What gars thee look sae dowf, dear Sandy, say? Cheer up, dull fellow, take thy reed and play • My apron deary,' or some wanton tune! Be merry, lad, and keep thy heart aboon! SAXDY. Na, na, it winna do ! leave me to mane : This aught days twice o'er telled I'll whistle nane. RICHY. Wow, man, that's unco'sad ! — Is 't that ye'r jo Has ta’en the strunt? Or has some bogle-bo, Glowrin frae 'mang auld wa's, gi'en ye a fleg? Or has some dauted wedder broke his leg? SANDY. Naething like that, sic troubles eith were borne : What's bogles, wedders, or what Mausy's scorn? Our loss is meikle mair, and past remead : Adie, that played and sang sae sweet, is dead. Then he had aye a good advice to gie, And kend my thoughts amaist as well as me. Had I been thowloss, vext, or oughtlins sour, He wad have made me blyth in half an hour ; Had Rosie ta’en the dorts, or had the tod Worry'd my lambs, or were my feet ill-shod, Kindly he'd laugh when sae he saw me dwine, And talk of happiness like a divine. Of ilka thing he had an unco' skill ; He kend by moonlight how tides ebb and fill; He kend (what kend he no ?) e'en to a hair He'd tell or night gin neist day wad be fair. Blind John,' ye mind, wha sung in kittle phrase, How the ill sp’rit did the first mischief raise ; Mony a time, beneath the auld birk-tree, What's bonny in that sang he loot me see. The lasses aft flung down their rakes and pails, And held their tongues, 0 strange ! to hear his tales. RICHY SAXDY. Dead ! say'st thou ? -0, had up my heart, 0 Pan ! Ye gods, what laids ye lay on feckless man ! Alake therefore ! I canna wyt ye're wae ; I'll bear ye company for year and day. A better lad ne'er leaned out o'er a kent, Or hounded coly o'er the mossy bent. Blyth at the bught how aft ha'e we three been, Heartsome on hills, and gay upon the green. Sound be his sleep, and saft his wak’ning be! He's in a better case than thee or me. He was o'er good for us ; the gods hae ta’en Their ain but back, he was a borrowed len. Let us be good, gin virtue be our drift, Then we may yet forgether 'boon the lift. But see, the sheep are wysing to the cleugh; Thomas has loos’d his ousen frae the pleugh ; Maggy by this has bewk the supper-scones ; And muckle kye stand rowting in the loans ; Come, Richy, let us truse and hame o'er bend, And make the best of what we canna mend. SANDY That's true indeed ! But now thae days are gane, And, with him, a' that's pleasant on the plain. A summer day I never thought it lang, To hear him make a roundel or a sang. How sweet he sung where vines and myrtles grow, Of wimbling waters which in Latium flow. 2 Titry the Mantuan herd, wha lang sinsyne Best sung on aeten reed the lover's pine, Had he been to the fore now in our days, Wi' Adie he had frankly dealt his bays. As lang 's the warld shall Amaryllis ken, His Rosamond 3 shall echo through the glen ; While on burn banks the yellow gowan grows, Or wand'ring lambs rin bleating after ewes, His fame shall last ; last shall his gang of weirs,* While British bairns brag of their bauld forbears. We'll meikle miss his blyth and witty jest, At spaining time, or at our Lambmass feast. 1 Sir Richard Steele and Mr. Alexander Pope. 2 His poetic epistle from Italy to the Earl of Halifax. 3 An opera written by him. 4 His • Campaign,' a poem. 1 The famous Milton ; he was blind. GLOSSARY. — Gars, causes ; dowf, dull ; aboon, above; mane, moan ; aught, eight ; unco, very ; jo, sweetheart; bogle-bo, bugbear spirit ; glowrin, staring ; fieg, fright; dauted, fondled ; wedder, wether ; eith, easily ; meikle mair, much more ; remead, remedy ; had, hold ; laids, loads ; feckless, feeble ; wyt, shun, remove ; kent, shepherd's staff; coly, shepherd's dog ; bent, open field ; bught, sheepfold, pen ; roundel, roundelay; wimbling, winding ; sinsyne, since ; aeten, oaten ; to the fore, still remaining, surviving, unspent ; ken, know ; burn, stream ; gowan, daisy ; rin, run ; weirs, wars; bairns, children; forbears, forefathers; meikle, much ; spaining, weaning; reaves, robs ; greet, weep; gie, give; thowless, inactiv: ; oughtlins, any little ; wad, would ; dorts, dumps ; tod, fox ; dwine, cause to languish ; ilka, every ; or, ere ; gin, if; neist, next; kittle, enlivening ; birk, birch ; bonny, good ; loot, let ; ain, own; forgether aboon the lift, come together above the sky; wysing, tending ; cleugh, cliff, hollow bez tween precipices, nook ; ousen, oxen ; bewk, baked ; scones, cakes; muckle kye, many cows; rowting, bellowing ; loans, openings between fields, through which cattle come up ; truse, leave off ; canna, cannot ; bend, field. - See p. 186. Armstrong's "Irt of Health." EXERCISE. APOLOGETIC ; THE DIFFICULTY OF THE SUBJECT. - NICE RULES ARE FOR THE DELICATE, NOT THE STRONG. THROUGH various toils th' adventurous Muse has past ; But half the toil, and more than half, remains. Rude is her theme, and hardly fit for song ; Plain and of little ornament; and I But little practised in the Aonian arts : Yet not in vain such labors have we tried, If aught these lays the fickle Health confirm. To you, ye delicate ! I write ; for you I tame my youth to philosophic cares, And grow still paler by the midnight lamp. Not to debilitate with timorous rules A hardy frame ; nor needlessly to brave Inglorious dangers, proud of mortal strength, Is all the lesson that in wholesome years Concerns the strong. His care were ill bestowed Who would with warm effeminacy nurse The thriving oak which, on the mountain's brow, Bears all the blasts that sweep the wintry heaven. HEALTH OF THE LABORER. -- INDIFFERENT TO CHAXGES. Behold the laborer of the glebe who toils In dust, in rain, in cold and sultry skies : Save but the grain from mildews and the flood, Naught anxious he what sickly stars ascend. He knows no laws by Esculapius given ; He studies none. Yet him nor midnight fogs Infest, nor those envenomed shafts that fly When rapid Sirius fires the autumnal noon. His habit pure with plain and temperate meals, Robust with labor, and by custom steeled To every casualty of varied life ; Serene be bears the peevish eastern blast, And uninfected breathes the mortal south. Come, my companions, ye who feel the charms But if the breathless chase o'er hill and dale THE REWARDS OF SIMPLICITY, BOBRIETY, AND EXERCISE. Such the reward of rude and sober life ; Of labor such. By health the peasant's toil Is well repaid ; if exercise were pain Indeed, and temperance pain. By arts like these Laconia nursed of old her hardy sons ; And Rome's unconquered legions urged their way, Unhurt, through every toil in every clime. TOIL, AND BE STRONG. — VARIOCS EXERCISE. Toil, and be strong. By toil the flaccid nerves Grow firm, and gain a more compacted tone ; The greener juices are by toil subdued, Mellowed, and subtilized ; the vapid old Expelled, and all the rancor of the blood. His neighbors lift the latch, and bless unbid CHOOSE THAT KIND OF EXERCISE THAT IS MOST AGREEABLE. Whate'er you study, in whate'er you sweat, Indulge your taste. Some love the manly foils; The tennis some ; and some the graceful dance. Others, more hardy, range the purple heath, Or naked stubble ; where from field to field The sounding coveys urge their laboring flight: Eager amid the rising cloud to pour The gun's unerring thunder; and there are Whom still the meed 1 of the green archer charms. Ho chooses best, whose labor entertains His vacant fancy most : the toil you hate Fatigues you soon, and scarce improves your limbs. DIRECTING HOW GRADCALLY TO STRENGTHEN WEAKER YEV BERS OR ORGANS. THE RACER. The struggling, panting prey : while vernal clouds GARDENING A LIGHT EXERCISE FOR CERTAIN TASTES. MEANS. -FRIENDLY RIVALRY IN GARDENING. EVENINGS OF WINTER SPENT SEXSIBLY. 1 2 Pythagoras of Samos was a vegetarian, and so the Bramins. As beauty still has blemish ; and the mind The most accomplished its imperfect side ; Few bodies are there of that happy mould But some one part is weaker than the rest : The legs, perhaps, or arms, refuse their load, Or the chest labors. These assiduously, But gently, in their proper arts employed, Acquire a vigor and elastic spring To which they were not born. But weaker parts Abhor fatigue and violent discipline. Begin with gentle toils ; and, as your nerves Grow firm, to hardier by just steps aspire. The prudent, even in every moderate walk, At first but saunter ; and by slow degrees Increase their pace. This doctrine of the wise Well knows the master of the flying