With the ready trick and fable,
Round we wander all the day;
And at night, in barn or stable
Hug our doxies on the hay.
A fig, &c.

Does the train-attended carriage
Through the country lighter rove?
Does the sober bed of marriage
Witness brighter scenes of love?
A fig, &c.

Life is all a variorum,

We regard not how it goes; Let them cant about decorum, Who have characters to lose, A fig, &c.

Here's to budgets, bags, and wallets; Here's to all the wand'ring train;

Here's our ragged brats and callets! One and all cry out, Amen!

A fig, &c.

3

THE

HENPECK'D HUSBAND.

CURS'D be the man, the poorest wretch in life,
The crouching vassal to the tyrant wife,
Who has no will but by her high permission ;
Who has not sixpence but in her possession;
Who must to her his dear friend's secret tell;
Who dreads a curtain-lecture worse than hell.
Were such the wife had fallen to my part,
I'd break her spirit, or I'd break her heart;
I'd charm her with the magic of a switch,
I'd kiss her maids, and kick the perverse b➡h.

EPITAPH

On a Henpeck'd Country Squire.

As father Adam first was fool'd,
A case that's still too common,
Here lies a man a woman rul'd,

The devil rul'd the woman.

THE

Guidwife of Wauchope-House,

TO

ROBERT BURNS.

February 1787.

My canty, witty, rhyming ploughman,

I haflins doubt, it is nae true man,
That ye between the stilts were bred,
Wi' ploughmen school'd, wi' ploughmen fed.
I doubt it sair, ye've drawn your knowledge
Either frae grammar-school or college.
Guid troth, your saul and body baith,
War better fed, I'd gie my aith,

Than theirs, wha sup sour milk and parritch,

An' hummil thro' the single caritch
Whaever heard the ploughman speak,

Cou'd tell gif Homer was a Greek?
He'd flee as soon upon a cudgel,
As get a single line of Virgil.

An' then sae slee ye crack your jokes
O' Willie Pitt and Charlie Fox.
Our great men a' sae well descrive,
An' how to gar the nation thrive,

And maist wad swear ye dwelt among them, And as ye saw them, sae ye sang them. But be ye ploughman, be ye peer, Ye are a funny blade I swear; And though the cauld I ill can bide, Yet twenty miles and mair I'll ride, O'er moss and muir, and never grumble. Tho' my auld yad should gae a stumble, To crack a winter night wi' thee, And hear thy sangs and sonnets slee. A guid saut herrin an' a cake Wi' sic a chiel a feast wad make. I'd rather scour your rumming yill, Or eat o' cheese and bread my fill, Than wi' dull lairds on turtle dine, And ferlie at their wit and wine. O, gif I kend but whare he baide, I'd send to you a marled plaid;

Twad haud your shoulders warm and braw,

And douse at kirk an' market shaw.
Far south, as weel as north, my lad,
A' honest Scotsmen lo'e the maud,
Right wae that we're sae far frae ither;
Yet proud I am to ca'ye brither. \

Your most obed. E. S.

THE ANSWER.

GUIDWIFE,

I MIND it weel in early date,
Whan I was beardless, young, and blate,
An' first' cou'd thrash the barn,
Or haud a yokin at the pleugh,
And tho' fu' foughten sair eneugh,
Yet unco proud to learn.

When first amang the yellow corn
A man I reckon'd was,

And wi' the lave ilk merry morn,
Cou'd rank my rig and lass;
Still shearing and clearing,
The tither stooked raw;
With claivers and haivers
Wearing the time awa':