How Xerxes, that abandoned Tory, Thought cutting throats was reaping glory, Until the stubborn Whigs of Sparta Taught him great Nature’s Magna Charta; How mighty Rome her fiat hurl’d Resistless o’er a bowing world, And, kinder than they did desire, Polish’d mankind with sword and fire; With much, too tedious to relate, Of ancient and of modern date, But ending still, how Billy Pitt (Unlucky boy!) with wicked wit, Has gagg’d old Britain, drain’d her coffer, As butchers bind and bleed a heifer, Thus wily Reynard by degrees, In kennel listening at his ease, Suck’d in a mighty stock of knowledge, As much as some folks at a College; Knew Britain’s rights and constitution, Her aggrandisement, diminution, How fortune wrought us good from evil; Let no man, then, despise the Devil, As who should say, ’I never can need him,’ Since we to scoundrels owe our freedom. Poem On Pastoral Poetry Hail, Poesie! thou Nymph reserv’d! In chase o’ thee, what crowds hae swerv’d Frae common sense, or sunk enerv’d ’Mang heaps o’ clavers: And och! o’er 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 Shakespeare 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’ myrtle twines, Where Philomel, While nightly breezes sweep the vines, Her griefs will tell! In gowany glens thy burnie strays, Where bonie lasses bleach their claes, Or trots by hazelly shaws and braes, Wi’ hawthorns gray, Where blackbirds join the shepherd’s lays, At close o’ day.