steed. First from the goal the managed coursers play On bended reins ; as yet the skilful youth Repress their foamy pride ; but every breath The race grows warmer, and the tempest swells; Till all the fiery mettle has its way, And the thick thunder hurries o'er the plain. EFFECTS OF TOO SUDDEN EXERCISE. - COUGH, ASTAMA. PNEUMONIA, ETC. When all at once from indolence to toil You spring, the fibres by the hasty shock Are tired and cracked, before their unctuous coats, Compressed, can pour the lubricating balm. Besides, collected in the passive veins, The purple mass a sudden torrent rolls, 1 This word is much used by some of the old English poets, and signifies reward or prize. O’erpowers the heart, and deluges the lungs Th' athletic fool, to whom what heaven denied 'T is not for those whom gelid skies embrace, EVILS OF CHECKED PERSPIRATIOX. Subject not, then, by soft emollient arts, This grand expanse, on which your fates depend, To every caprice of the sky; nor thwart The genius of your clime : for from the blood Least fickle rise the recremental steams, And least obnoxious to the styptic air, Which breathe thro’straiter and more callous pores. The tempered Scythian hence, half naked, treads His boundless snows, nor rues th' inclement heaven; And hence our painted ancestors defied The East : nor cursed, like us, their fickle sky. AVOID SEDDEX DRINKING OF WATER AFTER SWEATING. But when the hard varieties of life You toil to learn ; or try the dusty chase, Or the warm deeds of some important day ; Hot from the field, indulge not yet your limbs In wished repose ; nor court the fanning gale, Nor taste the spring. 0! by the sacred tears Of widows, orphans, mothers, sisters, sires, Forbear! No other pestilence has driven Such myriads o'er the irremeable deep. Why this so fatal, the sagacious muse Through Nature's cunning labyrinths could trace : But there are secrets which who knows not now, Must, ere he reach them, climb the heapy Alps Of science; and devote seven years to toil. GENERAL PRECEPTS SCFFICE AS TO HEALTH. Besides, I would not stun your patient ears With what it little boots you to attain. He knows enough, the mariner, who knows [boil; Where lurk the shelves, and where the whirlpools What signs portend the storm : to subtler minds He leaves to scan, from wbat mysterious cause Charybdis rages in the Ionian wave ; Whence those impetuous currents in the main Which neither oar nor sail can stem ; and why The roughening deep expects the storm, as sure As red Orion mounts the shrouded heaven. ADAPT YOUR HABIT OF BODY TO YOUR CLIMATE. TOCGHENING. The body, moulded by the cline, endures The Equator heats or Hyperborean frost : Except by habits foreign to its turn, Unwise, you counteract its forming power. Rude at the first, the Winter shocks you less By long acquaintance ; study, then, your sky, Form to its manners your obsequious frame, And learn to suffer what you cannot shun. Against the rigors of a damp, cold heaven To fortify their bodies, some frequent The gelid cistern ; and, where naught forbids, I praise their dauntless heart : a frame so steeled Dreads not the cough, nor those ungenial blasts That breathe the tertian or fell rheumatism : The nerves so tempered never quit their tone, No chronic languors haunt such hardy breasts. ROMAX BATHING; ANOINTING, — WHY NORTHERN NATIONS SHOULD NOT COLTIVATE TOO SOFT A SKIN. In ancient times, when Rome with Athens vied For polished luxury and useful arts ; All hot and reeking from the Olympic strife, And warm palæstra, in the tepid bath The athletic youth relaxed their weary limbs. Soft oils bedewed them, with the grateful powers Of nard and cassia fraught, to soothe and heal The cherished nerves. Our less voluptuous climo Not much invites us to such arts as these. BE XOT ENSLAVED TO A DELICATE REGIMEX. But all things have their bounds : and he who By daily use, the kindest regimen [makes, Essential to his health, should never mix With humankind, nor art nor trade pursue. 