What Whig but melts for good Sir James?
Dear to his country by the names

Friend, patron, benefactor!
Not Pulteney's wealth can Pulteney save!
And Hopeton falls, the generous brave!

And Stewart, bold as Hector!

Thou, Pitt, shalt rue this overthrow;
And Thurlow growl a curse of woe;

And Melville melt in wailing!

How Fox and Sheridan rejoice!
And Burke shall sing, 'O Prince, arise,

Thy power is all-prevailing!'

For your poor friend, the Bard, afar
He only hears and sees the war,

A cool spectator purely!

So, when the storm the forest rends,
The robin in the hedge descends,

And sober chirps securely.

Now for my friends' and brethren's sakes,
And for my dear-loved Land o' Cakes,
I pray with holy fire—

Lord send a rough-shod troop o' hell

Owre a' wad Scotland buy or sell,

To grind them in the mire!

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EPISTLE TO ROBERT GRAHAM, ESQ.,

OF FINTRY.

LATE crippl'd of an arm, and now a leg,
About to beg a pass for leave to beg;
Dull, listless, teas'd, dejected, and depress'd
(Nature is adverse to a cripple's rest):

Will generous Graham list to his Poet's wail?
(It soothes poor Misery, heark'ning to her tale,)

And hear him curse the light he first survey'd,
And doubly curse the luckless rhyming trade?
Thou, Nature, partial Nature, I arraign;
Of thy caprice maternal I complain.

The lion and the bull thy care have found,
One shakes the forests, and one spurns the ground:
Thou giv'st the ass his hide, the snail his shell,
Th' envenom'd wasp, victorious, guards his cell.
Thy minions, kings defend, control, devour,
In all th' omnipotence of rule and power.
Foxes and statesmen, subtile wiles ensure;
The cit and polecat stink, and are secure.
Toads with their poison, doctors with their drug,
The priest and hedgehog in their robes, are snug.
Ev'n silly woman has her warlike arts,
Her tongue and eyes, her dreaded spear and darts.
But Oh! thou bitter step-mother and hard,
To thy poor, fenceless, naked child-the Bard!
A thing unteachable in world's skill,
And half an idiot too, more helpless still.
No heels to bear him from the op'ning dun;
No claws to dig, his hated sight to shun;
No horns, but those by luckless Hymen worn,
And those, alas! not Amalthea's horn:
No nerves olfact'ry, Mammon's trusty cur,
Clad in rich Dulness' comfortable fur,
In naked feeling, and in aching pride,
He bears th' unbroken blast from ev'ry side:
Vampyre booksellers drain him to the heart,
And scorpion critics cureless venom dart.

Critics-appall'd I venture on the name,
Those cut-throat bandits in the paths of fame,
Bloody dissectors, worse than ten Monroes;
He hacks to teach, they mangle to expose.

His heart by causeless, wanton malice wrung,
By blockheads' daring into madness stung;
His well-won bays, than life itself more dear,
By miscreants torn, who ne'er one sprig must wear:
Foil'd, bleeding, tortur'd in th' unequal strife,
The hapless Poet flounders on thro' life.
Till fled each hope that once his bosom fired,
And fled each Muse that glorious once inspired,

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Low sunk in squalid, unprotected age,

Dead even resentment for his injur'd page,

He heeds or feels no more the ruthless critic's rage!
So, by some hedge, the generous steed deceas'd,
For half-starv'd snarling curs a dainty feast;
By toil and famine wore to skin and bone,
Lies, senseless of each tugging bitch's son.
O Dulness! portion of the truly blest!
Calm shelter'd haven of eternal rest!
Thy sons ne'er madden at the fierce extremes
Of Fortune's polar frost, or torrid beams.
If mantling high she fills the golden cup,
With sober selfish ease they sip it up;
Conscious the bounteous meed they well deserve,
They only wonder 'some folks' do not starve.
The grave sage hern thus easy picks his frog,
And thinks the mallard a sad worthless dog.
When disppointment snaps the clue of hope,
And thro' disastrous night they darkling grope,
With deaf endurance sluggishly they bear,
And just conclude that fools are fortune's care.'
So heavy, passive to the tempest's shocks,
Strong on the sign-post stands the stupid ox.
Not so the idle Muses' mad-cap train,

