TO THE RIGHT HON. C. J. FOX.
INSCRIBED TO THE RIGHT HON. C. J. FOX.
How Wisdom and Folly meet, mix, and unite;
How Virtue and Vice blend their black and their white;
How Genius, th' illustrious father of fiction,
Confounds rule and law, reconciles contradiction-
I sing; If these mortals, the Critics, should bustle,
I care not, not I-let the Critics go whistle!
But now for a Patron, whose name and whose glory
At once may illustrate and honour my story.
Thou, first of our orators, first of our wits;
Yet whose parts and acquirements seem just lucky hits;
With knowledge so vast, and with judgment so strong,
No man, with the half of 'em, e'er went far wrong;
With passions so potent, and fancies so bright,
No man with the half of 'em e'er went quite right;
A sorry, poor, misbegot son of the Muses,
For using thy name offers fifty excuses.
Good Lord, what is man! for as simple he looks,
Do but try to develop his hooks and his crooks,
With his depths and his shallows, his good and his evil,
All in all, he's a problem must puzzle the devil.
On his one ruling Passion Sir Pope hugely labours,
That, like th' old Hebrew walking-switch, eats up its neighbours:
Mankind are his show-box-a friend, would you know him?
Pull the string, Ruling Passion, the picture will show him.
What pity, in rearing so beauteous a system,
One trifling particular, Truth, should have miss'd him!
For, spite of his fine theoretic positions,
Mankind is a science defies definitions.
Some sort all our qualities each to its tribe,
And think Human-nature they truly describe;
Have you found this, or t'other? there's more in the wind,
As by one drunken fellow his comrades you'll find.
But such is the flaw, or the depth of the plan
In the make of the wonderful creature call'd Man,
No two virtues, whatever relation they claim,
Nor even two different shades of the same,
Though like as was ever twin-brother to brother,
Possessing the one shall imply you've the other.
But truce with abstraction, and truce with a muse,
Whose rhymes you'll perhaps, Sir, ne'er deign to peruse :
Will you leave your justings, your jars, and your quarrels,
Contending with Billy for proud-nodding laurels !
My much-honour'd Patron, believe your poor Poet,
Your courage much more than your prudence you show it,
In vain with Squire Billy for laurels you struggle,
He'll have them by fair trade, if not, he will smuggle;
Not cabinets even of kings would conceal 'em,
He'd up the back-stairs, and by G- he would steal 'em.
Then feats like Squire Billy's you ne'er can atchieve 'em,
It is not, outdo him—the task is, out-thieve him.
ELLISLAND, 21ST OCT. 1789.
Wow, but your letter made me vauntie !
And are ye hale, and weel, and cantie?
I kenn'd it still your wee bit jauntie
Wad bring ye to:
Lord send you aye as weel's I want ye,
And then ye'll do.
The ill-thief blaw the Heron south!
And never drink be near his drouth!
He tald mysel by word o' mouth,
He'd tak my letter;
I lippen'd to the chiel in trouth,
And bade nae better.
Come, Firm Resolve, take thou the van,
Thou stalk o' carl-hemp in man!
And let us mind, faint heart ne'er wan
A lady fair;
Wha does the utmost that he can,
Will whyles do mair.
But to conclude my silly rhyme,
(I'm scant o' verse, and scant o' time,)
To make a happy fire-side clime
To weans and wife,
That's the true pathos and sublime
Of human life.
My compliments to sister Beckie;
And eke the same to honest Lucky,
I wat she is a daintie chuckie,
As e'er tread clay !
And gratefully, my guid auld cockie,
I'm yours for ay.
SPOKEN AT THE THEATRE, ELLISLAND.
No song nor dance I bring from yon great city
That queens it o'er our taste-the more's the pity;
Tho', by-the-by, abroad why will you roam?
Good sense and taste are natives here at home:
But not for panegyric I appear,
I come to wish you all a good new-year!
Old Father Time deputes me here before ye,
Not for to preach, but tell his simple story:
The sage grave ancient cough'd, and bade me say,
"You're one year older this important day."
If wiser too-he hinted some suggestion,
But 'twould be rude, you know, to ask the question;
And with a would-be roguish leer and wink,
He bade me on you press this one word-"think!"
