February, 1806.
RETIRED, disgusted, from the tavern roar,
Where strong-lung'd Ignorance does highest soar ;
Where silly ridicule is passed for wit ;
And shallow laughter takes her gaping fit ;
Where selfish sophistry out-brothers sense,
And lords it high at modesty's expense— [1]
Here lone I sit, in musing melancholy,
Resolv'd for aye to shun the court of Folly.
For, from whole years' experience in her train,
One hour of joy brings twenty hours of pain.
Now, since I'm on the would-be-better key,
The muse soft whispers me to write to thee,
Not that she means a self-debasing letter ;
But merely show there's hopes I may turn better ;
That what stands bad to my account of ill,
You may set down to passion, not to will.
The fate-scourg'd exile, destined still to roam,
Thro desert wilds, far from his early home,
If some fair prospect meet his sorrowing eyes,
Like that he owned beneath his native skies,
Sad recollection, murdering relief,
He bursts in all the agonies of grief;
Memory presents the volume of his care,
And “harrows up his soul” with “such things were.”
Tis so in life, when Youth folds up his page,
And turns the leaf to dark, blank, joyless Age,
Where sad Experience speaks in language plain,
Her thought of bliss, and highest hopes were vain ;
O'er present ills I think I see her mourn,
And, “weep past joys that never will return.
”Then, come, my friend, while yet in life's gay noon,
Ere grief's dark clouds obscure our summer sun,
Ere Winter's sleety blasts around us howl,
And chill our every energy of soul—
Let us look back, retrace the ways we've trod,
Mark virtue's paths from guilty pleasure's road,
And, 'stead of wandering in a devious maze,
Mark some few precepts for our future days.
I mind, still well, when but a trifling boy,
My young heart fluttered with a savage joy,
As with my sire I wander'd through the wood,
And found the mavis' clump-lodg'd callow brood.
I tore them thence, exulting o'er my prize.
My father bade me list the mother's cries :
“So thine would wail,” he said, “if reft of thee.”—
It was a lesson of humanity.
Humanity ! thou'rt glory's brightest star,
Outshining all the conqueror's trophies far !
One individual act of generous pity
Is nobler far than ravaging a city.
Ev'n let the blood-stain'd ruffians call me coward,
An Alexander [2] sinks beside a Howard.[3]
Not to recount our every early joy,
When all was happiness without alloy ;
Nor tread again each flow'ry field we trac'd,
Light as the silk-wing'd butterflies we chas'd ;
Ere villain falsehood taught the glowing mind,
To look with cold suspicion on mankind—
Let's pass the valley of our younger years,
And further up hill mark what now appears.
We see the Sensualist, fell vice's slave,
Fatigu'd, worn out, sink to an early grave ;
We see the slave of av'rice grind the poor,
His thirst for gold increasing with his store ;
Packhorse of Fortune, all his days are care,
Her burthens bearing to his spendthrift heir.
Next view the Spendthrift, joyous o'er his purse,
Exchanging all his guineas for remorse ;
On Pleasure's flow'r-deck'd barge away he's borne,
Supine, till ev'ry flow'r starts up a thorn.
Then all his pleasures fly, like air-blown bubbles:
He ruin'd sinks amidst a sea of troubles.
Hail, Temperance ! thou'rt wisdom's first, best lore,
The sage in ev'ry age does thee adore ;
Within thy pale we taste of ev'ry joy,
O'erstepping that, our highest pleasures cloy :
The heart-enlivening, friendly, social bowl,
To rapturous ecstacy exalts the soul ;
But when to midnight hour we keep it up,
Next morning feels the poison of the cup.
Though fate forbade the gifts of schoolmen mine,
With classic art to write the polished line,
Yet miners oft must gather earth with gold,
And truth may strike, though e'er so roughly told.
If thou in ought would rise to eminence,
Show not the faintest shadow of pretence,
Else busy Scandal, with her thousand tongues,
Will quickly find thee in ten thousand wrongs,
Each strives to tear his neighbour's honour down,
As if detracting something from his own.
Of all the ills with which mankind is curst,
An envious discontented mind's the worst ;
There muddy spleen exalts her gloomy throne,
Marks all conditions better than her own :
Hence Defamation spreads her ant-bear tongue,
And grimly pleas'd, feeds on another's wrong.
Curse on the wretch, who, when his neighbour's blest,
Erects his peace-destroying, snaky crest !
And he who sits in surly, sullen mood,
Repining at a fellow-mortal's good !
Man owns so little of true happiness,
That curst be he who makes that little less !
Vice to reclaim join not the old cant cry,
Of “Son of Sathan, guilt, and misery,”
One good example, more the point will carry,
Than all th' abuse in Scandal's dictionary.
The Zealot thinks he'll go to heaven direct,
Adhering to the tenets of his sect,
E'en tho' his practice lie in this alone,
To rail at all persuasions but his own.
In judging, still let Moderation guide;
O'er-heated Zeal is certain to mislead.
First bow to God in heart-warm gratitude,
Next do your utmost for the general good.
In spite of all the forms which men devise,
‘Tis there where real solid wisdom lies ;
And impious is the man who claims dominion,
To damn his neighbour diff'ring in opinion.
When suppliant Misery greets thy wand'ring eye,
Altho' in public, pass not heedless by ;
Distress impels her to implore the crowd,
For that denied within her low abode.
Give thou the trifling pittance that she craves,
Tho ostentation called by prudent knaves ;
So conscience will a rich reward impart,
And finer feelings play around thy heart.
