LINES shouted out "ça ira!" in defiance of the upstanding audience. A tumult aris.ng in conse SENT TO SIR JOHN WHITEFOORD OF WHITE- quence of this incident, Burns was constrained [These lines were written in the early part of October, 1791, judging, that is, from Sir John Whitefoord's letter of acknowledgment, which is dated on the 16th of that month from Maybole.] to leave the theatre, and shortly afterwards, in the December of 1792, received a rebuke on his political conduct from the excise authorities.] WHILE Europe's eye is fixed on mighty things, The fate of empires and the fall of kings; THOU, who thy honour as thy God While quacks of state must each produce THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN. [These lines, as Burns intimated to Miss Fontenelle, were written nearly extempore. They were delivered at the Dumfries Theatre on the 26th of November, 1792, by that young and beautiful actress, then one of the most popular members of the company under Mr. Sutherland's management. The country was greatly agitated at the time by the revolutionary ideas caught from France, and propagated far and wide through the advocacy of the Rights of Man by Thomas Paine, and the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft. Robert Chambers states that a lady whom he knew distinctly remembered being present in the theatre about this time when Burns entered the pit rather flustered, adding that she recalled to mind how on "God Save the his plan, And even children lisp the Rights of Man; Amid this mighty fuss, just let me men tion, The Rights of Woman merit some attention. First, in the sexes' intermixed connection, tion. The tender flower that lifts its head, elate, Helpless, must fall before the blasts of fate, Sunk on the earth, defaced its lovely form, Unless your shelter ward th' impending storm. Our second Right-but needless here-is To keep that right inviolate's the fashion; him, He'd die before he'd wrong it-'t is decorum. There was, indeed, in far less polished days, A time when rough rude men had naughty ways; Would swagger, swear, get drunk, kick up a riot, King" being played by the band, the Poet Nay, even thus, invade a lady's quiet. Now, thank our stars! these Gothic times are fled; Now, well-bred men-and you are all well-bred MONODY ON A LADY FAMED [Mrs. Maria Riddel was the lady here ridi Most justly think (and we are much the culed. The name of Eliza was introduced, it is gainers) Such conduct neither spirit, wit, nor manners. believed, merely as a blind. In one of the manuscripts the real name is frankly given as Maria. Burns had quarrelled with Mrs. Riddel somewhere about the Christmas of 1793; and it was thus cruelly that he sneered, as though she had been a mere empty-headed coquette, at a For Right the third, our last, our best, lady who was both beautiful and accomplished.] . our dearest, That right to fluttering female hearts the How cold is that bosom which folly once nearest, Which even the Rights of Kings in low prostration fired! How pale is that cheek where the rouge lately glistened! Most humbly own- 't is dear, dear How silent that tongue which the echoes 'Gainst such an host what flinty savage How doubly severer, Eliza, thy fate,— 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, Thou diedst unwept as thou livedst unloved. Loves, Graces, and Virtues, I call not on you; So shy, grave, and distant, ye shed not a tear: With bloody armaments and revolutions; But come, all ye offspring of Folly so We'll sculpture the marble, we'll mea- Where strumpets, relics of the drunken Here Vanity strums on her idiot lyre; Resolve to drink, nay, half to whore, no There keen Indignation shall dart on her prey, Which spurning Contempt shall redeem from his ire. THE EPITAPH. Here lies, now a prey to insulting neglect, more: Where tiny thieves, not destined 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!" What once was a butterfly gay in life's 'T is real hangmen real scourges bear! beam: Want only of wisdom denied her respect, Want only of goodness denied her esteem. EPISTLE FROM ESOPUS TO MARIA. [Esopus meant the merest fifth-rate actor, one named Williamson, who had been patronized at Dumfries by Maria, otherwise Mrs. Riddel, of Woodley Park, the one satirized by Burns in the preceding monody and epitaph. What renders this exceedingly disagreeable and atrabilious effusion all the more intolerable is the fact that its opening passage is an obvious travestie of Pope's exquisite Eloise to Abelard.] FROM those drear solitudes and frowsy Now prouder still, Maria's temples press. And even out-Irish his Hibernian bronze; Where truant 'prentices, yet young in The crafty colonel leaves the tartaned lines, sin, Blush at the curious stranger peeping in ; For other wars, where he a hero shines; The hopeful youth, in Scottish senate Why, Lonsdale, thus, thy wrath on bred, vagrants pour, Who owns a Bushby's heart without the Must earth no rascal save thyself endure? head; Must thou alone in guilt immortal swell, Comes, 'mid a string of coxcombs, to And make a vast monopoly of hell? display That veni, vidi, vici, is his way; Thou know'st the virtues cannot hate thee worse; The shrinking bard adown an alley The vices also, must they club their skulks, curse? And dreads a meeting worse than Wool- Or must no tiny sin to others fall, Because thy guilt's supreme enough for all? wich hulks: Though there, his heresies in church and state Might well award him Muir and Palmer's Maria, send me too thy griefs and cares ; fate: Who christened thus Maria's lyre divine; In all of thee sure thy Esopus shares. Who calls thee pert, affected, vain co- A wit in folly, and a fool in wit? Who says, that fool alone is not thy due, true? Our force united, on thy foes we'll turn, born: For who can write and speak as thou and I? My periods that decyphering defy, For motley, foundling fancies, stolen or And thy still matchless tongue that constrayed?) A workhouse! ha, that sound awakes my woes, And pillows on the thorn my racked repose! In durance vile here must I wake and weep, quers all reply. THE TREE OF LIBERTY. · [These lines were printed from the Poet's manuscript in 1838, when they were for the first And all my frowsy couch in sorrow steep! That straw where many a rogue has lain time included among his works by Robert of yore, Chambers. The MS. had for many years been treasured up in the neighbourhood of Glasgow, And vermined gipsies littered heretofore. among the papers of Mr. James Duncan of |