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Next to Weems, in point of literary atrocity, comes John S. C. Abbott, whose life of Napoleon is a splendid concealment of the man. Of those who have written biographies for the sake of belittling their subject, John Gait's "Life of Byron" occupies a conspicuous position.
This here's Grey Eagle stock, North Virginny' says he. 'Don't want her, says you. 'What's the matter with the colt? says he. 'Nothin', only she ain't Blue Grass. Got to be Blue Grass. 'But she's got the gait, ain't she? 'Yes, the gait's all right, action fine, good-looking, too, nothing wrong, but she ain't Blue Grass bred. And so you lose your race.
It is a sort of broken Johnsonese, a barbarous patois, bearing the same relation to the language of Rasselas, which the gibberish of the negroes of Jamaica bears to the English of the House of Lords. Sometimes it reminds us of the finest, that is to say, the vilest parts, of Mr. Gait's novels; sometimes of the perorations of Exeter Hall; sometimes of the leading articles of the Morning Post.
"Hegh, sirs!" said the poor mother, "wha is that can be coming in that gate e'enow? They canna hae heard o' our misfortune, I'm sure." The knock being repeated, she rose and opened the door, saying querulously, "Whatna gait's that to disturb a sorrowfu' house?" A tall man in black stood before her, whom she instantly recognised to be Lord Glenallan.
He rose and fetched two glasses from a cupboard and set them on the table. Then he took his sheath knife from his belt, and, with a skilful tap, knocked the neck off the bottle. "No water," he said. "The stuff'll act quicker. We want it to get right up into our heads quick. We want the mad whirl of the devil's dance; we " "But why should you !" "Tut, man! Your gait's good enough for me.
This, together with Hunter Kinemon's position, tending the rich bottom farm of State Senator Gait, gave them a position of ease and comfort in Greenstream. They were a very highly esteemed family. Gait's farm was in grazing; it extended in deep green pastures and sparkling water between two high mountainous walls drawn across east and west.
"Hegh, sirs!" said the poor mother, "wha is that can be coming in that gate e'enow? They canna hae heard o' our misfortune, I'm sure." The knock being repeated, she rose and opened the door, saying querulously, "Whatna gait's that to disturb a sorrowfu' house?" A tall man in black stood before her, whom she instantly recognised to be Lord Glenallan.
"Oh, it made me feel cheap to have to back into old Billy Gait's bony legs and try to bow and shake hands before everybody, in the eyes of the assembled community, as Charley McWenn would say." McWenn was the stupid block of a journalist, for I do think him a stupid block, in spite of his cleverness, and I realized then that I had forgotten for a moment all about Lucretia.
The York inns of the period had an unenviable reputation, and were widely different from the Queen's and Rossin of the present day. Some of my readers will doubtless remember John Gait's savage fling at them several years later. To parody Dr. Johnson's characterization of the famous leg of mutton, they were ill-looking, ill-smelling, ill-provided and ill-kept.
Gait's Lives of the Players and Dr. Doran's History of the English Stage have left this particular field almost wholly unworked, and it is one for which Mr. Fitzgerald was well fitted, both by his previous labors and knowledge of the soil, and by his practiced dexterity in the use of the necessary implements.
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