Ah, gentle dames! it gars me greet,
FROM heaven I fall, though from earth I be-To think how monie counsels sweet,
No lady alive can shew such a skin.
I'm bright as an angel, and light as a feather,
But heavy and dark when you squeeze me to-Tam had got planted unco right,
Though candor and truth in my aspect I bear,
Yet many poor creatures I help to ensnare.
Though so much of heaven appears in my
make,
The foulest impressions I easily take.
My parent and I produce one another;
How monie lengthen'd sage advices,
The husband frae the wife despises !
But to our tale: Ae market night,
Fast by an ingle, bleezing finely,
Wi' reaming swats, that drank divinely;
And at his elbow, souter Johnny,
His ancient, trusty, drouthy crony.
Tam lo'ed him like a vera brither;
They had been fou for weeks thegither.
The night drave on wi' sangs and clatter;
The mother the daughter, the daughter the And aye the ale was growing better:
BEGOTTEN, and born, and dying, with noise, The terror of women, and pleasure of boys; Like the fiction of poets concerning the wind, I'm chiefly unruly when strongest confin'd. For silver and gold I don't trouble my head, But all I delight in is pieces of lead; Except when I trade with a ship or a town, Why then I make pieces of iron go down. One property more I would have you remark, No lady was ever more fond of a spark ; The moment I get one, my soul's all afire, And I roar out my joy, and in transport expire.
§ 169. Tam o' Shanter. A Tale. BURNS. Of Brownyis and of Bogilis full is this Buke. GAWIN DOUGLAS.
WHEN chapman billies leave the street,
And drouthy neebors neebors meet,
As market-days are wearing late,
An' folk begin to tak the gate;
While we sit bousing at the nappy,
An' getting fou and unco happy,
We think na on the lang Scots miles,
The mosses, waters, slaps, and styles,
That lie between us and our hame;
Whare sits our sulky, sullen dame,
Gath'ring her brows like gath'ring storm,
Nursing her wrath to keep it warm.
This truth fand honest Tam o' Shanter,
As he frae Ayr ae night did canter,
(Auld Ayr, wham ne'er a town surpasses,
For honest men and bonie lasses.)
O Tam! had'st thou but been sae wise,
As ta'en thy ain wife Kate's advice!
She tauld thee weel thou was a skellum,
A blethring, blustering, drunken blellum;
That, frae November till October,
Ae market-day thou was na sober;
That ilka melder, wi' the miller,
Thou sat as long as thou had siller;
That ev'ry naig was ca'd a shoe on,
The smith and thee gat roaring fou on;
That at the L-d's house, ev'n on Sunday,
Thou drank wi' Kirton Jean till Monday.
She prophesy'd, that, late or soon,
Thou would be found deep drown'd in Doon;
Or catch'd wi' warlocks in the mirk,
By Alloway's auld haunted kirk.
VOL. VI. Nos. 91 & 92.
The landlady and Tam grew gracious,
Wi' favours secret, sweet, and precious:
The souter tauld his queerest stories;
The landlord's laugh was ready chorus:
The storm without might rair and rustle,
Tam did na mind the storm a whistle.
Care, mad to see a man sae happy,
E'en drown'd himself amang the nappy;
As bees flee hame wi' lades of treasure,
The minutes wing'd their way wi' pleasure:
Kings may be blest, but Tam was glorious,
O'er a' the ills o' life victorious.
But pleasures are like poppies spread, You seize the flow'r, its bloom is shed; Or, like the snow falls in the river,
A moment white-then melts for ever:
Or, like the borealis race,
That flit ere you can point their place;
Or, like the rainbow's lovely form,
Evanishing amid the storm.-
Nae man can tether time or tide;
The hour approaches Tam maun ride;
That hour, o' night's black arch the key
That dreary hour, he mounts his beast in ;
And sic a night he taks the road in,
As ne'er poor sinner was abroad in.
The wind blew as 'twad blawn its last;
The rattling show'rs rose on the blast;
The speedy gleams the darkness swallow'd;
Loud, deep, and lang, the thunder bellow'd :
That night, a child might understand,
The De'il had business on his hand.
Weel mounted on his grey mare, Meg,-
A better never lifted leg,-
Tam skelpit on through dub and mire,
Despising wind, and rain, and fire;
Whyles holding fast his guid blue bonnet;
Whyles crooning o'er some auld Scots sonnet;
Whyles glow'ring round wi' prudent cares,
Lest bogles catch him unawares;
Kirk-Alloway was drawing nigh,
Whare ghaists and houlets nightly cry.
