Thomson some alterations upon the song in the text with a view to give Jean Lorimer the benefit of it, thus:

"Thine am I, my Chloris fair, well thou may'st discover;
Ev'ry pulse along my veins tells the ardent lover.

If you neglect the alteration, I call on all the Nine, conjunctly and severally, to anathematise you!"]

ON MRS. RIDDELL'S BIRTHDAY,

4TH NOVEMBER 1793.

(CURRIE, 1800.)

OLD WINTER, with his frosty beard,
Thus once to Jove his prayer preferred:
"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;
My dismal months no joys are crowning,
But spleeny English hanging, drowning.

Now Jove, for once be mighty civil,

To counterbalance all this evil;

Give me, and I've no more to say,

Give me Maria's natal day!

That brilliant gift shall so enrich me,

Spring, Summer, Autumn, cannot match me." "'Tis done!" says Jove; so ends my story, And Winter once rejoiced in glory.

[The poet's intimacy with this very sprightly and fascinating correspondent had now reached its climax. Her husband as we learn from one of Burns's letters to Thomson (July 1793) had been absent almost all summer in the West Indies, looking after his affairs there. He returned before the close of the year, and some disturbance occurred in his house at Christmas, which caused a quarrel between Burns and the Riddell family, that was never thoroughly cemented into friendship again.]

MY SPOUSE NANCY.

Tune-"My Jo Janet."

(GEO. THOMSON'S COLL,, 1799.)

"HUSBAND, husband, cease your strife,
Nor longer idly rave, Sir;
Tho' I am your wedded wife
Yet I am not your slave, Sir."
"One of two must still obey,

Nancy, Nancy;

Is it Man or Woman, say,
My spouse Nancy?"

"If 'tis still the lordly word, Service and obedience;

I'll desert my sov'reign lord,

And so, good bye, allegiance!

"Sad will I be, so bereft,

Nancy, Nancy ;

Yet I'll try to make a shift,

My spouse Nancy."

"My poor heart then break it must,
My last hour I am near it:
When you lay me in the dust,

Think how you will bear it.'

"I will hope and trust in heaven,
Nancy, Nancy;

Strength to bear it will be given,
My spouse Nancy."

"Well, Sir, from the silent dead,
Still I'll try to daunt you;
Ever round your midnight bed
Horrid sprites shall haunt you!"

scare

"I'll wed another like my dear

Nancy, Nancy;

Then all hell will fly for fear,

My spouse, Nancy."

[This witty dramatic song has been very popular from the day it was first given to the public. It was forwarded to Thomson in December 1793. The poet's working sketches of some of the stanzas are in the British Museum, where the second verse is thus varied :

'If the word is still obey!

Always love and fear you;

I will take myself away,

And never more come near you,'
Sad will I be, &c.

The closing stanza thus begins—

'Well, ev'n from the silent dead,
Sir, I'll try to daunt you,' &c.

The biographer of William Hutton of Birmingham narrates that in 1811 at a watering-place in the North Riding of Yorkshire, that good-natured philosopher amused and delighted a large and fashionable company, when he was eighty-eight years old, by singing the husband's part of "My Spouse, Nancy," while his daughter performed the wife's part. John Wilson the Scottish vocalist used to sing this song with great effect at his concerts.]

ADDRESS,

SPOKEN BY MISS FONTENELLE ON HER BENEFIT NIGHT, DECEMBER 4TH, 1793, AT THE THEATRE, Dumfries.

(CURRIE, 1800.)

STILL anxious to secure your partial favor,
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 slyly 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 fearsDissolve 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.

[This second Address written by the Bard for his favorite actress, Miss Fontenelle, has been preserved to the public through the accident of its having been communicated in a letter from Burns to Mrs. Dunlop. Dr. Currie dated that letter, "15th Dec. 1795;" but from internal evidence it is proved to have been penned not later than 1793.

There cannot now be a possibility of doubt that Mrs. Dunlop, who was so proud of having the Wallace blood in her veins, comported herself towards Burns during the two latter years of his existence like the rest of his fair-weather friends, and that her relative Dr. Currie took the utmost pains, and resorted to a few mean shifts, to submerge that fact. No dependence whatever can be placed on the dates he gives to Burns's letters addressed to Mrs. Dunlop in his later years; for these have been purposely disarranged and misdated, in order to carry out the fraudulent coverture so necessary to preserve his friend's integrity as a lifelong patron of Burns.]

COMPLIMENTARY EPIGRAM ON
MARIA RIDDELL.

(DOUGLAS, 1877.)

"PRAISE Woman still," his lordship roars,
"Deserv'd or not, no matter!"

But thee whom all my soul adores,
Ev'n Flattery cannot flatter:
MARIA, all my thought and dream,
Inspires my vocal shell;

The more I praise my lovely theme,
The more the truth I tell.