Chapter 8

_Jenny._ Hey, 'bonnylass of Branksome!' or't be lang, Your witty Pate will put you in a sang. Oh, 'tis a pleasant thing to be a bride! Syne whinging gets about your ingle-side, Yelping for this or that with fasheous[18] din: To mak them brats then ye maun toil and spin. Ae wean fa's sick, and scads itself wi' brue,[19] Ane breaks his shin, anither tines his shoe: The 'Deil gaes o'er John Wabster:'[20] hame grows hell, When Pate misca's ye waur than tongue can tell.

_Peggy._ Yes, it's a heartsome thing to be a wife, When round the ingle-edge young sprouts are rife. Gif I'm sae happy, I shall have delight To hear their little plaints, and keep them right. Wow, Jenny! can there greater pleasure be, Than see sic wee tots toolying at your knee; When a' they ettle at, their greatest wish, Is to be made of, and obtain a kiss? Can there be toil in tenting day and night The like of them, when loves makes care delight?

_Jenny_. But poortith, Peggy, is the warst of a', Gif o'er your heads ill chance should beggary draw: There little love or canty cheer can come Frae duddy doublets, and a pantry toom.[21] Your nowt may die; the speat[22] may bear away Frae aff the howms your dainty rucks of hay; The thick-blawn wreaths of snaw, or blashy thows, May smoor your wethers, and may rot your ewes; A dyvour[23] buys your butter, woo', and cheese, But, or the day of payment, breaks and flees; With gloomin' brow the laird seeks in his rent, 'Tis no to gie, your merchant's to the bent; His honour maunna want, he poinds your gear; Syne driven frae house and hald, where will ye steer?-- Dear Meg, be wise, and lead a single life; Troth, it's nae mows[24] to be a married wife.

_Peggy_. May sic ill luck befa' that silly she, Wha has sic fears, for that was never me. Let fowk bode weel, and strive to do their best; Nae mair's required--let Heaven make out the rest. I've heard my honest uncle aften say, That lads should a' for wives that's vertuous pray; For the maist thrifty man could never get A well-stored room, unless his wife wad let: Wherefore nocht shall be wanting on my part To gather wealth to raise my shepherd's heart. Whate'er he wins, I'll guide with canny care, And win the vogue at market, tron, or fair, For healsome, clean, cheap, and sufficient ware. A flock of lambs, cheese, butter, and some woo', Shall first be sald to pay the laird his due; Syne a' behind's our ain.--Thus without fear, With love and rowth[25] we through the warld will steer; And when my Pate in bairns and gear grows rife, He'll bless the day he gat me for his wife.

_Jenny_. But what if some young giglet on the green, With dimpled cheeks, and twa bewitching een, Should gar your Patie think his half-worn Meg, And her kenn'd kisses, hardly worth a feg?

_Peggy_. Nae mair of that:--dear Jenny, to be free, There's some men constanter in love than we: Nor is the ferly great, when Nature kind Has blest them with solidity of mind; They'll reason calmly, and with kindness smile, When our short passions wad our peace beguile: Sae, whensoe'er they slight their maiks[26]at hame, 'Tis ten to ane their wives are maist to blame. Then I'll employ with pleasure a' my art To keep him cheerfu', and secure his heart. At even, when he comes weary frae the hill, I'll have a' things made ready to his will: In winter, when he toils through wind and rain, A bleezing ingle, and a clean hearth-stane: And soon as he flings by his plaid and staff, The seething-pot's be ready to take aff; Clean hag-abag[27] I'll spread upon his board, And serve him with the best we can afford: Good-humour and white bigonets[28] shall be Guards to my face, to keep his love for me.

_Jenny_. A dish of married love right soon grows cauld, And dozins[29] down to nane, as fowk grow auld.

_Peggy_. But we'll grow auld together, and ne'er find The loss of youth, when love grows on the mind. Bairns and their bairns make sure a firmer tie, Than aught in love the like of us can spy. See yon twa elms that grow up side by side, Suppose them some years syne bridegroom and bride; Nearer and nearer ilka year they've pressed, Till wide their spreading branches are increased, And in their mixture now are fully blessed: This shields the other frae the eastlin' blast; That in return defends it frae the wast. Sic as stand single, (a state sae liked by you,) Beneath ilk storm frae every airt[30] maun bow.

_Jenny_. I've done,--I yield, dear lassie; I maun yield, Your better sense has fairly won the field. With the assistance of a little fae Lies dern'd within my breast this mony a day.

