Where Ignorance her darkening vapour throws,
And Cruelty directs the thickening blows;
Upon a time, Sir Abece the great,

In all his pedagogic powers elate,

His awful chair of state resolves to mount,
And call the trembling vowels to account.

First entered A, a grave, broad, solemn wight,
But, ah! deformed, dishonest to the sight!
His twisted head looked backward on his way,
And flagrant from the scourge he grunted, ai!

Reluctant, E stalked in; with piteous race
The justling tears ran down his honest face!
That name, that well-worn name, and all his

own,

Pale he surrenders at the tyrant's throne!
The pedant stifles keen the Roman sound
Not all his mongrel diphthongs can compound;
And next the title following close behind,
He to the nameless, ghastly wretch assigned.

The cobwebbed Gothic dome resounded, Y!
In sullen vengeance, I disdained reply:
The pedant swung his felon cudgel round,
And knocked the groaning vowel to the ground!

In rueful apprehension entered O,

The wailing minstrel of despairing wo;

The Inquisitor of Spain the most expert,

Might there have learnt new mysteries of his

art;

So grim, deformed, with horrors entering, U His dearest friend and brother scarcely knew!

As trembling U stood staring all aghast,
The pedant in his left hand clutched him fast,
In helpless infants' tears he dipped his right,
Baptised him eu, and kicked him from his sight.

ON PASTORAL POETRY.

HAIL Poesie! thou Nymph reserved!
In chase o' thee, what crowds hae swerved
Frae common-sense, or sunk enerved

'Mang heaps o' clavers; babblings And och ower aft thy joes hae starved, favorites 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 Shakspeare drives;
Wee Pope, the knurlin, 'till him rives
Horatian fame;

In thy sweet sang, Barbauld, survives
E'en Sappho's flame.

dwarf

But thee, Theocritus, wha matches?
They're no herd's ballats, Maro's catches;
Squire Pope but busks his skinklin patches sparkling
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-famed Grecian share
A rival place?

Yes! there is ane; a Scottish callan

There's ain; come forrit, honest Allan!

lad

forward

Thou need na jouk behmt the hallan, skulk-door

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 through myrtles twines,
Where Philomel,

While nightly breezes sweep the vines,
Her griefs will tell!

In gowany glens thy burnie strays, daisied-brook
Where bonny 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.

Thy rural loves are Nature's sel';
Nae bombast spates o' nonsense swell;
Nae snap conceits; but that sweet spell
O' witchin' love,

That charm that can the strongest quell,
The sternest move.

floods

THE END.

GENERAL INDEX OF TITLES.

Address spoken by Miss Fontenelle on her Ben-
efit-Night

Address to Edinburgh

Address to Mr. William Tytler

ADDRESS TO THE DEIL

Address to the Shade of Thomson

Address to the Toothache

ADDRESS TO THE UNCO GUID

Address to the Woodlark

American War

Apology to Mr. Riddel for a Rudeness offered his
Wife

AULD FARMER'S NEW-YEAR MORNING Salu-
TATION TO HIS AULD MAre Maggie