By this time he was cross the ford,
Whare in the snaw the chapman smoor'd;
And past the birks and meikle stane,
Whare drunken Charlie brak's neck bane;
And through the whins, and by the cairn,
Whare hunters fand the murder'd bairn;
And near the thorn, aboon the well,
Whare Mungo's mither hang'd hersel.
Before him Doon pours all his floods;
The doubling storm roars through the woods;
The lightnings flash from pole to pole;
Near and more near the thunders roll;
When, glimmering through the groaning trees,
Kirk-Alloway seem'd in a bleeze;
Through ilka bore the beams were glancing;
And loud resounded mirth and dancing.
Inspiring, bold John Barleycorn!
What dangers thou canst make us scorn!
Wi' tippenny, we fear nae evil;
Wi' usquabae, we'll face the Devil!
The swats sae ream'd in Tammie's noddle,
Fair play, he car'd na De'il's a boddle.
But Maggie stood right sair astonish'd,
'T'ill, by the heel and hand admonish'd,
She ventur'd forward on the light;
And, vow! Tam saw an unco sight!
Warlocks and witches in a dance;
Nae cotillion brent new frae France,
But hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys and reels,
Put life and mettle in their heels.
A winnock-bunker in the east,
There sat auld Nick, in shape o' beast;
A towzie tyke, black, grim, and large,
To gie them music was his charge:
He screw'd the pipes, and gart them skirl,
Till roof an' rafters a' did dirl.
Coffins stood round like open presses,
That shaw'd the dead in their last dresses;
And, by some devilish cantrip slight,
Each in its cauld hand held a light,
By which heroic Tam was able
To note upon the haly table,
A murderer's banes in gibbet airns;
Twa span-lang, wee, unchristen'd bairns;
A thief, new cutted frae a rape,
Wi' his last gasp his gab did gape;
Five tomahawks, wi' bluid red-rusted;
Five cimeters, wi' murder crusted;
A garter, which a babe had strangled;
A knife, a father's throat had mangled,
Whom his ain son o' life bereft,
The grey hairs yet stack to the heft;
Wi' mair o' horrible and awfu',
Which ev'n to name wad be unlawfu'.
As Tammie glowr'd, amaz'd and curious,
The mirth and fun grew fast and furious:
The piper loud and louder blew;
The dancers quick and quicker flew ;
They reel'd, they set, they cross'd, they cleckit,
Till ilka carlin swat and reekit,
And coost her duddies to the wark,
And linket at it in her sark!
Now Tam, O Tam! had they been queans, A' plump and strapping in their teens ; Their sarks, instead o' creeshie flannen, Been snaw-white seventeen hunder linen! Thir breeks o' mine, my only pair, That ance were plush, o' guid blue hair, I wad hae gi'en them aff my hurdies, For ae blink o' the bonie burdies!
But wither'd beldams, auld and droll, Rigwoodie hags wad spean a foal,
Lowping an' flinging on a cummock, I wonder didna turn thy stomach.
But Tam kenn'd what was what fu' brawlie There was ae winsome wench and walie, That night enlisted in the core, (Lang after kenn'd on Carrick shore! For monie a beast to dead she shot, And perish'd monie a bonie boat, And shook baith meikle corn and beer, And kept the country-side in fear,), Her cutty-sark o' Paisley harn, That while a lassie she had worn, In longitude though sorely scanty, It was her best, and she was vauntie. Ah! little kenn'd thy reverend grannie, That sark she coft for her wee Nannie, Wi' twa pund Scots, ('twas a' her riches) Wad ever grac'd a dance o' witches!
But here my Muse her wing maun cow'r; Sic flights are far beyond her pow'r! To sing how Nannie lap and flang, (A souple jad she was and strang,) And how Tam stood, like ane bewitch'd, And thought his very een enrich'd: Even Satan glowr'd, and fidg'd fu' fain, And hotch'd, and blew wi' might and main : Till first ae caper, syne anither,
Tam tint his reason a' thegither,
And roars out, Weel done, Cutty-sark!"
And in an instant a' was dark:
And scarcely had he Maggie rallied,
When out the hellish legion sallied.
As bees bizz out wi' angry fyke,
When plundering herds assail their byke;
As open pussie's mortal foes,
When, pop! she starts before their nose;
As eager runs the market-crowd,
When "Catch the thief!" resounds aloud;
So Maggie runs, the witches follow,
Wi' monie an eldritch skreech and hollow.
Ah, Tam! ah, Tam! thou'll get thy fairin.
In hell they'll roast thee like a herrin!
In vain thy Kate awaits thy comin!
Kate soon will be a wofu' woman!
Now, do thy speedy utmost, Meg,
And win the key-stane of the brig;
There at them thou thy tail may toss,
A running stream they dare na cross.
But ere the key-stané she could make, -
The fient a tail she had to shake!