1 The inflammation of the lungs. You hurried, with untimely exercise, He not the safe vicissitudes of life WINTER DEMANDS MUCH, SUMMER LITTLE EXERCISE. RHECMATISY. NORTHERNERS VISITING A SOUTHERN OLIME SHOULD BATHIE FREELY Let those who from the frozen Arctos reach Parchod Mauritania, or the sultry West, Or the wide flood through rich Indostan rolled, Plunge thrice a day, and in the tepid wave Untwist their stubborn pores ; that full and free The evaporation through the softened skin May bear proportion to the swelling blood. So shall they 'scape the fever's rapid flames ; So feel untainted the hot breath of hell. While Winter chills the blood, and binds the veins, No labors are too hard : by those you 'scape The slow diseases of the torpid year ; Endless to name ; to one of which alone, To that which tears the nerves, the toil of slaves Is pleasure : 0! from such inhuman pains May all be free who merit not the wheel ! But from the burning Lion when the sun Pours down his sultry wrath ; now while the blood Too much already maddens in the veins, And all the finer fluids through the skin Explore their flight; me, near the cool cascade Reclined, or sauntering in the leafy grove, No needless, slight occasion should engage To pant and sweat beneath the fiery noon. WARM BATHS. --CLEANLINESS ENFORCED. TIE COOL OF A SUMMER MORNING AND EVENING IS THE TIME FOR ACTIVITY. - AVOID THE CHILLING DEWS. With us, the man of no complaint demands The warm ablution just enough to clear The sluices of the skin, enough to keep The body sacred from indecent soil. Still to be pure, even did it not conduce (As much it does) to health, were greatly worth Your daily pains. "T is this adorns the rich ; The want of this is poverty's worst woe ; With this external virtue age maintains A decent grace ; without it youth and charms Are loathsome. This the venal graces know; So doubtless do your wives : for married sires, As well as lovers, still pretend to taste ; Nor is it less (all prudent wives can tell) To lose a husband's than a lover's heart. Now the fresh morn alone and mellow eve To shady walks and active rural sports Invite. But, while the chilling dews descend, May nothing tempt you to the cold embrace Of humid skies ; though 't is no vulgar joy To trace the horrors of the solemn wood While the soft evening saddens into night : Though the sweet poet of the vernal groves Melts all the night in strains of am'rous woe. EXERCISE PROMOTES HEALTHFUL AND REFRESHING SLEEP. BEST TIMES FOR EXERCISE ; BEFORE EATING FOR FULL, AND AFTER FOR LEAX HABITS. The shades descend, and midnight o'er the world Expands her sable wings. Great Nature droops Through all her works. How happy he whose toil Has o'er his languid, powerless limbs diffused A pleasing lassitude : he not in vain Invokes the gentle Deity of Dreams. His powers the most voluptuously dissolve In soft repose : on him the balmy dews Of sleep with double nutriment descend. AVOID EATING LATE AT NIGHT. - SLEEP ON FOOD HALF DIGESTED, AT LEAST. - BAD DREAMS. But now the hours and seasons when to toil From foreign themes recall my wandering song. Some labor fasting, or but slightly fed, To lull the grinding stomach's hungry rage. Where nature feeds too corpulent a frame 'T is wisely done : for while the thirsty veins, Impatient of lean penury, devour The treasured oil, then is the happiest time To shake the lazy balsam from its cells. Now, while the stomach from the full repast Subsides, but ere returning hunger gnaws, Ye leaner habits, give an hour to toil : And ye whom no luxuriancy of growth Oppresses yet, or threatens to oppress. But would you sweetly waste the blank of night In deep oblivion; or on fancy's wings Visit the paradise of happy dreams, And waken cheerful as the lively morn ; Oppress not Nature sinking down to rest With feasts too late, too solid, or too full: But be the first concoction half-matured Ere you to mighty indolence resign Your passive faculties. He from the toils And troubles of the day to heavier toil Retires, whom trembling from the tower that rocks Amid the clouds, or Calpe's hideous height, The busy demons hurl ; or in the main O'erwhelm ; or bury struggling under ground. NEVER TASK MIND OR BODY IMMEDIATELY AFTER A MEAL. But from the recent meal no labors please, Of limbs or mind. For now the cordial powers Claim all the wandering spirits to a work Of strong and subtlo toil, and great event : A work of time : and you may rue the day |