When Wealth with arrogance exalts his brow,
And reckons Poverty a wretch most low,
Let good intentions dignify thy soul,
And conscious rectitude will dignify the whole.
Hence indigence will independence own,
And soar above the haughty despot's frown.
Still to thy lot be virtuously resign'd ;
Above all treasures prize thy peace of mind ;
Then let not envy rob thy soul of rest,
Nor discontent e'er harbour in thy breast.
Be not too fond of popular applause,
Which often echoes in a villain's cause,
Whose specious sophistry gilds his deceit,
Till pow'r abus'd, in time shows forth the cheat ;
Yet be't thy pride to bear an honest fame ;
More dear than life watch over thy good name ;
For he, poor man ! who has no wish to gain it,
Despises all the virtues which attain it.
Of friendship, still be secrecy the test,
This maxim let be 'graven in my breast—
Whate'er a friend enjoins me to conceal,
I'm weak, I'm base, if I the same reveal;
Let honour, acting as a pow'rful spell,
Suppress that itching fondness still to tell ;
Else, unthank'd chronicle, the cunning's tool,
The world will stamp me for a gossip fool.
Yet let us act an honest open heart,
Nor curb the warm effusions of the heart,
Which, naturally virtuous, discommends,
Aught mean or base, e'en in our dearest friends.
But why this long unjointed scrawl to thee,
Whose every action is a law to me,
Whose every deed proclaims thy noble mind ;
Industrious, independent, just, and kind.
Methinks I hear thee say, “Each fool may teach,
Since now my whim-led friend's begun to preach !”
But this first essay of my preaching strain,
Hear, and accept for friendship's sake. Amen.
This Epistle first appeared in 1806 in Maver's Glasgow Gleaner, page 273. See first Note on No. 5.—Ed.
Note by Ramsay.—“He died some years ago.”
Alexander Borland, a native of Paisley, was born at the head of Causeyside Street, in the year 1773, and brought up to the trade of a weaver. He was a chief acquaintance of James King, to whom the Epistle No. 18 is addressed, and through that connection he became acquainted with Tannahill. In these days of soldiering, Alexander Borland joined the Lanarkshire Militia, and the Regiment was sent to England. On his term of service expiring, he took up his residence in Glasgow, and was residing there when this Epistle was sent to him, and also in 1810, when Tannahill called on him, in the afternoon of 16th May of that year. Tannahill, on the occasion of the latter visit, made use of such incoherent language, that Borland suspected his friend had become deranged, and proposed, as it was a fine summer evening, to take a walk out to Paisley with him. In walking along the turnpike road, and on approaching the road leading to Crocston Castle, the place where Tannahill and Hogg the Ettrick Shepherd had parted in March previously, Tannahill said he would require to retire a short time, but, waiting rather long, Borland followed after, and was in time to prevent him slipping away. Borland, after that, did not lose sight of Tannahill until he saw him home. The following morning, the melancholy and lamented occurrence of Tannahill's death happened. Alexander Borland afterwards wrote an Ode on the death of his friend Tannahill, the manuscript of which is still in existence, and in possession of Mrs. Wright, Kirkcaldy. We do not think the Ode was printed before, and have therefore inserted it in the Appendix. It is an excellent tribute of respect to the memory of the departed. Borland resided in Lochwinnoch, in 1819, for a year, came to Paisley, where he resided several years, and afterwards returned to Glasgow, where he died in 1828, aged 55.—Ed.
[1] The couplet printed in italic appeared in the Gleaner, but had been suppressed in the Edition of 1807, and all the subsequent editions of the Poet's works. We thought these lines amongst the truest the author penned, and have accordingly restored them. The truth contained in them must have stung some of the Poet's companions, and this would lead to their subsequent suppression.—Ed.
[2] Alexander III., King of Macedonia, called Alexander the Great, from his extraordinary achievements. He was the son of King Philip and Olympias, born 356 B.C. He ascended the throne at fifteen years of age, and died at Babylon at the early age of thirty-three in a drunken debauch. In that short period, he conquered nearly the whole known world, and included the several countries which he had subjugated into one vast empire.—Ed.
[3] John Howard, born at Hackney near London, on 2nd September, 1726, became the foremost in the first class of philanthropists. He was induced to visit the Jails of England, and afterwards the Prisons of the Continent. The results of these enquiries he published in 1789. Edmund Burke, the distinguished statesman and greatest orator of the House of Commons, in his address in Parliament recognising the extensive and arduous labours of the great philanthropist, concluded his speech with the following exquisite peroration:—“He has visited all Europe, not to survey the sumptuousness of palaces or the stateliness of temples,—not to make accurate measurements of the remains of ancient grandeur,—not to form a scale of the curiosities of modern art,—not to collect metals or to collate manuscripts,—but to dive into the depths of dungeons; to plunge into the infection of hospitals to survey the mansions of sorrow and pain; to take the gauge and dimensions of misery, depression, and contempt; to remember the forgotten; to attend to the neglected; to visit the forsaken; and to compare and collate the distresses of all men in all countries. His plan is original: it is as full of genius as of humanity. It was a voyage of discovery; a circumnavigation of charity.” The foregoing quotation appeared in the Scots Magazine, a periodical which several of the Paisley Book Clubs took in; and we have referred to it, as we have no doubt that Tannahill read it, and then wrote the line—
“An Alexander sinks beside a Howard.”
John Howard, in prosecuting his cause, died at Kherson, in South Russia, on the 20th of January, 1790.—Ed.
[Semple 24]