LXXXVI. Teach them the decencies of good threescore; Cure them of tours, Hussar and Highland dresses; Tell them that youth once gone returns no more; That hired huzzas redeem no land's distresses; Tell them Sir W-11-m C-t-s is a bore, Too dull even for the dullest of excesses The witless Falstaff of a hoary Hal, A fool whose bells have ceased to ring at all; LXXXVII. Tell them, though it may be perhaps too late On life's worn confine, jaded, bloated, sated, To set up vain pretences of being great, 'Tis not so to be good; and be it stated, The worthiest kings have ever loved least state; And tell them but you won't, and I have prated Just now enough; but by and bye I'll prattle Like Roland's horn in Roncesvalles' battle. END OF CANTO THE TENTH. NOTES TO CANTO X. Note 1, page 59, stanza xiii. Would scarcely join again the "reformadoes." "Reformers," or rather "Reformed." The Baron Bradwardine, in Waverley, is authority for the word. Note 2, page 60, stanza xv. The endless soot bestows a tint far deeper Query, suit?-PRINTER'S DEVIL. Note 3, page 62, stanza xviii. Balgounie's Brig's "black wall.” The brig of Don near the "auld toun" of Aberdeen, with its one arch and its black deep salmon stream below, is in my memory as yesterday. I still remember, though perhaps I may misquote, the awful proverb which made me pause to cross it, and yet lean over it with a childish delight, being an only son, at least by the mother's side. The saying as G recollected by me was this, but I have never heard or seen it since I was nine years of age: "Brig of Balgounie, black's your wa', "Wi' a wife's ae son, and a mear's ae foal, Note 4, page 70, stanza xxxiv. Oh, for a "forty-parson-power" to chaunt A metaphor taken from the "forty-horse-power" of a steam-engine. That mad wag, the Reverend S. S. sitting by a brother Clergyman at dinner, observed afterwards that his dull neighbour had a "twelve-parson-power" of conversation. Note 5, page 71, stanza xxxvi. To strip the Saxons of their hydes, like tanners. "Hyde.”—I believe a hyde of land to be a legitimate word, and as such subject to the tax of a quibble. Note 6, page 77, stanza xlix. Was given to her favourite, and now bore his. The Empress went to the Crimea, accompanied by the Emperor Joseph, in the year-I forget which. Which Note 7, page 82, stanza lviii. gave her dukes the graceless name of " Biron." In the Empress Anne's time, Biren her favourite assumed the name and arms of the "Birons" of France, which families are yet extant with that of England. There are still the daughters of Courland of that name; one of them I remember seeing in England in the blessed year of the Allies (the Dutchess of S.)--to whom the English Duchess of S- -t presented me as a namesake. Note 8, page 84, stanza lxii. Eleven thousand maidenheads of bone, The greatest number Flesh hath ever known. St. Ursula and her eleven thousand virgins were still extant in 1816, and may be so yet, as much as ever. Note 9, page 93, stanza lxxxi. Who butchered half the earth and bullied t'other. India. America. |