more. One tome miscellaneous they 'll add to I've seen the day they would been scaured your store, Wi' the Tolbooth or wi' the Guard, Resolving next year to print four volumes Or maybe wud hae some regard For Jamie Laing Four volumes more, my friends, four The Water-hole was right weel wared volumes more; On sic a gang. But whar 's the gude Tolbooth gane now? blue ? Whar 's Jamie Laing ? and whar's John Doo ? From Chapter iv. of Quentin Durward, pub And whar's the Weigh-house ? lished in 1823. Deil hae't I see but what is new, Except the Playhouse ! Yoursells are changed frae head to heel, The orange flower perfumes the bower, There 's some that gar the causeway The breeze is on the sea. reel The lark his lay who thrilled all day With clashing hufe and rattling wheel, Sits hushed his partner nigh; And horses canterin', Breeze, bird, and hower confess the hour, Wha's fathers' daundered hame as weel But where is County Guy ? Wi' lass and lantern. The village maid steals through the shade, Mysell being in the public line, Her shepherd's suit to hear; I look for howfs I kenned lang syne, To beauty shy by lattice high, Whar gentles used to drink gude wine Sings high-born Cavalier. And eat cheap dinners; The star of Love, all stars above, But deil a soul gangs there to dine Of saints or sinners! Fortune's and Hunter's gane, alas! And now if folk would splice a brace Or crack a bottle, They gang to a new-fangled place They ca' a Hottle. The deevil hottle them for Meg ! They are sae greedy and sae gleg, the publication of the novel. Lockhart re That if ye’re served but wi' an eggmarks of thc epilogue, though it caused great And that's puir picking merriment at the time in Edinburgh, the allusions are so exclusively local and temporary, In comes a chiel and makes a leg, that I fear no commentary could ever make it And charges chicken! intelligible elsewhere.' • And wha may ye be,' gin ye speer, [Enter MEG DODDS, encircled by a crowd of unruly boys, whom a town's-officer is driving off.] • That brings your auld - warld claver: here ?' THAT's right, friend drive the gaitlings Troth, if there 's onybody near back, That kens the roads, And lend yon muckle ane a whack; I'll haud ye Burgundy to beer He kens Meg Dodds. And, since I see you 're in a hurry, But when, wbile Scottish hearts and blood Your patience I'll nae langer worry, But be sae crouse As speak a word for ane Will Murray That keeps this house. you boast, Shall sympathy with Mary's woes be lost? O’er Mary's memory the learned quarrel, By Mary's grave the poet plants his laurel Time's echo, old tradition, makes het name The constant burden of his faltering theme; In each old ball his gray-haired heralds tell Of Mary's picture and of Mary's cell, And show - my fingers tingle at the thought The loads of tapestry which that poor queen wrought. In vain did fate bestow a double dower Of every ill that waits on rank and power, Of every ill on beauty that attends False ministers, false lovers, and false friends. Spite of three wedlocks so completely curst, They rose in ill from bad to worse and worst, In spite of errors - I dare not say more, For Duncan Targe lays hand on his clay Weel, sirs, gude'en, and have a care The bairns mak fun o'Meg nae mair; For gin they do, she tells you fair And without failzie, As sure as ever ye sit there, She 'll tell the Bailie. EPILOGUE more. When Scott was collecting his stray poems for a definitive edition, he wrote thus to Constable, October 22, 1824: 'I recovered the above with some difficulty. I believe it was never spoken, but written for some play, afterwards withdrawn, in which Mrs. H. Siddons was to have spoken it in the character of Queen Mary:' THE sages VERSES FROM REDGAUNTLET Published in 1824. - for authority, pray, look Seneca's morals or the copy-bookThe sages to disparage woman's power, Say beauty is a fair but fading flower; – I cannot tell — I've small philosophy Yet if it fades it does not surely die, But, like the violet, when decayed in bloom, Survives through many a year in rich per fame. Witness our theme to-night; two ages gone, A third wanes fast, since Mary filled the throne. Brief was her bloom with scarce one sunny day Twixt Pinkie's field and fatal Fotherin gay: I A CATCH OF COWLEY'S ALTERED From Letter x. For all our men were very very merry, And all our men were drinking: There were two men of mine, Three men of thine, And three that belonged to old Sir Thom o' Lyne. As they went to the ferry, they were very very merry, And all our men were drinking. Jack looked at the sun, and cried, Fire, fire, fire ! Tom stabled his keffel in Birkendale mire; Jem started a calf, and hallooed for a stag; Will mounted a gate-post instead of his nag: For all our men were very very merry, And all our men were drinking; There were two men of mine, Three of thine, And three that belonged to old Sir Thom o' Lyne. As they went to the ferry, they were very very merry, sort of acknowledgment he should offer; but at length, resolving that it would probably be most agreeable to the young foreigner to be paid in professional coin, if in any, he stepped aside for a few minutes, and, on returning, presented him with this epigram. The reader need hardly be reminded, that Sir Walter Scott held the office of Sheriff of the county of Selkirk.' - Scotch Newspaper, 1830. OF yore, in old England, it was not thought good To carry two visages under one hood; What should folk say to you? who have faces such plenty, That from under one hood, you last