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WHEN
the clever, self-taught artists, Messrs. Thom
and Anderson, from Ayrshire, came to Glasgow many years ago, to exhibit
their celebrated figures, chiselled out of solid stone, representing Tam
o’ Shanter and Souter Johnny, and the Deil’s Awa wi’ the Exciseman, they
created uncommon satisfaction, for they were the first figures of their
kind ever seen in Scotland, or anywhere else. Blind Alick, strange as it
may seem, expressed an anxious desire to examine Satan in his cold solid
dress, and the following account of his visit to the exhibition was duly
chronicled in the Reformers’ Gazette,
from the pen of its trusty reporter, Mr. Frame.
"Sirs," said Alick to the
attendants, when entering the room, "I’ve come, with your leave to inspect
His Majesty the Deil. I cannot say that I have any great regard for him
myself—quite otherwise, but I’ve come to handle and thumb his lineaments,
and make up my mind according to the best o’ my judgment."
"Take a seat Alick," said one.
"Oh, let me just grip him as I
stand," said Alick, and it was no sooner said than done. Alick commenced
to grope with his fingers first about the head of the stone-blind doll,
just as if he was running his gamut on some piano, which indeed, he could
well play.
"Aye, aye," said Alick, "I see or
rather find, it’s all true that Loyal Peter said in his critique about the
Deil, in his Gawzette of
last Saturday, except this, that you have made his majesty’s nose rather
crooked, like unto the nose of the conquering hero, His Grace the Duke of
Wellington. But as for the gauger, vow me," continued Alick, handling him
from head to foot, "he’s the very image of terror, pourtrayed with a
vengeance. His eyes, as I discern them, are like to leap out o’ their
sockets. I dinna envy them at a’; and his hair, it’s standing stiffer than
the quills upon any porcupine I ever heard of. May the Lord," concluded
Alick piously, "give us grace to meet the ills we have, rather than fly to
others which we know not of," and therein he spoke like a philosopher. As
a finale, Alick could not resist scraping his fiddle and giving
Burns’ Address to the Deil,
with which, no doubt, most of our readers are
acquainted. |
