songs of the
northern part of our island:--'_Thou art gone awa' from me, Mary!_' How
pathetic and divine the little airs of Scotland and the Hebrides! But
never, never can I think of that same Doctor Johnson--that CONSTABLE,
as Fergus MacLeod calls him--but I have an idea of a great brown
full-bottomed wig and a hogshead of porter! Oh, 'twas base! to be
treated everywhere with politeness and hospitality, and in return
invidiously to smellfungus them all over; to go to the country of Kate
of Aberdeen, of Auld Robin Gray, 'midst rural innocence and sweetness,
take up their plaids, and dance. Oh! Doctor, Doctor!"

"And what would you say, Fragrantia, if you were to write a tour to
the Hebrides?" "Peace to the heroes," replied she, in a delicate and
theatrical tone; "peace to the heroes who sleep in the isle of Iona; the
sons of the wave, and the chiefs of the dark-brown shield! The tear of
the sympathising stranger is scattered by the wind over the hoary stones
as she meditates sorrowfully on the times of old! Such could I say,
sitting upon some druidical heap or tumulus. The fact is this, there is
a right and wrong handle to everything, and there is more pleasure in
thinking with pure nobility of heart than with the illiberal enmities
and sarcasm of a blackguard."

CHAPTER XXXI

_A litigated contention between Don Quixote, Gog, Magog, &c.--A grand
court assembled upon it--The appearance of the company--The matrons,
judges, &c.--The method of writing, and the use of the fashionable
amusement quizzes--Wauwau arrives from the country of Prester John, and
leads the whole Assembly a wild-goose chase to the top of Plinlimmon,
and thence to Virginia--The Baron meets a floating island in his voyage
to America--Pursues Wauwau with his whole company through the deserts of
North America--His curious contrivance to seize Wauwau in a morass._

The contention between Gog and Magog, and Sphinx, Hilaro Frosticos, the
Lord Whittington, &c., was productive of infinite litigation. All the
lawyers in the kingdom were employed, to render the affair as complex
and gloriously un