Your friends aye love, your faes aye fear ye; For me, shame fa' me,

If niest my heart I dinna wear ye,

While BURNS they ca' me!

The Rights of Woman, AN OCCASIONAL ADDRESS SPOKEN BY MISS FONTENELLE

ON HER BENEFIT NIGHT.

WHILE Europe's eye is fix'd on mighty things,
The fate of empires and the fall of kings;
While quacks of state must each produce his plan,
And even children lisp the Rights of Man;
Amid this mighty fuss, just let me mention,
The Rights of Woman merit some attention.†
First, in the sexes' intermix'd connexion,
One sacred Right of Woman is, protection.
The tender flower that lifts its head, elate,
Helpless, must fall before the blasts of fate,
Sunk on the earth, defac'd its lovely form,
Unless your shelter ward th' impending storm.
Our second Right-but needless, here is caution,
To keep that right inviolate's the fashion,
Each man of sense has it so full before him,
He'd die before he'd wrong it-'tis decorum.-
There was, indeed, in far less polish'd days,
A time, when rough, rude man had naughty ways;
Would swagger, swear, get drunk, kick up a riot,
Nay, even thus invade a lady's quiet!—
Now, thank our stars! these Gothic times are fled;
Now, well-bred men-and ye are all well-bred !
Most justly think (and we are much the gainers)
Such conduct, neither spirit, wit, nor manners.
For Right the third, our last, our best, our dearest,
That right to fluttering female hearts the nearest,
Which even the Rights of Kings in low prostration
Most humbly own ¶-tis dear, dear admiration!
In that blest sphere alone we live and move;
There taste that life of life-immortal love.-

Smiles, glances, sighs, tears, fits, flirtations, airs,
'Gainst such a host what flinty savage dares-
When awful Beauty joins with all her charms,
Who is so rash as rise in rebel arms?

But truce with kings, and truce with constitutions,
With bloody armaments and revolutions !
Let Majesty your first attention summon,
Ah! ça ira! THE MAJESTY OF WOMAN!

The Poet enclosed the above Prologue to Miss Fontenelle, in the following letter:-Madam,

[The lady, for whom these verses were written, was young and pretty, and indulged in levities both of speech and action. The Rights of Man had been advocated by Paine; the Rights of Woman had been urged with earnest vehemence by Mary Wolstonecroft, and nothing was talked of but moral and political regeneration. The Poet, with some skill, availed himself of the ruling sentiment of the time, and made the actress claim protection for the merits of tender helpless woman-protection decorously bestowed, unaccompanied by rudeness. The address was well received by the audience; the ironical allusion to the annual Saturnulia of the Caledonian Hunt was understood, and, with the

In such a bad world as ours, those who add to the scanty sum of our pleasures are positively our benefactors. To you, Madam, on our humble Dumfries boards, I have been more indebted for entertainment than ever I was in prouder theatres. Your charios, as a woman, would insure applause to the most indifferent actress, and your theatrical talents would secure admiration to the plainest figure. This, Madam, of the frivolous or interested; I pay it from the is not the unmeaning or insidious compliment excites my admiration, or her beauties give me same honest impulse that the sublime of Nature

delight.

Will the enclosed lines be of any service to you on your approaching benefit night? If they will, I shall be prouder of my muse than ever. They are nearly extempore: I know they have no great merit; but, though they shall add but little to the entertainment of the evening, they give me the happiness of an opportunity to declare how much I have the honour to be, &c., ROBERT BURNS.

MONODY

ON

A Lady famed for her Caprice. How cold is that bosom which folly once fir'd, How pale is that cheek where the rouge lately glisten'd!

[tir'd, How silent that tongue which the echoes oft How dull is that ear which to flattery so listen'd!

If sorrow and anguish their exit await,

From friendship and dearest affection remov'd; How doubly severer, Eliza, thy fate,

Loves, Graces, and Virtues, I call not on you; Thou diedst unwept as thou livedst unlov'd.