For Nannie, far before the rest,
Hard upon noble Maggie press'd,
And flew at Tam wi' furious ettle;
But little wist she Maggie's mettle-
Ae spring brought aff her master hale,
But left behind her ain grey tail:
The carlin claught her by the rump,
And left poor Maggie scarce a stump.
Now, wha this tale o' truth shall read,
Ilk man and mother's son take heed:
Whene'er to drink you are inclin'd,
Or Cutty-sarks run in your mind,
Think, ye may buy the joys o'er dear,
Remember Tam o' Shanter's mare.
And, for the industry he has spent upon't, Must, full as much, some other way discount. The Hebrew, Chaldee, and the Syriac, Do, like their letters, set men's reason back, And turn their wits that strive to understand it (Like those that write the characters) lefthanded;
Yet he that is but able to express
No sense at all in several languages,
Will pass for learneder than he that's known To speak the strongest reason in his own.
These are the modern arts of education, With all the learned of mankind in fashion, But practised only with the rod and whip,
O'er man, the heir of Reason, than brute beast, As riding schools inculcate horsemanship,
That by two different instincts is led,
Born to the one, and to the other bred,
And trains him up with rudiments more false
Than Nature does her stupid animals;
And that's one reason why more care's be-
stow'd
Upon the body than the soul's allow'd, That is not found to understand and know So subtly as the body's found to grow. Though children, without study, pains, thought,
Or Romish penitents let out their skins
To bear the penalties of others' sins,
When letters at the first were meant for play,
And only us'd to pass the time away, [name
When th' ancient Greeks and Romans had no
T' 'express a school and playhouse but the same,
And in their languages, so long agone,
To study or be idle was all one;
For nothing more preserves men in their wits
or Than giving of them leave to play by fits,
In dreams to sport and ramble with all fancies,
And, waking, little less extravagances,
To rest and recreation of tir'd thought,
When 'tis run down with care and overwrought,
Of which whoever does not freely take
His constant share, is never broad awake,
And when he wants an equal competence
Of both recruits, abates as much of sense.
Are languages and vulgar notions taught,
Improve their natʼral talents without care,
And apprehend before they are aware,
Yet, as all strangers never leave the tones
They have been used of children to pronounce,
So most men's reason never can outgrow
The discipline it first received to know,
But renders words they first began to con,
The end of all that's after to be known,
And sets the help of education back,
Worse than, without it, man could ever lack;
Who, therefore, finds the artificial'st fools,
Have not been changed i' th' cradle, but the
schools,
Where error, pedantry, and affectation,
Run them behind-hand with their education,
And all alike are taught poetic rage,
When hardly one's fit for it in an age.
No sooner are the organs of the brain
Quick to receive, and steadfast to retain
Best knowledges, but all's laid out upon
Retrieving of the curse of Babylon,
To make confounded languages restore
A greater drudg'ry than it barr'd before:
And therefore those imported from the East,
Where first they were incurr'd,are held the best,
Although conveyed in worse Arabian pothooks
Than gifted tradesmen scratch in sermon note-
books;
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Are really but pains and labor lost,
And not worth half the drudgery they cost;
Unless, like rarities, as they've been brought
From foreign climates, and as dearly bought,
When those, who had no other but their own,
Have all succeeding eloquence outdone;
As men that wink with one eye see more true,
And take their aim much better than with two:
For the more languages a man can speak,
His talent has but sprung the greater leak;
Nor is their education worse design'd Than Nature (in her province) proves unkind: The greatest inclinations with the least Capacities are fatally possess'd, [pains, Condemn'd to drudge, and labour, and take Without an equal competence of brains; While those she has indulg'd in soul and body, Are most averse to industry and study, And th' activ'st fancies share as loose alloys, For want of equal weight to counterpoise. But when those great conveniences meet, Of equal judgment, industry, and wit, The one but strives the other to divert, While Fate and Custom in the feud take part, And scholars, by prepost'rous overdoing, And under-judging, all their projects ruin; Who, though the understanding of mankind Within so strait a compass is confin'd, Disdain the limits Nature sets to bound The wit of man, and vainly rove beyond. The bravest soldiers scorn until they're got Close to the enemy to make a shot; Yet great philosophers delight to stretch Their talents most at things beyond their reach, And proudly think t' unriddle ev'ry cause That Nature uses by their own by-laws; When 'tis not only impertinent, but rude, Where she denies admission, to intrude; And all their industry is but to err, Unless they have free quarantine from her; Whence 'tis the world the less has understood, By striving to know more than 'tis allow'd.