night showed us twenty ! Stand forth, arch-deceiver, and tell us in truth, Are you handsome or ugly, in age or in youth? Man, woman, or child a dog or mouse ? Or are you, at once, each live thing in the house? Each live thing, did I ask? each dead im plement, too, A work-shop in your person, -saw, chisel, and screw ! Above all, are you one individual ? I know You must be at least Alexandre and Co. But I think you ’re a troop, an assemblage, a mob, And that I, as the Sheriff, should take up a II • AS LORDS THEIR LABORERS? HIRE DE LAY' From Chapter is. As lords their laborers' hire delay, Fate quits our toil with hopes to come, Which, if far short of present pay, Still owns a debt and names a sum. the job; Quit not the pledge, frail sufferer, then, Although a distant date be given; Despair is treason towards man, And blasphemy to Heaven. And instead of rehearsing your wonders in verse, Must read you the Riot-Act, and bid you disperse. graved mis ; The monument kere mentioned,' says Lock Would become better far such a dignified hart, was a leaping-on-stone to which the skill station. of Scott's master-mason had given the shape of Second, how, in God's name, would my Maida recumbent. It had stood by the gate of bacon be saved By not having writ what I clearly en- On the contrary, I, on the whole, think it better pride, To be whipped as the thief, than his lousy the Latin verses as Sir Walter's. It happened resetter. that Lockhart's inscription had a false quan Thirdly, don't you perceive that I don't tity januam, but Ballantyne not only did not care a boddle discover this; his memory played him false, Although fifty false metres were flung at and in repeating the inscription he put jaces for dormis. At once the newspaper para my noddle, For my back is as broad and as hard as graphist raised a laugh over ‘Sir Walter's Benlomon's, And I treat as I please both the Greeks and much pother was made over the matter. and the Romans; The verses which follow savor, as Lockhart Whereas the said heathens might rather says, of Scott's recent overhauling of Swift look serious and Sheridan's doggrel epistles.' At a kick on their drum from the scribe of Valerius. DEAR JOAN, - I some time ago wrote to And, fourthly and lastly, it is my good inform his pleasure Fat worship of jaces, misprinted for dor To remain the sole source of that murder ous measure. But that several Southrons assured me So, stet pro ratione voluntas, be tractile, the januam Invade not, I say, my own dear little Was a twitch to both ears of Ass Priscian's dactyl; cranium. If you do, you 'll occasion a breach in our You perhaps may observe that one Lionel intercourse. Berguer, To-morrow will see me in town for the In defence of our blunder appears a stout winter-course, arguer. But not at your door, at the usual hour, But at length I have settled, I hope, all sir, these clatters, My own pye-house daughter's good prog By a rowt in the papers, fine place for such to devour, sir. matters. Ergo, peace ! - on your duty your squeamI have therefore to make it for once my ishness throttle, command, sir, And we 'll soothe Priscian's spleen with a That my gudeson shall leave the whole canny third bottle. thing in iny hand, sir, A fig for all dactyls, a fig for all spondees, And by no means accomplish what James A fig for all dunces and Dominie Grundys; says you threaten, A fig for dry thrapples, south, north, east, Some banter in Blackwood to claim your and west, sir, dog-Latin. Speats and raxes ere five for a famishing I have various reasons of weight, on my guest, sir; word, sir, And as Fatsman and I have some topics for For pronouncing a step of this sort were haver, he 'll absurd, sir. Be invited, I hope, to meet me and Dame Upon whom, to say nothing of Oury and Janua. Anne, you a From Chapter xix. SOLDIkre, wake ! the day is peeping, Honor ne'er was won in sleeping; Never when the sunbeams still Lay unreflected on the hill: 'T is when they are glinted back From axe and armor, spear and jack, That they promise future story Many a page of deathless glory. Shields that are the foeman's terror, Ever are the morning's mirror. III Arm and up! the morning beam 'I ASKED OF MY YARD' From Chapter xxxi. 'A lay, of which we can offer only a few fragments, literally translated from the ancient language in which they were chanted, premising that they are in that excursive symbolical style of poetry, which Taliessin, Llewarch Hen, and other bards, had derived perhaps from the time of the Druids.' I ASKED of my harp, “Who hath injured thy chords ?' And she replied, The crooked finger, which I mocked in my tune.' a blade of steel abideth: Kindness fadeth away, but vengeance en dureth. Poor hire repays the rustic's pain; The sweet taste of mead passeth from the lips, But they are long corroded by the juice of wormwood; The lamb is brought to the shambles, but the wolf rangeth the mountain; Kindness fadeth away, but vengeance en dureth. II VOMAN'S FAITH I asked the red-hot iron, when it glim mered on the anvil, Wherefore glowest thou longer than the fire-brand ?' "I was born in the dark mine, and the brand in the pleasant greenwood.' Kindness fadeth away, but vengeance endureth. From Chapter xx. WOMAN's faith, and woman's trust: Write the characters in dust, Stamp them on the running stream, Print them on the moon's pale beam, And each evanescent letter Shall be clearer, firmer, better, I asked the green oak of the assembly, wherefore its boughs were dry and seared like the horns of the stag? |