So shy, grave, and distant, ye shed not a tear: But come, all ye offspring of Folly so true,

And flowers let us cull for Eliza's cold bier. We'll search through the garden for each silly flower, [weed;

But chiefly the nettle, so typical, shower, [deed. We'll roam through the forest for each idle For none e'er approach'd her but ru'd the rash We'll sculpture the marble, we'll measure the

Here Vanity strums on her idiot lyre; [lay; There keen Indignation shall dart on her prey, Which spurning Contempt shall redeem from his ire.

exception of a solitary hiss or two, was rapturously applauded by pit and galleries. The public mind was then in a feverish state, and very easily moved: the line

"But truce with kings, and truce with constitutions," was eagerly caught up, and had some sharp disapprobation bestowed on it, till the happy turn of the succeeding lines restored harmony.-CUNNINGHAM.]

† VAR.-Claim some small attention.-MS VAR.-Idle.-MS.

VAR.-Got drunk, would swagger, swear.-MS.

Ironical allusion to the Saturnalia of the Caledonian Hunt.
VAR.-Must fall before.-MS.

THE EPITAPH.

Here lies, now a prey to insulting neglect, What once was a butterfly, gay in life's beam: Want only of wisdom denied her respect, Want only of goodness denied her esteem.*

Epistle from Esopus to María.†

FROM those drear solitudes and frowsy cells,
Where infamy with sad repentance dwells;
Where turnkeys make the jealous mortal fast,
And deal from iron hands the spare repast;
Where truant 'prentices, yet young in sin,
Blush at the curious stranger peeping in;
Where strumpets, relics of the drunken roar,
Resolve to drink, nay, half to whore, no more;
Where tiny thieves, not destin'd yet to swing,
Beat hemp for others, riper for the string:
From these dire scenes my wretched lines I date,
To tell Maria her Esopus' fate.

"Alas! I feel I am no actor here!"
"Tis real hangmen real scourges bear!
Prepare, Maria, for a horrid tale
Will turn thy very rouge to deadly pale;
Will make thy hair, tho' erst from gipsy poll'd,
By barber woven, and by barber sold,
Though twisted smooth with Harry's nicest care,
Like hoary bristles to erect and stare.
The hero of the mimic scene, no more
I start in Hamlet, in Othello roar;

Or haughty chieftain, 'mid the din of arms,
In Highland bonnet woo Malvina's charms;

* [In this sharp lampoon, Burns satirizes a young and beautiful lady: a wit and a poetess-Mrs. Riddel of WoodleePark, now Goldielee. She had incurred his displeasure by smiling upon those "epauletted coxcombs," more than he thought respectful to his own deserts. On one occasion the Poet attempted to salute her, but she punished the insult by withdrawing her friendship for a time. He had his revenge by charging her in these verses with caprice. In the copy of this lampoon which Burns sent to John M'Murdo of Drumlanrig, the name is written Maria; it differs in nothing, save a single word, from the version now given. The lady lived to forgive and forget the bitterness of the Bard. Mrs. Riddel was the lady whom Burns, in his last illness at Brow, asked mournfully if she had any commands for the other world. She possessed a fine library, and was in the habit of lending him books. She was an elegant scholar, and sometimes translated from French or Italian, or Latin verse for his amusement. In the inscription which she wrote for a hermitage in one of the West India Isles, of which she was a native, there are many beautiful lines :-

"Soon as Aurora wakes the dawn,

I press with nimble feet the lawn,
Eager to deck the favourite bower
With every opening bud and flower;
Explore each short and balmy sweet,
To scatter o'er my mossy seat;
And teach around in wreaths to stray
The rich pomegranates pliant spray;
At noon reclin'd in yonder glade,
Panting beneath the tamarind's shade;
Or where the palm-tree's nodding head
Guards from the sun my verdant bed,
I quaff, to slake my thirsty soul,
The cocoa's full nectareous bowl.
At eve beneath some spreading tree,
I read the inspired poesie

