MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. * TRAGIC FRAGMENT. In my early years nothing less would serve me than courting the tragic Muse.-I was, I think, about eighteen or nineteen when I sketched the outlines of a tragedy forsooth; but the bursting of a cloud of family misfortunes, which had for some time threatened us, prevented my farther progress. In those days I never wrote down any thing; so, except a speech or two, the whole has escaped my memory.-The following, which I most distinctly remember, was an exclamation from a great character: great in occasional instances of generosity, and daring at times in villainies. He is supposed to meet with a child of misery, and exclaims to himself "All devil as I am, a damned wretch, "A harden'd, stubborn, unrepenting villain, EE 2 "Still "Still my heart melts at human wretchedness; "And with sincere tho' unavailing sighs, "I view the helpless children of distress. "With tears indignant I behold th' oppressor Rejoicing in the honest man's destruction, "Whose unsubmitting heart was all his crime. "Even you, ye helpless crew, I pity you; Ye, whom the seeming good think sin to pity: "Ye poor, despis'd, abandon'd vagabonds, "Whom vice, as usual, has turn'd o'er to ruin. "O, but for kind, tho' ill-requited friends, "I had been driven forth like you forlorn, "The most detested, worthless wretch among you!" THE VOWELS-A TALE. 'Twas where the birch and sounding thong are ply'd, The noisy domicile of pedant pride; Where ignorance her darkening vapour throws, In all his pedagogic powers elate, His awful chair of state resolves to mount, First First enter'd A, a grave, broad, solemn wight, But ah! deform'd, dishonest to the sight! His twisted head look'd backward on his way, And flagrant from the scourge he grunted, ai! Reluctant, E stalk'd in; with piteous race The justling tears ran down his honest face! That name, that well-worn name, and all his own, Pale he surrenders at the tyrant's throne! The cobweb'd gothic dome resounded, Y! The wailing minstrel of despairing woe; As trembling U stood staring all aghast, The The following sketch seems to be one of a Series intended for a projected work, under the title of "The Poet's Progress." This character was sent as a specimen, accompanied by a letter to Professor Dugald Stewart, in which it is thus noticed. "The fragment beginning, "A little, upright, pert, tart, &c." I have not shewn "to any man living, 'till I now send it to you. It "forms the postulata, the axioms, the definition of a "character, which, if it appear at all, shall be placed "in a variety of lights. This particular part I send you merely as a sample of my hand at portrait sketching.” SKETCH. A little, upright, pert, tart, tripping wight, SCOTS SCOTS PROLOGUE, For Mr. Sutherland's Benefit Night, Dumfries. What needs this din about the town o' Lon'on, Is there no daring bard will rise, and tell 'Gainst mighty England and her guilty lord ; Vain |