As a specimen of the rhyme of this period, and as in some degree a set-off against my drubbing, which remains till this day an unsettled score, I submit my pasquinade to the reader:--
With solemn mien and pious air, S--k--r attends each call of grace; Loud eloquence bedecks his prayer, And formal sanctity his face.
All good; but turn the other side, And see the smirking beau displayed; The pompous strut, exalted air, And all that marks the fop, is there.
In character we seldom see Traits so diverse meet and agree: Can the affected mincing trip, Exalted brow, and pride-pressed lip, In strange incongruous union meet, With all that stamps the hypocrite? We see they do: but let us scan Those secret springs which move the man.
Though now he wields the knotty birch, His better hope lies in the Church: For this the sable robe he wears, For this in pious guise appears. But then, the weak will cannot hide Th' inherent vanity and pride; And thus he acts the coxcomb's part, As dearer to his poor vain heart: Nature's born fop! a saint by art!! But hold! he wears no fopling's dress Each seam, each thread, the eye can trace His garb all o'er;--the dye, though true, Time-blanch'd, displays a fainter hue: Dress forms the fopling's better part; Reconcile this, and prove your art.
"Chill penury represses pride;"-- A maxim by the wise denied; For 'tis alone tame plodding souls, Whose spirits bend when it controls,-- Whose lives run on in one dull same, Plain honesty their highest aim. With him it merely can repress-- Tailor o'er-cow'd--the pomp of dress; His spirit, unrepressed, can soar High as e'er folly rose before; Can fly pale study, learn'd debate, And ape proud fashion's idle state: Yet fails in that engaging grace That lights the practised courtier's face. His weak affected air we mark, And, smiling, view the would-be spark; Complete in every act and feature,-- An ill-bred, silly, awkward creature.
My school-days fairly over, a life of toil frowned full in front of me; but never yet was there a half-grown lad less willing to take up the man and lay down the boy. My set of companions was fast breaking up;--my friend of the Doocot Cave was on the eve of proceeding to an academy in a neighbouring town; Finlay had received a call from the south, to finish his education in a seminary on the banks of the Tweed; one Marcus' Cave lad was preparing to go to sea; another to learn a trade; a third to enter a shop; the time of dispersal was too evidently at hand; and, taking counsel one day together, we resolved on constructing something--we at first knew not what--that might serve as a monument to recall to us in after years the memory of our early pastimes and enjoyments. The common school-book story of the Persian shepherd, who, when raised by his sovereign to high place in the empire, derived his chief pleasure from contemplating, in a secret apartment, the pipe, crook, and rude habiliments of his happier days, suggested to me that we also should have our secret apartment, in which to store up, for future contemplation, our bayonet and pistol, pot and pitcher; and I recommended that we should set ourselves to dig a subterranean chamber for that purpose among the woods of the Hill, accessible, like the mysterious vaults of our story-books, by a trap-door. The proposal was favourably received; and, selecting a solitary spot among the trees as a proper site, and procuring spade and mattock, we began to dig.