Whilst sans culottes stoop up the mountain high,
And steal from me Maria's prying eye,
Blest Highland bonnet! Once my proudest dress,
Now prouder still, Maria's temples press.
I see her wave thy towering plumes afar,
And call each coxcomb to the wordy war;
I see her face the first of Ireland's sons,
And even out-Irish his Hibernian bronze;
The crafty colonel § leaves the tartan'd lines,
For other wars, where he a hero shines;
The hopeful youth, in Scottish senate bred,
Who owns a Bushby's heart without the head;
Comes, 'mid a string of coxcombs, to display
That veni, vidi, vici, is his way;

The shrinking bard adown an alley skulks,
And dreads a meeting worse than Woolwich
hulks:

Though there, his heresies in church and state
Might well award him Muir and Palmer's fate:
Still she undaunted reels and rattles on,
And dares the public like a noontide sun.
(What scandal called Maria's janty stagger
The ricket reeling of a crooked swagger?
Whose spleen e'en worse than Burns' venom
He dips in gall unmix'd his eager pen,-when
And pours his vengeance in the burning line,
Who christen'd thus Maria's lyre divine;
The idiot strum of vanity bemused,
And even th' abuse of poesy abused!
Who call'd her verse a parish workhouse, made
For motley, foundling fancies, stolen or stray'd?)
A workhouse! ha, that sound awakes my woes,
And pillows on the thorn my rack'd repose!
In durance vile here must I wake and weep,
And all my frowsy couch in sorrow steep!

Of Milton, Pope, or Spenser mild,
And Shakspeare, Fancy's brightest child:
To tender Sterne I lend an ear,

Or drop o'er Héloise the tear;
Sometimes with Anna tune the lay,

And doze in song the cheerful day."

Mrs. Riddel deeply lamented the fate of Burns, as appears by the following verses, dated Nithside, 1796; which point to his grave:

"Despairing I rove by this still running stream, While Corin's sad fate is for ever my theme;

For 'twas here we oft wander'd the long summer days, And each vale then harmonious re-echo'd his lays; The woods with delight bow'd their tops to his song, While the streamlet responsive ran murmuring along; The songsters were mute when he tun'd his soft reed, And fays danc'd round on the green chequer'd mead."] [The Esopus of this strange epistle was Williamson the actor, and the Maria to whom it is addressed was Mrs. Riddel, a lady whose memory will be held in grateful remembrance, not only for her having forgiven the Poet for his lampoons, but for her having written a sensible, clear, heartwarm account of him when laid in the grave. Nor did her kindness stop there: she stirred herself actively in promoting the welfare of his widow and children; she maintained a long correspondence with the eminent sculptor, Banks, respecting a proper memorial to the memory of Burns-on which she displayed much good sense and good feeling, and she communicated to Currie many traits of his character and habits of composition.

It must be confessed that neither the subject nor the style of this parody, on the beginning of Pope's version of Eloise's Epistle to Abelard, appear to be particularly suited for a lady's perusal.]

+ Gillespie.

Colonel M'Dowall of Logan.

That straw where many a rogue has lain of yore,
And vermin'd gipsies litter'd heretofore.

Why, Lonsdale, thus, thy wrath on vagrants
Must earth no rascal save thyself endure? [pour,
Must thou alone in guilt immortal swell,
And make a vast monopoly of hell? [worse,
Thou know'st the virtues cannot hate thee
The vices also, must they club their curse?
Or must no tiny sin to others fall,
Because thy guilt's supreme enough for all?
Maria, send me too thy griefs and cares;
In all of thee sure thy Esopus shares.
As thou at all mankind the flag unfurls,
Who on my fair one satire's vengeance hurls?
Who calls thee pert, affected, vain coquette,
A wit in folly, and a fool in wit?