_Peggy_. Alake, poor pris'ner!--Jenny, that's no fair, That ye'll no let the wee thing take the air: Haste, let him out; we'll tent as well's we can, Gif he be Bauldy's, or poor Roger's man.

_Jenny_. Anither time's as good; for see the sun Is right far up, and we're not yet begun To freath the graith: if canker'd Madge, our aunt, Come up the burn, she'll gie's a wicked rant; But when we've done, I'll tell you a' my mind; For this seems true--nae lass can be unkind.

[_Exeunt_.

[1] Howm: holm. [2] Claes: clothes. [3] 'Lift:' sky. [4] 'Linn:' a waterfall. [5] 'Blate:' bashful. [6] 'Pensylie:' sprucely. [7] 'A-jee:' to one side. [8] 'Owrelay:' cravat. [9] 'Dorty:' pettish. [10] 'Dawted wean:' spoiled child. [11] 'Tarrows at its meat:' refuses its food. [12] 'Feckless:' silly. [13] 'Orp:' fret. [14] 'Glowers:' stares. [15] 'Barlichoods:' cross-moods. [16] 'Skaith:' harm. [17] 'Feil:' many. [18] 'Fasheous:' troublesome. [19] 'Scads itself wi' brue:' scalds itself with broth. [20] 'Deil gaes o'er John Wabster:' all goes wrong. [21] 'Toom:' empty. [22] 'Speat:' land-flood. [23] 'A dyvour:' bankrupt. [24] 'Mows:' jest. [25] 'Rowth:' plenty. [26] 'Maiks:' mates. [27] 'Hag-abag:' huckaback. [28] 'White bigonets:' linen caps or coifs. [29] 'Dozins:' dwindles. [30] 'Airt:' quarter.

We come now to another cluster of minor poets,--such as Robert Dodsley, who rose, partly through Pope's influence, from a footman to be a respectable bookseller, and who, by the verses entitled 'The Parting Kiss,'--

'One fond kiss before we part, Drop a tear and bid adieu; Though we sever, my fond heart, Till we meet, shall pant for you,' &c.--

seems to have suggested to Burns his 'Ae fond kiss, and then we sever;' --John Brown, author of certain tragedies and other works, including the once famous 'Estimate of the Manners and Principles of Modern Times,' of which Cowper says--

'The inestimable Estimate of Brown Rose like a paper kite and charmed the town; But measures planned and executed well Shifted the wind that raised it, and it fell:'

and who went mad and died by his own hands;--John Gilbert Cooper, author of a fine song to his wife, one stanza of which has often been quoted:--

'And when with envy Time transported Shall think to rob us of our joys; You'll in your girls again be courted, And I'll go wooing in my boys;'--

Cuthbert Shaw, an unfortunate author of the Savage type, who wrote an affecting monody on the death of his wife;--Thomas Scott, author of 'Lyric Poems, Devotional and Moral: London, 1773;'--Edward Thompson, a native of Hull, and author of some tolerable sea-songs;--Henry Headley, a young man of uncommon talents, a pupil of Dr Parr in Norwich, who, when only twenty-one, published 'Select Beauties of the Ancient English Poets,' accompanied by critical remarks discovering rare ripeness of mind for his years, who wrote poetry too, but was seized with consumption, and died at twenty-two;--Nathaniel Cotton, the physician, under whose care, at St Alban's, Cowper for a time was;--William Hayward Roberts, author of 'Judah Restored,' a poem of much ambition and considerable merit;--John Bampfylde, who went mad, and died in that state, after having published, when young, some sweet sonnets, of which the following is one:--

'Cold is the senseless heart that never strove With the mild tumult of a real flame; Rugged the breast that music cannot tame, Nor youth's enlivening graces teach to love The pathless vale, the long-forsaken grove, The rocky cave that bears the fair one's name, With ivy mantled o'er. For empty fame Let him amidst the rabble toil, or rove In search of plunder far to western clime. Give me to waste the hours in amorous play With Delia, beauteous maid, and build the rhyme, Praising her flowing hair, her snowy arms, And all that prodigality of charms, Formed to enslave my heart, and grace my lay;'--

Lord Chesterfield, who wrote some lines on 'Beau Nash's Picture at full length, between the Busts of Newton and Pope at Bath,' of which this is the last stanza--

'The picture placed the busts between, Adds to the thought much strength; Wisdom and Wit are little seen, But Folly's at full length;'--

Thomas Penrose, who is more memorable as a warrior than as a poet, having fought against Buenos Ayres, as well as having written some elegant war-verses;--Edward Moore, a contributor to the _World_;--Sir John Henry Moore, a youth of promise, who died in his twenty-fifth year, leaving behind him such songs as the following:--

