There in a cave asleep she lay, Lull'd by the hoarse-resounding main; And straight compress'd her in his vigorous arms. STROPHE. The curlew scream'd, the tritons blew He flourish'd bold and sinewy as his sire; ANTISTROPHE Accomplish'd thus he wing'd his way, And warm with patriot thoughts the aspiring soul. Fair Freedom's temple, where he mark'd her grave. STROPHE. Arabia's scorching sands he cross'd, To freedom's adamantine shrine; And many a Tartar horde forlorn, aghast! He virtue finds, like precious ore, Even now he stands on Calvi's rocky shore, My lips by him chastised to truth, Ne'er paid that homage which the heart denies. ANTISTROPHE. Those sculptured halls my feet shall never tread, Full often wreathed around the miscreant's brow; Where ever-dimpling Falsehood, pert and vain, Presents her cup of stale profession's froth; And pale Disease, with all his bloated train, Torments the sons of gluttony and sloth. STROPHE. In Fortune's car behold that minion ride, ANTISTROPHE. Nature I'll court in her sequester'd haunts, There Study shall with Solitude recline; Ar length escaped from every human eye, That in my mournful thoughts might claim a share, In vain I look around O'er all the well-known ground, Where oft in tender talk We saw the summer sun go down the sky; Nor by yon fountain's side, Along the valley, can she now be found: In all the wide-stretch'd prospects' ample bound No more my mournful eye Can aught of her espy, But the sad sacred earth where her dear relics lie. Sweet babes, who, like the little playful fawns, Were wont to trip along these verdant lawns By your delighted mother's side: Who now your infant steps shall guide ? [* And in a letter to Wharton, he says, "Have you seen Lyttelton's Monody on his wife's death? there are parts of it too stiff and poetical, but others truly tender and elegiac as one would wish."-Works by Mitford, vol. iii. p. 49. Among Smollett's Poems is a Burlesque on Lyttelton's Ode, but a very poor one. It is not a little curious, we may add, that Tom Jones is inscribed to Lyttelton, and that the Gosling Scrag of Peregrine Pickle was the patron of Fielding.] Ah! where is now the hand whose tender care O wretched father! left alone, To weep their dire misfortune and thy own : How shall thy weaken'd mind, oppress'd with woe, And drooping o'er thy Lucy's grave, Perform the duties that you doubly owe! Now she, alas! is gone, [save? From folly and from vice their helpless age to O best of wives! O dearer far to me How can my soul endure the loss of thee? Without my sweet companion can I live? The dear reward of every virtuous toil, For my distracted mind On whom for consolation shall I call? To bear the weight of this oppressive woe. My dear departed love, so much was thine, In every other grief, Are now with your idea sadden'd all : Each favourite author we together read My tortured memory wounds, and speaks of Lucy dead. We were the happiest pair of human kind ; Harmonious concord did our wishes bind : That all this pleasing fabric love had raised Of rare felicity, On which ev'n wanton vice with envy gazed, And every scheme of bliss our hearts had form'd, That all thy full-blown joys at once should fade; Was his most righteous will-and be that will obey'd. PROLOGUE TO CORIOLANUS*. I COME not here your candour to implore He loved his friends with such a warmth of heart [* Thomson's posthumous play, and spoken by Quin. This is among the best prologues in our language: and is excelled only by Pope's before Cato, and Johnson's Drury Lane opening.] ROBERT FERGUSSON. [Born, 1750. Died, 1774.] THIS unfortunate young man, who died in a mad-house at the age of twenty-four, left some pieces of considerable humour and originality in the Scottish dialect. Burns, who took the hint of his Cotter's Saturday Night from Fergusson's Farmer's Ingle, seems to have esteemed him with an exaggerated partiality, which can only be accounted for by his having perused him in his youth. On his first visit to Edinburgh, Burns traced out the grave of Fergusson, and placed a head-stone over it at his own expense, inscribed with verses of appropriate feeling+. Fergusson was born at Edinburgh, where his father held the office of accountant to the British Linen-hall. He was educated partly at the highschool of Edinburgh, and partly at the grammarschool of Dundee, after which a bursary, or exhibition, was obtained for him at the university of St. Andrew's, where he soon distinguished himself as a youth of promising genius. His eccentricity was, unfortunately, of equal growth with his talents; and on one occasion, having taken part in an affray among the students, that broke out at the distribution of the prizes, he was selected as one of the leaders, and expelled from college; but was received back again upon promises of future good behaviour. On leaving college he found himself destitute, by the death of his father; and after a fruitless attempt to obtain support from an uncle at Aberdeen, he returned on foot to his mother's house at Edin burgh, half dead with the fatigue of the journey, which brought on an illness that had nearly proved fatal to his delicate frame. On his recovery he was received as a clerk in the commissary clerk's office, where he did not continue long, but exchanged it for the same situation in the office of the sheriff clerk, and there he remained as long as his health and habits admitted of any application to business. Had he possessed ordinary prudence, he might have lived by the drudgery of copying papers; but the appearance of some of his poems having gained him a flattering notice, he was drawn into dissipated company, and became a wit, a songster, a mimic, and a free liver; and finally, after fits of penitence and religious despondency, went mad. When committed to the receptacle of the insane, a consciousness of his dreadful fate seemed to come over him. At the moment of his entrance, he uttered a wild cry of despair, which was re-echoed by a shout from all the inmates of the dismal mansion, and left an impression of inexpressible horror on the friends who had the task of attending him. His mother, being in extreme poverty, had no other mode of disposing of him. A remittance, which she received a few days after, from a more fortunate son, who was abroad, would have enabled her to support the expense of affording him attendance in her own house; but the aid did not arrive till the poor maniac had expired‡. THE FARMER'S INGLE. Et multo imprimis hilarans convivia Baccho, Ante focum, si frigus erit.-VIRG. ; WHAN gloamin grey out owre the welkin keeks a Whan Batie ca's his owsenb to the byre; Whan Thrasher John, sair dunge, his barn-door steeks 4, An' lusty lasses at the dightin'e tire; [* Burns in one place prefers him to Allan Ramsay; "the excellent Ramsay," he says, "and the still more excellent Fergusson." But he has found no follower. Burns' obligations to Fergusson are certainly greater than to Ramsay, and gratitude for once warped his generally good, sound, and discriminating taste in poetic criticism.] [t No sculptured marble here, nor pompous lay, a Peeps.-b Oxen.-c Fatigued.-d Shuts-e Winnowing. What bangs fu' leal the e'enin's coming cauld, An' gars snaw-tappit Winter freeze in vain ; Gars dowie mortals look baith blithe an' bauld, Nor fley'd wi' a' the poortith o' the plain; Begin, my Muse! and chaunt in hamely strain. Frae the big stack, weel winnow't on the hill, Sods, peats, and heathery turfs the chimley fill, [ O thou my elder brother in misfortune, By far my elder brother in the muses, With tears I pity thy unhappy fate!-BURNS.] What bangs fu' leal-what shuts out most comfortably. - Makes.- Frightened. Thatched with turf.-) Chimney Smoke, |