OR, THE FATE OF THE BRAUNS. A POEM, IN FOUR CANTOS. BY WILLIAM WASTLE, ESQUIRE. * Member of the Dilettanti, Royal, and Antiquarian Societies, and of the Union and Ben Waters's Clubs of Edinburgh; Honorary Member of the Kunst-und-alterthumsliebers Gesellschaft of Gottingen, and of the Phoenix Terrarum of Amsterdam, &c. &c. &c. אשת חיל מי ומצש ורהק מפנינים מכרה : בטח בה לבבעלה ושלל לא יחסר DEDICATION. TO THEE, LONE WIZARD OF THE SABLE VEIL! OF WHIGS AND DEMOCRATS, THOU FEAR AND HATE! TO THEE THE FOLLOWING LINES I DEDICATE. * This Gentleman having at last dispensed with certain promises under which we had come, we feel ourselves at liberty to announce to our readers that they owe to his pen several poetical articles of distinguished merit, in some of the preceding numbers of our Miscellany. We reserve the full acknowledgment of our various obligations to his genius, till the Index Auctorum (which we are happy to say is in a state of considerable forwardness,) shall be ready for publication. But we may mention in the mean time, that the various Poetical Notices of this Magazine are among the number of his productions, and that we have received from him "Two Probationary Odes, humbly dedicated to the Royal Society of Edinburgh." The appearance of those humorous pieces depends entirely upon contingencies.-We may add, for the benefit of our Salt-foot readers, that Mr Wastle was lately served heir in general (the application of the phrase Filius Carnalis, being, in his case, waived,) to William Wastle, Esq. of that ilk, who died A. D. 1584.—A hero well known to the students of our popular poetry," Willie Wastle dwalt on Tweed," &c. A pedigree of W. W. may probably appear in an early number of our Work. EDITOR. VII. He is, I take it, if the truth were known, A worthy creature, ignorant of trap. VIII. No more a monarch, Louis draws from these In stupid meditation's drowsy calm. Sleep on, thou exiled lord of Amsterdam! In that long pipe a harmless sceptre find, Enjoy your schnaps, give sorrow to the wind. IX. And if the stories that they tell be true, About your sterner brother and the queen, There's others as ill off,-aye, not a few; In Italy the like has often been. Such doings seem most horrible to you, Chiefly because the world you have not seen. By studying the Poems of Leigh Hunt, You'd learn to put a smoother face upon't. X. But to my tale-in Louis' capital, In Amsterdam, there lived a certain widow, The relic of Mynheer Van Schlappsendal, Over whose bier two years agone she sighed, "Oh!" Altho' she was not what genteel we call, Dutch Virtuosi thought her quite the Dido; XI. Whoe'er, with knowing optics, hath beheld Of Keyser, Jan Stein, Mieris, Metzu, XII. The slender waist, most delicate, most slim, The little feet, that twinkle as they go; XIII. The mistress of Mynheer must be a bouncer, It must take scores and scores of yards to flounce her; She must have pounds of chin, and pounds of cheeks; Shemust have fists would knock a bullock down, sir, The Μέγεθος και καλλος of the Greeks. If she sits down upon the grass, she leaves A mark as broad as any of her beeves. Her arms were chubby, and her bosom plump, Originally, I have heard, from Memel, But settled long in Holland as a banker; In most things he a native did resemble, He had a Dutchman's paunch, a Dutchman'slank hair. The moment he beheld this charming female, Love in his heart infixed a triple anchor, And he resolved that instant, coute ce qui'l coute, To give an ardent opening to his suit. XXXV. Three or four tutors, and as many minors; Pupils and pedagogues upon a par In every article, except the shiners; As dull as commonly such people are, Horn ignorant, God knows, but all good diners, Travelling on the conclusion of the war, Staring about as if they'd got upon Astolfo's hippogrifo with St John. XXXVI. I wonder what makes decent people send One word of wholesome counsel I'll advance : XXXVII. About the streets at home they're quite a drug. These gentlemen that have performed the tour, You'll recognise them by a constant shrug, An awkward copy of a Gascon boor; A little paltry store of broken French is A few false medals purchased on the Po- THE fashionable way to make a poem, Like other fashions, has seen may changes; Readers are now contented if you show 'em The mere elite of what within your range is; In short, without apology or proem, No rule of modern gout your muse infringes, Although whole days, weeks, years, she hurries by Scott, Byron, Wordsworth, Wilson-why not I? II. We've quite exploded now the tedious style Like high-road hackney brutes, of journeying Through many a weary, dusty, viewless mile. O'er open downs and wilds he now may fling, Shake his long mane in the free mountain breezes, And leap as many ditches as he pleases. III. Had I been born a rhymester of the breed To these new-fangled modes my lyre to suit ; Poets in Holland seem to be agreed, That 'tis a treasonous heinous sin to shoot Farther than their old fathers shot before 'em, Fine spirits! the Primitiæ Batavorum! IV. If e'er you chance on the Exchange to go, V. A large full Ramillies, with curls most hideous, t VI. Their wives (it is alledged, against the grain), Their waists are padded out as big's a barrel; To shew the buckle is considered vain, To shew the ancle would produce a quarrel; Nay worse and worse, Mevrouw must wear a mutch, (That old Scotch word's still used in Nether Dutch.) VII. But to return, and to exemplify The modern license of the English poet : Braun married his fair widow by and bye, And lodged her at his lust-huis, near Helvoet, A pretty Villa in a Dutchman's eye, For a few stivers any time they shew itA comfortable, warm, snug house withal, And built within six yards of the canal. X. I much approve the Continental fashion, In which my wife and I much time consume. And Braun was debtor to his wife, per annum, At least one child-sometimes she book'd him two. The first was Moll, the namesake of her grannum ; The second was called Karl; the third was Hoogh; The fourth was Girzzy (after Mrs Manheim, An aunt that lived not far from Waterloo). Braun might give all the provinces defiance, To shew a comelier, healthier crop of scions. They dress the infant out in solemn suits Looking as sour as they were four feet taller, Their nasty dwindling gummy legs exposing, Great heavy floundering silk or worsted hose in. XV. How would our young M'Alisters or Campbells, Used to their native luxury of kilts, Be horrified if put into such trammels, Compelled to strut for ever on such stilts, Hips from the breezes barred, and legs from gambols! With what long faces would the little Celts Sigh from their fusty breeches at the Hague, "Ochon Lochaber and the philabeg!" XVI. Nor is young Mademoiselle's set out-less queer; At four years old she's clad with meikle pother, In Mutch, gown, petticoat, and all such gear, Enough a very elephant to smother; A foreigner's struck dumb when he draws near, And sees Meyongvrouw dressed like her grandmother Her little baby countenance, smooth and prim, |