'Cease to blame my melancholy, Though with sighs and folded arms I muse with silence on her charms; Censure not--I know 'tis folly; Yet these mournful thoughts possessing, Such delights I find in grief That, could heaven afford relief, My fond heart would scorn the blessing;'--

the Rev. Richard Jago, a friend of Shenstone's, and author of a pleasing fable entitled 'Labour and Genius;'--Henry Brooke, better known for a novel, once much in vogue, called 'The Fool of Quality,' than for his elaborate poem entitled 'Universal Beauty,' which formed a prototype of Darwin's 'Botanic Garden,' but did not enjoy that poem's fame;--George Alexander Stevens, a comic actor, lecturer on 'heads,' and writer of some poems, novels, and Bacchanalian songs:--and, in fine, Mrs Greville, whose 'Prayer for Indifference' displays considerable genius. We quote some stanzas:--

'I ask no kind return in love, No tempting charm to please; Far from the heart such gifts remove That sighs for peace and ease.

'Nor ease, nor peace, that heart can know That, like the needle true, Turns at the touch of joy and woe, But, turning, trembles too.

'Far as distress the soul can wound, 'Tis pain in each degree; 'Tis bliss but to a certain bound-- Beyond, is agony.

'Then take this treacherous sense of mine, Which dooms me still to smart, Which pleasure can to pain refine, To pain new pangs impart.

'Oh, haste to shed the sovereign balm, My shattered nerves new string, And for my guest, serenely calm, The nymph Indifference bring.'

ISAAC HAWKINS BROWNE.

This writer was born at Burton-on-Trent, in 1705. He was educated at Westminster and Cambridge, and studied law at Lincoln's Inn. He was a man of fortune, and sat in two parliaments for Wenlock, in Shropshire. He died in 1760. His imitations of authors are clever and amusing, and seem to have got their hint from 'The Splendid Shilling,' and to have given it to the 'Rejected Addresses.'

IMITATION OF THOMSON.

----Prorumpit ad aethera nubem Turbine, fumantem piceo. VIRG.

O thou, matured by glad Hesperian suns, Tobacco, fountain pure of limpid truth, That looks the very soul; whence pouring thought Swarms all the mind; absorpt is yellow care, And at each puff imagination burns: Flash on thy bard, and with exalting fires Touch the mysterious lip that chants thy praise In strains to mortal sons of earth unknown. Behold an engine, wrought from tawny mines Of ductile clay, with plastic virtue formed, And glazed magnific o'er, I grasp, I fill. From Paetotheke with pungent powers perfumed, Itself one tortoise all, where shines imbibed Each parent ray; then rudely rammed, illume With the red touch of zeal-enkindling sheet, Marked with Gibsonian lore; forth issue clouds Thought-thrilling, thirst-inciting clouds around, And many-mining fires; I all the while, Lolling at ease, inhale the breezy balm. But chief, when Bacchus wont with thee to join, In genial strife and orthodoxal ale, Stream life and joy into the Muse's bowl. Oh, be thou still my great inspirer, thou My Muse; oh, fan me with thy zephyrs boon, While I, in clouded tabernacle shrined, Burst forth all oracle and mystic song.

IMITATION OF POPE.

--Solis ad ortus Vanescit fumus. LUCAN.

Blest leaf! whose aromatic gales dispense To Templars modesty, to parsons sense: So raptured priests, at famed Dodona's shrine, Drank inspiration from the steam divine. Poison that cures, a vapour that affords Content, more solid than the smile of lords: Rest to the weary, to the hungry food, The last kind refuge of the wise and good. Inspired by thee, dull cits adjust the scale Of Europe's peace, when other statesmen fail. By thee protected, and thy sister, beer, Poets rejoice, nor think the bailiff near. Nor less the critic owns thy genial aid, While supperless he plies the piddling trade. What though to love and soft delights a foe, By ladies hated, hated by the beau, Yet social freedom, long to courts unknown, Fair health, fair truth, and virtue are thy own. Come to thy poet, come with healing wings, And let me taste thee unexcised by kings.

IMITATION OF SWIFT.

Ex fumo dare lucem.--HOR.

Boy! bring an ounce of Freeman's best, And bid the vicar be my guest: Let all be placed in manner due, A pot wherein to spit or spew, And London Journal, and Free-Briton, Of use to light a pipe or * *

* * * * *

This village, unmolested yet By troopers, shall be my retreat: Who cannot flatter, bribe, betray; Who cannot write or vote for * * * Far from the vermin of the town, Here let me rather live, my own, Doze o'er a pipe, whose vapour bland In sweet oblivion lulls the land; Of all which at Vienna passes, As ignorant as * * Brass is: And scorning rascals to caress, Extol the days of good Queen Bess, When first tobacco blessed our isle, Then think of other queens--and smile.