Ye sprightly youths, quite flush'd with hope and spirit,
Who think to storm the world by dint of merit,
To you the dotard has a deal to say,
In his sly, dry, sententious, proverb way;
He bids you mind, amid your thoughtless rattle,
That the first blow is ever half the battle;
That tho' some by the skirt may try to snatch him,
Yet by the forelock is the hold to catch him;
That whether doing, suffering, or forbearing,
You may do miracles by persevering.
Last, tho' not least in love, ye youthful fair,
Angelic forms, high Heaven's peculiar care!
To you old Bald-pate smooths his wrinkled brow,
And humbly begs you'll mind the important-now!
To crown your happiness he asks your leave,
And offers bliss to give and to receive.
For our sincere, tho' haply weak endeavours, With grateful pride we own your many favours; And howsoe'er our tongues may ill reveal it, Believe our glowing bosoms truly feel it.
ELEGY ON THE LATE MISS BURNET,
LIFE ne'er exulted in so rich a prize
As Burnet, lovely from her native skies;
Nor envious death so triumph'd in a blow,
As that which laid th' accomplish'd Burnet low.
Thy form and mind, sweet maid, can I forget?
In richest ore the brightest jewel set!
In thee, high Heaven above was truest shown,
And by his noblest work the Godhead best is known.
In vain ye flaunt in summer's pride, ye groves;
Thou crystal streamlet with the flowery shore,
Ye woodland choir that chant your idle loves,
Ye cease to charm-Eliza is no more!
Ye heathy wastes, immix'd with reedy fens ;
Ye mossy streams, with sedge and rushes stor'd;
Ye rugged cliffs o'erhanging dreary glens,
To you I fly, ye with my soul accord.
Princes, whose cumbrous pride was all their worth,
Shall venal lays their pompous exit hail?
And thou, sweet excellence! forsake our earth,
And not a Muse in honest grief bewail?
We saw thee shine in youth and beauty's pride,
And virtue's light, that beams beyond the spheres:
But the sun eclips'd at morning tide,
Thou left'st us darkling in a world of tears.
The parent's heart that nestled fond in thee,
That heart how sunk, a prey to grief and care;
So deckt the woodbine sweet yon aged tree,
So from it ravish'd, leaves it bleak and bare.
THE FOLLOWING POEM WAS WRITTEN
TO A GENTLEMAN WHO HAD SENT HIM A NEWSPAPER, AND OFFERED TO
CONTINUE IT FREE OF EXPENSE.
KIND Sir, I've read your paper through,
And, faith, to me, 'twas really new!
How guess'd ye, Sir, what maist I
wanted?
This monie a day I've grain'd and
gaunted,
To ken what French mischief was
brewin';
Or what the drumlie Dutch were doin';
That vile doup-skelper, Emperor Joseph,
If Venus yet had got his nose off;
Or how the collieshangie works
Atween the Russians and the Turks;
Or if the Swede, before he halt,
Would play anither Charles the Twalt :
If Denmark, any body spak o't;
Or Poland, wha had now the tack o't;
How cut-throat Prussian blades were
How libbet Italy was singin';
If Spaniard, Portuguese, or Swiss,
Were sayin' or takin' aught amiss :
Or how our merry lads at hame,
In Britain's court, kept up the game:
How royal George, the Lord leuk o'er
him!
Was managing St. Stephen's quorum;
If sleekit Chatham Will was livin',
Or glaikit Charlie got his nieve in ;
How daddie Burke the plea was cookin',
If Warren Hastings' neck was yeukin;
How cesses, stents, and fees were rax'd,
Or if bare a-s yet were tax'd;
The news o' princes, dukes, and earls,
Pimps, sharpers, bawds, and opera-girls;
If that daft buckie, Geordie Wales,
Was threshin still at hizzies' tails;
Or if he was grown oughtlins douser,
And no a perfect kintra cooser.-
A' this and mair I never heard of;
LINES ON AN INTERVIEW WITH LORD DAER.
THIS wot ye all whom it concerns,
I Rhymer Robin, alias Burns,
October twenty-third,
A ne'er to be forgotten day,
Sae far I sprackled up the brae,
I dinner'd wi' a Lord.
I've been at druken 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, as if led wi' branks,
An' stumpin 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 feint 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;
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