I've been at drucken writers' feasts,
Nay, been bitch-fou 'mang godly priests,
(Wi' rev'rence be it spoken ;)
I've even join'd the honour'd jorum,
When mighty Squireships of the quorum,
Their hydra drouth did sloken.
But wi' a Lord-stand out my shin,
A Lord-a Peer-an Earl's son,
Up higher yet, my bonnet!
And sic a Lord-lang Scotch ells twa,
Our Peerage he o'erlooks them a',
As I look o'er my sonnet.
But, oh! for Hogarth's magic pow'r!
To show Sir Bardie's willyart glow'r,'
And how he star'd and stammer'd,
When goavan,2 as if led wi' branks,"
An' stumpan on his ploughman shanks,
He in the parlour hammer'd.
I sidling shelter'd in a nook,
An' at his Lordship steal't a look,
Like some portentous omen;
Except good sense and social glee,
An' (what surprised me) modesty,
I marked nought uncommon.
I watch'd the symptoms o' the great,
The gentle pride, the lordly state,
The arrogant assuming;
The fient a pride, nae pride had he,
Nor sauce, nor state that I could see,
Mair than an honest ploughman.
Then from his lordship I shall learn,
Henceforth to meet with unconcern
One rank as weel's another;
Nae honest worthy man need care
To meet with noble, youthful Daer,
For he but meets a brother.
PROLOGUE SPOKEN BY MISS FONTENELLE ON HER
BENEFIT NIGHT.
WHILE Europe's eye is fix'd on mighty things,
The fate of Empires and the fall of Kings;
While quacks of State must each produce his plan,
And even children lisp The Rights of Man;
Amid the mighty fuss, just let me mention,
The Rights of Woman merit some attention.
First, in the Sexes' intermixed connexion,
One sacred Right of Woman is, Protection.-
The tender flower that lifts its head, elate,
Helpless, must fall before the blasts of Fate,
Sunk on the earth, defac'd its lovely form,
Unless your shelter ward th' impending storm.
Our second Right-but needless here is caution,
To keep that Right inviolate's the fashion,
Each man of sense has it so full before him,
He'd die before he'd wrong it 'tis Decorum.
There was, indeed, in far less polish'd days,
A time, when rough rude man had naughty ways;
Would swagger, swear, get drunk, kick up a riot,
Nay, even thus invade a Lady's quiet!-
Now, thank our stars! those Gothic times are fled;
Now, well-bred men and you are all well-bred!
Most justly think (and we are much the gainers)
Such conduct, neither spirit, wit, nor manners.
For Right the third, our last, our best, our dearest,
That Right to fluttering female hearts the nearest,
Which even the Rights of Kings in low prostration
Most humbly own-'tis dear, dear Admiration!
In that blest sphere alone we live and move;
There taste that life of life-immortal Love.-
Sighs, tears, smiles, glances, fits, flirtations, airs,
'Gainst such an host what flinty savage dares-
When awful Beauty joins with all her charms,
Who is so rash as rise in rebel arms?
Then truce with kings, and truce with constitutions, With bloody armaments and revolutions!
Let Majesty your first attention summon,
Ah! ça ira! THE MAJESTY OF WOMAN!
ADDRESS, SPOKEN BY MISS FONTENELLE, ON HER
BENEFIT-NIGHT, DECEMBER 4, 1795, AT THE THEA-
TRE, DUMFRIES.
STILL anxious to secure your partial favour,
And not less anxious, sure, this night, than ever,
A Prologue, Epilogue, or some such matter,
'Twould vamp my bill, said I, if nothing better;
So sought a poet, roosted near the skies,
Told him I came to feast my curious eyes;
Said, nothing like his works was ever printed;
And last, my Prologue-business slily hinted.
'Ma'am, let me tell you," quoth my man of rhymes,
I know your bent these are no laughing times;
Can you-but, Miss, I own I have my fears,-
Dissolve in pause, and sentimental tears,
With laden sighs, and solemn-rounded sentence,
Rouse from his sluggish slumbers fell Repentance;
Paint Vengeance, as he takes his horrid stand,
Waving on high the desolating brand,
Calling the storms to bear him o'er a guilty land ?"