Come, jovial pipe, and bring along Midnight revelry and song; The merry catch, the madrigal, That echoes sweet in City Hall; The parson's pun, the smutty tale Of country justice o'er his ale. I ask not what the French are doing, Or Spain, to compass Britain's ruin: Britons, if undone, can go Where tobacco loves to grow.

WILLIAM OLDYS.

Oldys was born in 1696, and died in 1761. He was a very diligent collector of antiquarian materials, and the author of a Life of Raleigh. He was intimate with Captain Grose, Burns' friend, who used to rally him on his inordinate thirst for ale, although, if we believe Burns, it was paralleled by Grose's liking for port. The following Anacreontic is characteristic:--

SONG, OCCASIONED BY A FLY DRINKING OUT OF A CUP OF ALE.

Busy, curious, thirsty fly, Drink with me, and drink as I; Freely welcome to my cup, Couldst thou sip and sip it up. Make the most of life you may-- Life is short, and wears away.

Both alike are, mine and thine, Hastening quick to their decline: Thine's a summer, mine no more, Though repeated to threescore; Threescore summers, when they're gone, Will appear as short as one.

ROBERT LLOYD.

Robert Lloyd was born in London in 1733. He was the son of one of the under-masters of Westminster School. He went to Cambridge, where he became distinguished for his talents and notorious for his dissipation. He became an usher under his father, but soon tired of the drudgery, and commenced professional author. He published a poem called 'The Actor,' which attracted attention, and was the precursor of 'The Rosciad.' He wrote for periodicals, produced some theatrical pieces of no great merit, and edited the _St James' Magazine_. This failed, and Lloyd, involved in pecuniary distresses, was cast into the Fleet. Here he was deserted by all his boon companions except Churchill, to whose sister he was attached, and who allowed him a guinea a-week and a servant, besides promoting a subscription for his benefit. When the news of Churchill's death arrived, Lloyd was seated at dinner; he became instantly sick, cried out 'Poor Charles! I shall follow him soon,' and died in a few weeks. Churchill's sister, a woman of excellent abilities, waited on Lloyd during his illness, and died soon after him of a broken heart. This was in 1764.

Lloyd was a minor Churchill. He had not his brawny force, but he had more than his liveliness of wit, and was a much better-conditioned man, and more temperate in his satire. Cowper knew, loved, admired, and in some of his verses imitated, Robert Lloyd.

THE MISERIES OF A POET'S LIFE.

The harlot Muse, so passing gay, Bewitches only to betray. Though for a while with easy air She smooths the rugged brow of care, And laps the mind in flowery dreams, With Fancy's transitory gleams; Fond of the nothings she bestows, We wake at last to real woes. Through every age, in every place, Consider well the poet's case; By turns protected and caressed, Defamed, dependent, and distressed. The joke of wits, the bane of slaves, The curse of fools, the butt of knaves; Too proud to stoop for servile ends, To lacquey rogues or flatter friends; With prodigality to give, Too careless of the means to live; The bubble fame intent to gain, And yet too lazy to maintain; He quits the world he never prized, Pitied by few, by more despised, And, lost to friends, oppressed by foes, Sinks to the nothing whence he rose.

O glorious trade! for wit's a trade, Where men are ruined more than made! Let crazy Lee, neglected Gay, The shabby Otway, Dryden gray, Those tuneful servants of the Nine, (Not that I blend their names with mine,) Repeat their lives, their works, their fame. And teach the world some useful shame.

HENRY CAREY.

Of Carey, the author of the popular song, 'Sally in our Alley,' we know only that he was a professional musician, composing the air as well as the words of 'Sally,' and that in 1763 he died by his own hands.

SALLY IN OUR ALLEY.

1 Of all the girls that are so smart, There's none like pretty Sally; She is the darling of my heart, And she lives in our alley. There is no lady in the land Is half so sweet as Sally: She is the darling of my heart, And she lives in our alley.

2 Her father he makes cabbage-nets, And through the streets does cry 'em; Her mother she sells laces long, To such as please to buy 'em: But sure such folks could ne'er beget So sweet a girl as Sally! She is the darling of my heart, And she lives in our alley.