Who says,

that fool alone is not thy due, And quotes thy treacheries to prove it true? Our force united on thy foes we'll turn, And dare the war with all of woman born: For who can write and speak as thou and I? My periods that decyphering defy, [reply. And thy still matchless tongue that conquers all

Poem on Pastoral Poetry.

HAIL, Poesie! thou nymph reserv'd!
In chase o' thee, what crowds hae swerv'd
Frae common sense, or sunk ennerv'd
'Mang heaps o' clavers;
And och owre aft thy joes hae starv'd,
Mid a' thy favours!

Say, lassie, why thy train amang,
While loud the trump's heroic clang,
And sock or buskin skelp alang

To death or marriage;
Scarce ane has tried the shepherd-sang
But wi' miscarriage?

In Homer's craft Jock Milton thrives;
Eschylus' pen Will Shakspeare drives;
Wee Pope, the knurlin, 'till him rives
Horatian fame;
In thy sweet sang, Barbauld, survives
Even Sappho's flame.
But thee, Theocritus, wha matches?
They're no herd's ballats, Maro's catches;
Squire Pope but busks his skinklin' patches
O' heathen tatters:
I pass by hunders, nameless wretches,
That ape their betters.

In this braw age o' wit and lear,
Will nane the Shepherd's whistle mair
Blaw sweetly in its native air

And rural grace;
And wi' the far-fam'd Grecian share
A rival place?

Yes! there is ane; a Scottish callan-
There's ane; come forrit, honest Allan !
Thou need na jouk behint the hallan,

A chiel sae clever ;

The teeth o' time may gnaw Tantallan,
But thou's for ever!

Thou paints auld nature to the nines,
In thy sweet Caledonian lines;
Nae gowden stream thro' myrtles twines,
Where Philomel,

While nightly breezes sweep the vines,
Her griefs will tell!

In gowany glens thy burnie strays,
Where bonnie lasses bleach their claes;
Or trots by hazelly shaws and braes,
Wi' hawthorns grey,
Where blackbirds join the shepherd's lays
At close o' day.

Thy rural loves are nature's sel' ;
Nae bombast spates o' nonsense swell;
Nae snap conceits, but that sweet spell
O' witchin' love;

That charm that can the strongest quell,
The sternest move.

ON HEARING A THRUSH SING IN A MORNING WALK. WEITTEN JAN. 25, 1793, THE BIRTH-DAY

OF THE AUTHOR, R. B., AGED 34.

SING on, sweet Thrush, upon the leafless bough;
Sing on, sweet bird, I listen to thy strain:
See, aged Winter, 'mid his surly reign,
At thy blithe carol clears his furrow'd brow.
So in lone Poverty's dominion drear,

Sits meek Content with light unanxious heart,
Welcomes the rapid moments, bids them part,
Nor asks if they bring aught to hope or fear.
I thank thee, Author of this opening day!

Thou whose bright sun now gilds the orient skies!

Riches denied, thy boon was purer joys, What wealth could never give nor take away! Yet come, thou child of poverty and care; The mite high Heav'n bestow'd, that mite with thee I'll share.*

SONNET,

ON

The Death of Robert Riddel, Esq.
OF GLENRIDdel.†
APRIL, 1794.

No more, ye warblers of the wood—no more!
Nor pour your descant, grating, on my soul:
Thou young-eyed Spring, gay in thy verdant
stole,

More welcome were to me grim Winter's wildest

roar.

How can ye charm, ye flow'rs, with all your dyes?

Ye blow upon the sod that wraps my friend! How can I to the tuneful strain attend? That strain flows round th' untimely tomb where Riddel lies!

Yes, pour, ye warblers, pour the notes of woe! And soothe the Virtues weeping on his bier: The Man of Worth, who has not left his peer, Is in his "narrow house" for ever darkly low. Thee, Spring, again with joy shall others greet, Me, mem'ry of my loss will only meet.