I could no more—askance the creature eyeing,
D'ye think, said I, this face was made for crying?
I'll laugh, that's poz-nay, more, the world shall know it;
And so, your servant! gloomy Master Poet!
Firm as my creed, Sirs, 'tis my fixed belief,
That Misery's another word for Grief;
I also think-so may I be a bride!
That so much laughter, so much life enjoy'd.
Thou man of crazy care and ceaseless sigh,
Still under bleak Misfortune's blasting eye;
Doom'd to that sorest task of man alive-
To make three guineas do the work of five :
Laugh in misfortune's face-the beldam witch!
Say, you'll be merry, tho' you can't be rich.
Thou other man of care, the wretch in love,
Who long with jiltish hearts and airs hast strove ;
Who, as the boughs all temptingly project,
Measur❜st in desperate thought a rope-thy neck—
Or, where the beetling cliff o'erhangs the deep,
Peerest to meditate the healing leap:
Would'st thou be cur'd, thou silly, moping elf?
Laugh at her follies-laugh e'en at thyself:
Learn to despise those frowns now so terrific,
And love a kinder-that's your grand specific.
To sum up all, be merry, I advise ;
And as we're merry, may we still be wise.
VERSES TO A YOUNG LADY,1 WITH A PRESENT OF SONGS.
HERE, where the Scottish Muse immortal lives,
In sacred strains and tuneful numbers join'd,
Accept the gift; tho' humble he who gives,
Rich is the tribute of the grateful mind.
So may no ruffian feeling in thy breast
Discordant jar thy bosom-chords among!
But Peace attune thy gentle soul to rest,
Or Love, ecstatic, wake his seraph song;
Or Pity's notes, in luxury of tears,
As modest Want the tale of woe reveals;
While conscious Virtue all the strain endears,
And heaven-born Piety her sanction seals!
POEM ON PASTORAL POETRY.2
HAIL, Poesie! thou Nymph reserv'd! 3
In chase o' thee, what crowds hae swerv'd
Frae common sense, or sunk enerv'd
'Mang heaps o' clavers;
And och! owre aft thy joes hae starv'd,
'Mid a' thy favours!
Say, Lassie, why thy train amang,
While loud, the trump's heroic clang,
And sock or buskin skelp alang
To death or marriage;
Scarce ane has tried the shepherd-sang
But wi' miscarriage?
In Homer's craft Jock Milton thrives;
Eschylus' pen Will Shakespeare drives;
Wee Pope, the knurlin,' 'till him rives
Horatian fame;
In thy sweet sang, Barbauld, survives
Even Sappho's flame.
1 Daughter of Mr. Graham, of Fintry.
2 Gilbert Burns doubted the authenticity of these verses, but surely without reason.
But thee, Theocritus, wha matches?
They're no herd's ballats, Maro's catches;
Squire Pope but busks' his skinklin2 patches
O' heathen tatters:
I pass by hunders, nameless wretches,
That ape their betters.
In this braw age o' wit and lear,
Will nane the Shepherd's whistle mair
Blaw sweetly in its native air
And wi' the far-fam'd Grecian share
Yes! there is ane; a Scottish callan-
There's ane; come forrit, honest Allan!
Thou need na jouk3 behint the hallan,
A chiel sae clever;
The teeth o' Time may gnaw Tantallan,*
But thou's for ever!
Thou paints auld Nature to the nines,
In thy sweet Caledonian lines;
Nae gowden stream thro' myrtles twines,
Where Philomel,
While nightly breezes sweep the vines,
Her griefs will tell!
In gowany glens thy burnie strays,
Where bonnie lasses bleach their claes;
Or trots by hazelly shaws and braes,
Wi' hawthorns grey,
Where blackbirds join the shepherd's lays
At close o' day.
Thy rural loves are nature's sel';
Nae bombast spates o' nonsense swell;
Nae snap conceits, but that sweet spell
O' witchin' love;
That charm that can the strongest quell,
The sternest move.
2 Small.
5 Daisied dales.
The name of a castle. 6 Torrents.
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