3 When she is by, I leave my work, (I love her so sincerely,) My master comes like any Turk, And bangs me most severely: But, let him bang his belly full, I'll bear it all for Sally; She is the darling of my heart, And she lives in our alley.

4 Of all the days that's in the week, I dearly love but one day; And that's the day that comes betwixt A Saturday and Monday; For then I'm dressed all in my best, To walk abroad with Sally; She is the darling of my heart, And she lives in our alley.

5 My master carries me to church, And often am I blamed, Because I leave him in the lurch, As soon as text is named: I leave the church in sermon time, And slink away to Sally; She is the darling of my heart, And she lives in our alley.

6 When Christmas comes about again, O then I shall have money; I'll hoard it up, and box it all, I'll give it to my honey: I would it were ten thousand pounds, I'd give it all to Sally; She is the darling of my heart, And she lives in our alley.

7 My master, and the neighbours all, Make game of me and Sally; And, but for her, I'd better be A slave, and row a galley: But when my seven long years are out, O then I'll marry Sally, O then we'll wed, and then we'll bed, But not in our alley.

DAVID MALLETT.

David Mallett was the son of a small innkeeper in Crieff, Perthshire, where he was born in the year 1700. Crieff, as many of our readers know, is situated on the western side of a hill, and commands a most varied and beautiful prospect, including Drummond Castle, with its solemn shadowy woods, and the Ochils, on the south,--Ochtertyre, one of the loveliest spots in Scotland, and the gorge of Glenturrett, on the north,--and the bold dark hills which surround the romantic village of Comrie, on the west. Crieff is now a place of considerable note, and forms a centre of summer attraction to multitudes; but at the commencement of the eighteenth century it must have been a miserable hamlet. _Malloch_ was originally the name of the poet, and the name is still common in that part of Perthshire. David attended the college of Aberdeen, and became, afterwards, an unsalaried tutor in the family of Mr Home of Dreghorn, near Edinburgh. We find him next in the Duke of Montrose's family, with a salary of L30 per annum. In 1723, he accompanied his pupils to London, and changed his name to Mallett, as more euphonious. Next year, he produced his pretty ballad of 'William and Margaret,' and published it in Aaron Hill's 'Plain Dealer.' This served as an introduction to the literary society of the metropolis, including such names as Young and Pope. In 1733, he disgraced himself by a satire on the greatest man then living, the venerable Richard Bentley. Mallett was one of those mean creatures who always worship a rising, and turn their backs on a setting sun. By his very considerable talents, his management, and his address, he soon rose in the world. He was appointed under-secretary to the Prince of Wales, with a salary of L200 a-year. In conjunction with Thomson, to whom he was really kind, he wrote in 1740, 'The Masque of Alfred,' in honour of the birthday of the Princess Augusta. His first wife, of whom nothing is recorded, having died, he married the daughter of Lord Carlisle's steward, who brought him a fortune of L10,000. Both she and Mallett himself gave themselves out as Deists. This was partly owing to his intimacy with Bolingbroke, to gratify whom, he heaped abuse upon Pope in a preface to 'The Patriot-King,' and was rewarded by Bolingbroke leaving him the whole of his works and MSS. These he afterwards published, and exposed himself to the vengeful sarcasm of Johnson, who said that Bolingbroke was a scoundrel and a coward;--a scoundrel, to charge a blunderbuss against Christianity; and a coward, because he durst not fire it himself, but left a shilling to a beggarly Scotsman to draw the trigger after his death. Mallett ranked himself among the calumniators and, as it proved, murderers of Admiral Byng. He wrote a Life of Lord Bacon, in which, it was said, he forgot that Bacon was a philosopher, and would probably, when he came to write the Life of Marlborough, forget that he was a general. This Life of Bacon is now utterly forgotten. We happened to read it in our early days, and thought it a very contemptible performance. The Duchess of Marlborough left L1000 in her will between Glover and Mallett to write a Life of her husband. Glover threw up his share of the work, and Mallett engaged to perform the whole, to which, besides, he was stimulated by a pension from the second Duke of Marlborough. He got the money, but when he died it was found that he had not written a line of the work. In his latter days he held the lucrative office of Keeper of the Book of Entries for the port of London. He died on the 2lst April 1765.

Mallett is, on the whole, no credit to Scotland. He was a bad, mean, insincere, and unprincipled man, whose success was procured by despicable and dastardly arts. He had doubtless some genius, and his 'Birks of Invermay,' and 'William and Margaret,' shall preserve his name after his clumsy imitation of Thomson, called 'The Excursion,' and his long, rambling 'Amyntor and Theodora;' have been forgotten.

WILLIAM AND MARGARET.