IMPROMPTU

On Mrs. Riddel's Birthday,

NOVEMBER 4TH, 1793.

OLD Winter, with his frosty beard,
Thus once to Jove his prayer preferr'd,—
"What have I done, of all the year,
To bear this hated doom severe ?
My cheerless suns no pleasure know;
Night's horrid car drags, dreary, slow;

["These lines were written opposite the College of Lincluden, close by the side of the Nith-the favourite winter, as well as summer, resort of the Poet. In the summer he loved it, for then the ground was covered with daisies and wild hyacinths the odour of the honey-suckle came from the thorn, and the song of the birds from the romantic groves, which, as with a garland, enclose the ruins of Lincluden; and in the winter he loved to look on the mingling waters of the Cluden and Nith, see them swelling from bank to brae, bearing down trees they had rooted out, or sheets of ice which rains and thaws had loosened.

"That Burns loved Winter, with her angry howl,' evidence may be almost every where found in his earlier poems. There was something of the farmer as well as the moralizing poet in this; labour was then almost at a stand: the plough was frozen up, the corn was stacked, and, probably, thrashed and sold, and, till spring came and pushed the plough-share into the earth, the poet-farmer might indulge in his musings by leafless woods, through which the wind was howling, or by river-banks when the streams were red and raving; or give his fancy an airing during an interval of wind and rain, when a thrush

'Proud o' the height o' some bit half-lang tree,' came forth like himself to sing from "fulness of heart."" ALLAN CUNNINGHAM.]

On the original MS. of this Sonnet is written "To Mr. Syme, from the Author,"

THEE, Caledonia, thy wild heaths among,
Thee, famed for martial deed and sacred song,
To thee I turn with swimming eyes;
Where is that soul of Freedom fled?
Immingled with the mighty dead!

Beneath the hallow'd turf where Wallace lies!
Hear it not, Wallace, in thy bed of death!
Ye babbling winds, in silence sweep;
Disturb not ye the hero's sleep,
Nor give the coward secret breath.
Is this the power in Freedom's war,
That wont to bid the battle rage?
Behold that eye which shot immortal hate,
Crushing the despot's proudest bearing,
That arm which, nerv'd with thundering fate,
·Brav'd usurpation's boldest daring!
One quench'd in darkness, like the sinking
star,
[age.
And one the palsied arm of tottering, powerless

+ ["Robert Riddel, Esq. of Friars-Carse, a very worthy character, and one to whom Burns thought himself under many obligations. It is a curious circumstance that the two concluding lines express a sentiment exactly similar to one of the most beautiful passages in the "Pastor Fido," from the 7th to the 10th line of the Monologue, at the opening of the 3d Act: yet Burns had no acquaintance with Guarini's work. Feeling dictates to genius in all ages, and all countries, and her language must be often the same.

"Riddel was one of those gentlemen who love to live on their own property, and unite the pursuits of literature with the improvement of their estates. He did more than this; he desired to augment the happiness and better the condition of his husbandmen and cotters, and also to spread knowledge among them. It is true that his dependants did not always appreciate his motives, or sympathize in his taste; he experienced to the full the vulgar prejudice entertained by the peasantry against all who indulge in antiquarian researches; the queer stones and hog-troughs' collected by the Laird of Friar's-Carse were matters of merriment to his neighbours."-CUNNINGHAM.]