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Not such the workings of their moon-struck brain;
In equanimity they never dwell,

By turns in soaring heav'n, or vaulted hell.
I dread thee, Fate, relentless and severe,
With all a poet's, husband's, father's fear!
Already one strong-hold of hope is lost,
Glencairn, the truly noble, lies in dust;
(Fled, like the sun eclips'd as noon appears,
And left us darkling in a world of tears :)
Oh hear my ardent, grateful, selfish pray'r!
Fintry, my other stay, long bless and spare!
Thro a long life his hopes and wishes crown,
And bright in cloudless skies his sun go down!
May bliss domestic smoothe his private path;
Give energy to life; and soothe his latest breath,
With many a filial tear circling the bed of death!

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TO TERRAUGHTY, ON HIS BIRTHDAY.

HEALTH to the Maxwells' veteran Chief!
Health, aye unsour'd by care or grief:
Inspired, I turned Fate's sibyl leaf

This natal morn,

I see thy life is stuff o' prief,

Scarce quite half worn.

This day thou metes threescore eleven, And I can tell that bounteous Heaven (The second-sight, ye ken, is given

To ilka poet)

On thee a tack o' seven times seven
Will yet bestow it.

If envious buckies view wi' sorrow
Thy lengthen'd days on this blest morrow,
May desolation's lang-teeth'd harrow,

Nine miles an hour,

Rake them, like Sodom and Gomorrah,
In brunstane stoure.

But for thy friends, and they are mony,
Baith honest men and lassies bonnie,—
May couthie fortune, kind and cannie,

In social glee,

Wi' mornings blithe and e'enings funny
Bless them and thee!

Fareweel, auld birkie! Lord be near ye,
And then the Deil he daurna steer ye:
Your friends aye love, your faes aye fear ye;
For me, shame fa' me,

If neist my heart I dinna wear ye

While BURNS they ca' me.

EPISTLE FROM ESOPUS TO MARIA.

FROM those drear solitudes and frowsy cells,
Where infamy with sad repentance dwells;
Where turnkeys make the jealous portal fast,
And deal from iron hands the spare repast;
Where truant 'prentices, yet young in sin,
Blush at the curious stranger peeping in;
Where strumpets, relics of the drunken roar,
Resolve to drink, nay, half to whore, no more;
Where tiny thieves not destin'd yet to swing,
Beat hemp for others, riper for the string:
From these dire scenes my wretched lines I date,
To tell Maria her Esopus' fate.

'Alas! I feel I am no actor here!'

"Tis real hangmen real scourges bear! Prepare, Maria, for a horrid tale

Will turn thy very rouge to deadly pale;

Will make thy hair, tho' erst from gipsy poll'd,
By barber woven, and by barber sold,

Though twisted smooth with Harry's nicest care,
Like hoary bristles to erect and stare.

The hero of the mimic scene, no more

I start in Hamlet, in Othello roar;

Or, haughty Chieftain, 'mid the din of arms,
In Highland bonnet woo Malvina's charms;

While sans-culottes stoop up the mountain high,
And steal from me Maria's prying eye.

Bless'd Highland bonnet! once my proudest dress,
Now prouder still, Maria's temples press.
I see her wave thy towering plumes afar,
And call each coxcomb to the wordy war.
I see her face the first of Ireland's sons,
And even out-Irish his Hibernian bronze;
The crafty colonel leaves the tartan'd lines,
For other wars, where he a hero shines:
The hopeful youth, in Scottish senate bred,
Who owns a Bushby's heart without the head,

IO

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