Let Majesty your first attention summon,
Ah ca Ira! the Majesty of Woman!

ADDRESS,

SPOKEN BY MISS FONTENELLE, ON HER BENEfit-night, decEMBER 4, 1795,

AT THE THEATRE, DUMFRIES.

STILL anxious to secure your partial favor,
And not less anxious sure this night than ever,
A Prologue, Epilogue, or some such matter,
"Twould vamp my bill, said I, if nothing better;
So, sought a Poet, roosted near the skies,
Told him I came to feast my curious eyes;
Said, nothing like his works was ever printed;
And last my Prologue-business slily hinted.
"Ma'am, let me tell you," quoth my man of rhymes,
"I know you bent-these are no laughing times:
Can you but Miss, I own I have my fears,
Dissolve in pause-and sentimental tears-
With laden sighs, and solemn-rounded sentence,
Rouse from his sluggish slumbers, fell Repentance;
Paint Vengeance as he takes his horrid stand,
Waving on high the dessolating brand,

Calling the storms to bear him o'er a guilty land!"

I could no more- askance the creature eyeing, D'ye think, said I, this face was made for crying? I'll laugh, that's poz-nay more, the world shall know it;

And so, your servant! gloomy Master poet!

Firm as my creed, Sir, 'tis my fix'd belief,
That Misery's another word for Grief;
I also think-so may I be a bride!

That so much laughter's so much life enjoy'd.

Thou man of crazy care and ceaseless sigh,
Still under bleak Misfortune's blasting eye;
Doom'd to that sorest task of man alive-
To make three guineas do the work of five:
Laugh in misfortune's face-the beldam witch!
Say, you'll be merry, tho' you can't be rich.

Thou other man of care, the wretch in love, Who long with jiltish arts and airs hast strove: Who, as the boughs all temptingly project, Measur'st in desperate thought-a rope-thy neckOr, where the bleeting cliff o'erhangs the deep, Peerest to meditate the healing leap;

Would'st thou be cur'd, thou silly, moping elf?
Laugh at her follies-laugh e'en at thyself:
Learn to despise those frowns now so terrific,
And love a kinder-that's your grand specific.

To sum up all, be merry, I advise ;
And as we're merry, may we still be wise.

FRAGMENT,

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 honor my story.

Thou first of our orators, first of our wits;

Yet whose parts and acquirements seem mere lucky bits;

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 L-d, what is man! for simple as he looks,
Do but try to develope 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 labors, That, like th' old Hebrew walking-switch, eats up its neighbors:

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.

VOL. IL-L

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 that 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.

INSCRIPTION

FOR AN ALTAR TO INDEPENDENCE,

AT KERROUGHTRY, THE SEAT OF MR. HERON,

WRITTEN IN SUMMER, 1795.

Thou of an independent mind,
With soul resolv'd, with soul resign'd;
Prepar'd Power's proudest frown to brave,
Who wilt not be, nor have a slave;

Virtue alone who dost revere,

Thy own reproach alone dost fear,
Approach this shrine, and worship here.

Edina! Scotia's darling seat!

All hail thy palaces and tow'rs, Where once beneath a monarch's feet Sat legislation's sov'reign pow'rs! From marking wildly-scatter'd flow'rs, As on the banks of Ayr I stray'd, And singing, lone, the ing'ring hours, I shelter in thy honor'd shade.

II.

Here wealth still swells the golden tide,
As busy trade his labours plies;
There architecture's noble pride
Bids elegance and splendour rise;
Here Justice, from her native skies,
High wields her balance and her rod;
There learning with his eagle eyes,
Seeks science in her coy abode.

III.

Thy sons, Edina, social, kind
With open arms the stranger hail;
Their views enlarg'd, their lib'ral mind,
Above the narrow, rural vale;
Attentive still to sorrow's wail,

Or modest merit's silent claim;
And never may their sources fail!
And never envy blot their name!