[Compliments, such as these lines bestow, enabled Mrs. Riddel, to whom they were addressed, to endure with better grace the sarcastic verses "To a Lady fam'd for her Caprice." It is said that she refrained from showing in any way the pain which the Poet's ungracious lampoons inflicted: she knew his nature, and that the hour of reconciliation was nigh.]

a pencil on a blank leaf prefixed to an edition of Collins' Poems. The first part of the subject is wholly defaced, and the Poet does not seem to have written more than is here given. It is evidently a fragment of the drama of BRUCE, suggested by Lord Buchan, on the model of the Masque of Alfred.' This had ever been a favourite theme of Burns' muse, and he had transmitted to his lordship the epic song of 'Bruce to his troops at Bannockburn,' earnest of his having commenced the undertaking. From so noble a specimen what might not have been expected! especially when we reflect that the subject is not only in itself a grand one, but perfectly in unison with the Poet's character and feelings :

as

His royal visage seam'd with many a scar,
That Caledonian rear'd his martial form,
Who led the tyrant-quelling war,
Where Bannockburn's ensanguin'd flood
Swell'd with mingling hostile blood,
Soon Edward's myriads struck with deep dismay,
And Scotia's troop of brothers win their way.
(0, glorious deed to bay a tyrant's band!
O, heavenly joy to free our native land!)
While high their mighty chief pour'd on the
doubling storm.

Tragie Fragment.*

ALL devil as I am, a damned wretch,

A harden'd, stubborn, unrepenting villain,
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.
—Oh, but for kind, tho' ill-requited, friends,
I had been driven forth like you forlorn,
The most detested, worthless wretch among you!
O injur'd God! thy goodness has endow'd me
With talents passing most of my compeers,
Which I in just proportion have abus'd
As far surpassing other common villains,
As Thou in natural parts hadst given me more.

The Poet has thus introduced the above lines in one of his manuscripts, printed in Cromek's Reliques :

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 above, which I most distinctly remember, was an exclamation from a great character-great in occasional instances of generosity, and daring at times in villanies. He

VERSES

To Miss Graham, of Fintrap.

WITH A PRESENT OF SONGS.†

HERE, where the Scottish muse immortal lives,
In sacred strains and tunefult numbers join'd,
Accept the gift ;-tho' humble he who gives,
Rich is the tribute of the grateful mind.
So may no ruffian feeling in thy breast,
Discordant jar thy bosom-chords among!
But Peace attune thy gentle soul to rest,
Or Love, ecstatic, wake his seraph song!
Or Pity's notes, in luxury of tears,

As modest Want the tale of woe § reveals; While conscious Virtue all the strain endears, And heaven-born Piety her sanction seals. ||

THOUGH FICKLE FORTUNE HAS DECEIVED ME

Though fickle fortune has deceived me,

She promis'd fair and perform'd but ill ; Of mistress, friends, and wealth bereav'd me, Yet I bear a heart shall support me still.

I'll act with prudence as far's I'm able,
But, if success I must never find,
Then come misfortune, I bid thee welcome,
I'll meet thee with an undaunted mind.-

[The above was written extempore, under the pressure of a heavy train of misfortunes, which iudeed, threatened to undo me altogether. It was just at the close of that dreadful period mentioned already (in common place-hook, March 1784), and, though the weather has brightened up a little with me since, yet there has always been a tempest brewing round me in the grim sky of futurity, which I pretty plainly see will, some time or other, perhaps ere long, overwhelm me, and drive me into some doleful dell, to pine in solitary, squalid wretchedness.-BURNS.]

The Vowels.

A TALE.

"Twas where the birch and sounding thong are The noisy domicile of pedant pride; [ply'd, Where ignorance her dark'ning vapour throws, And cruelty directs the thick'ning blows; Upon a time, Sir Abece the great, In all his pedagogic powers elate,

is supposed to meet with a child of misery, and exclaims to
himself, as in the words of the fragment.-BUENS.
† VAR.-His Poems.-MS.

VAR.-In strains divine and sacred.-MS.
VAR.-Secret tale.-MS.

These verses were written by the Poet on the blank side of the title page of a copy of Thomson's Select Scottish Songs, and the volume sent as a present to the daughter of "a much honoured and much valued friend, Mr. Graham of Fintray," "It were to have been wished," says Currie, "that instead of ruffian feeling,' the bard had used a less rugged epithet -e. g. ruder."