ADDRESS, SPOKEN BY MISS FONTENELLE,
ON HER BENEFIT-NIGHT, DECEMBER 4, 1793, AT THE
THEATRE, DUMFRIES.
STILL anxious to secure your partial favour,
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 your 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 desolating 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, Sirs, '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, 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 neck-
Or, where the beetling 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.
ON SEEING MISS FONTENELLE
IN A FAVOURITE CHARACTER.
SWEET naïveté of feature,
Simple, wild, enchanting elf,
Not to thee, but thanks to Nature,
Thou art acting but thyself.
Wert thou awkward, stiff, affected,
Spurning nature, torturing art;
Loves and graces all rejected,
Then indeed thou'dst act a part.
ODE, SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF
MRS. OSWALD.
DWELLER in yon dungeon dark,
Hangman of creation! mark
Who in widow-weeds appears,
Laden with unhonour'd years,
Noosing with care a bursting purse,
Baited with many a deadly curse!
View the wither'd beldam's face-
Can thy keen inspection trace
Aught of humanity's sweet melting grace?
Note that eye, 'tis rheum o'erflows,
Pity's flood there never rose.
See those hands, ne'er stretch'd to save,
Hands that took-but never gave.
Keeper of Mammon's iron chest,
Lo, there she goes, unpitied and unblest;
She goes, but not to realms of everlasting rest!
Plunderer of armies, lift thine eyes
(Awhile forbear, ye torturing fiends!) —
Seest thou whose step unwilling hither bends?
No fallen angel, hurl'd from upper skies;
"Tis thy trusty quondam mate,
Doom'd to share thy fiery fate,
She, tardy, hell-ward plies.
And are they of no more avail,
Ten thousand glitt'ring pounds a year?
In other worlds can Mammon fail,
Omnipotent as he is here?
O, bitter mock'ry of the pompous bier,
While down the wretched vital part is driv'n!
The cave-lodg'd beggar, with a conscience clear,
Expires in rags, unknown, and goes to Heav'n.
FOR Lords or Kings I dinna mourn,
E'en let them die-for that they're born :
But oh! prodigious to reflec' !
A Towmont, Sirs, is gane to wreck!
O Eighty-eight, in thy sma' space
What dire events hae taken place!
Of what enjoyments thou hast reft us!
In what a pickle thou hast left us!
The Spanish empire's tint a head,
And my auld teethless Bawtie's dead!
The tulzie's sair 'tween Pitt an' Fox,
An' our gudewife's wee birdy cocks;
The tane is game, a bludie devil,
But to the hen-birds unco civil;
The tither's something dour o' treadin,
But better stuff ne'er claw'd a midden.
Ye ministers, come mount the poupit,
An' cry till ye be hearse an' roupet,
For Eighty-eight he wish'd you weel,
And gied you a' baith gear an' meal;
E'en mony a plack, and mony a peck,
Ye ken yoursels, for little feck.
Ye bonnie lasses, dight your een,
For some o' you hae tint a frien';
In Eighty-eight, ye ken, was ta'en
What ye'll ne'er hae to gie again.
Observe the very nowt an' sheep,
How dowf and daviely they creep;
Nay, even the yirth itsel does cry,
For Embrugh wells are grutten dry.
O Eighty-nine, thou's but a bairn,
An' no owre auld, I hope, to learn!
Thou beardless boy, I pray tak care,
Thou now hast got thy daddie's chair,
Nae hand-cuff'd, mizzl'd, hap-shackl'd Regent,
But, like himsel, a full free agent.
Be sure ye follow out the plan
Nae waur than he did, honest man:
As muckle better as you can.
ON SEEING A WOUNDED HARE LIMP BY ME,
WHICH A FELLOW HAD JUST SHOT AT.
INHUMAN man! curse on thy barb'rous art,
And blasted be thy murder-aiming eye;
May never pity soothe thee with a sigh,
Nor ever pleasure glad thy cruel heart!
Go, live, poor wanderer of the wood and field,
The bitter little that of life remains;
No more the thickening brakes and verdant plains
To thee shall home, or food, or pastime yield.
Seek, mangled wretch, some place of wonted rest,
No more of rest, but now thy dying bed!
The sheltering rushes whistling o'er thy head,
The cold earth with thy bloody bosom prest.
Perhaps a mother's anguish adds its woe;
The playful pair crowd fondly by thy side: Ah, helpless nurslings! who will now provide That life a mother only can bestow?
Oft as by winding Nith, I, musing, wait
The sober eve, or hail the cheerful dawn,
I'll miss thee sporting o'er the dewy lawn,
And curse the ruffian's aim, and mourn thy hapless fate.
INSCRIBED TO THE RIGHT HON. C. J.
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!
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