For Adam, with the loss of Paradise,
Bought knowledge at too desperate a price,
And, ever since that miserable fate,
Learning did never cost an easier rate;
For though the most divine and sov'reign good
That Nature has upon mankind bestow'd,
Yet it has prov'd a greater hinderance
To th' interest of truth than ignorance,
And therefore never bore so high a value
As when 'twas low, contemptible, and shallow;
Had academies, schools, and colleges,
Endow'd for its improvement and increase;
With pomp and show was introduc'd with
More than a Roman magistrate had fasces;
Empower'd with statute,privilege,and mandate,
T'assume an art, and after understand it;
Like bills of store for taking a degree,
With all the learning to it custom-free;
And own professions which they never took
So much delight in as to read one book;
Like princes, had prerogative to give
Convicted malefactors a reprieve;
And, having but a little paltry wit
More than the world, reduced and governed it.
But scorn'd as soon as 'twas but understood,
As better is a spiteful foe to good,
And now has nothing left for its support,
But what the darkest times provided for't.
Man has a natural desire to know;
But th' one half is for inter'st, th' other show:
As scriv'ners take more pains to learn the
sleight
Of making knots, than all the hands they write
So all his study is not to extend
The bounds of knowledge, but some vainer
end;
T'appear and pass for learned, though his claim
Will hardly reach beyond the empty name:
For most of those that drudge and labor hard,
Furnish their understandings by the yard,
As a French library by the whole is,
So much an ell for quartos and for folios;
To which they are but indexes themselves,
And understand no further than the shelves;
But smatter with their titles and editions,
And place them in their classical partitions;
When all a student knows of what he reads
Is not in 's own, but under general heads
Of common-places, not in his own pow'r,
But, like a Dutchman's money, in the cantore;
Where all he can make of it at the best,
Is hardly three per cent. for interest;
And whether he will ever get it out
Into his own possession is a doubt:
Affects all books of past and modern ages,
But reads no further than their title-pages,
Only to con the authors' names by rote,
Or, at the best, those of the books they quote;
Enough to challenge intimate acquaintance
With all the learned moderns and the ancients.
As Roman noblemen were wont to greet
And compliment the rabble in the street,
Had nomenclators in their trains, to claim
Acquaintance with the meanest, by his name,
Trepann'd the suffrages of ev'ry tribe;
And, by so mean, contemptible a bribe,
So learned men, by authors' names unknown
And he's esteem'd the learned'st of all others
Have gain'd no small improvement to their own
That has the largest catalogue of authors.
$171. Opening of the Vision of Columbus.
BARLOW.
I SING the Mariner who first unfurl'd
An eastern banner o'er the western world,
In these fair confines of descending day;
And taught mankind where future empires lay
Who sway'd a moment, with vicarious power,
Then saw the paths his virtuous steps had trod
Iberia's sceptre on the new-found shore;
Pursued by avarice and defil'd with blood,
The tribes he foster'd with paternal toil
Snatch'd from his hand, and slaughter'd for
their spoil.
Slaves, kings, adventurers, envious of his name,
Enjoy'd his labors, and purloin'd his fame,
And gave the Viceroy, from his high seat hurl'd,
Chains for a crown, a prison for a world!
Long overwhelm'd in woes, and sick'ning
there,
He met the slow, still march of black despair,
Sought the last refuge from his hopeless doom,
And wish'd from thankless men a peaceful tomb:
Cheer'd his sad soul, and bade new nations rise;
Till vision'd ages, op'ning on his eyes,
He saw the Atlantic heaven with light o'ercast,
And freedom crown his glorious work at last.
Almighty Freedom! give my vent'rous song
"Tis thine to shape my course, to light my way,
The force, the charm, that to thy voice belong,
To teach all men where all their int'rest lies,
To nerve my country with the patriot lay,
Strong in thy strength, I bend no suppliant knee,
How rulers may be just, and nations wise:
Invoke no miracle, no Muse, but thee.
Night held on old Castile her silent reign,
Her half-orb'd moon declining to the main ;
The drizzly fogs from dull Pisuerga rais'd;
O'er Valladolid's regal turrets haz'd
Thinn'd the pale stars, and shut the eye from
Whose hov'ring sheets, along the welkin driven,
heaven.
Cold-hearted Ferdinand his pillow press'd,
Nor dream'd of those his mandates robb'd of
rest;
Of him who gemm'd his crown, who stretch'd
[his reign
To realms that weigh'd the tenfold poise of
Who now beneath his tower indungeon'd lies,
Sweats the chill sod, and breathes inclement
Feeds with scant force its fast expiring flame;
His fev'rish pulse, slow lab'ring through his
Throws through his grates a mist-encumber'd
A far, dim watch-lamp's thrice reflected beam
Paints the' dun vapors that the cell invade,
And fills with spectred forms the midnigh
shade;
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