PROLOGUE, SPOKEN BY MR WOODS ON HIS
BENEFIT NIGHT.

Monday, April 16, 1787.

WHEN by a generous Public's kind acclaim,
That dearest meed is granted-honest fame;
When here your favour is the actor's lot,
Nor even the man in private life forgot;
What breast so dead to heavenly Virtue's glow,
But heaves impassioned with the grateful throe.

Poor is the task to please a barbarous throng,
It needs no Siddons' powers in Southern's song;
But here an ancient nation famed afar,
For genius, learning high, as great in war-
Hail, CALEDONIA, name for ever dear!
Before whose son's I'm honoured to appear!
Where every science-every nobler art-
That can inform the mind, or mend the heart,
Is known; as grateful nations oft have found
Far as the rude barbarian marks the bound.
Philosophy, no idle pedant dream,

Here holds her search by heaven-taught Reason's beam;
Here History paints with elegance and force
The tide of Empire's fluctuating course;

Here Douglas forms wild Shakspeare into plan,
And Harley* rouses all the god in man,

When well-formed Taste and sparkling Wit unite
With manly Lore, or female Beauty bright
(Beauty, where faultless symmetry and grace,
Can only charm us in the second place),
Witness my heart, how oft with panting fear,
As on this night, I've met these judges here!
But still the hope Experience taught to live,
Equal to judge-you're candid to forgive.
No hundred-headed Riot here we meet,
With Decency and Law beneath his feet;
Nor Insolence assumes fair Freedom's name;
Like CALEDONIANS, you applaud or blame.

Oh thou dread Power! whose empire-giving hand
Has oft been stretched to shield the honoured land!
Strong may she glow with all her ancient fire!
May every son be worthy of his sire!

Firin may she rise with generous disdain
At Tyranny's or direr Pleasure's chain!

Still self-dependent in her native shore,

Bold may she brave grim Danger's loudest roar,
Till Fate the curtain drops on worlds to be no more.

WILLIE'S AWA.

AULD chuckie Reekie's† sair distrest,

Down droops her ance weel-burnished crest,

Nae joy her bonny buskit nest

Can yield ava,

Her darling bird that she lo'es best

Willie's awa!

Oh Willie was a witty wight,
And had o' things an unco slight;
Auld Reekie aye he keepit tight,
And trig and braw:

The "Man of Feeling.'

sore

once

no, decorated

at all

wise

was clever-handed

neat

A familiar sobriquet for Edinburgh.

But now they'll busk her like a fright-
Willie's awa

The stiffest o' them a he bowed;
The bauldest o' them a' he cowed;
They durst nae mair than he allowed,
That was a law:

We've lost a birkie weel worth gowd-
Willie's awa!

Now gawkies, tawpics, gowks, and fools,
Frae colleges and boarding-schools,
May sprout like simmer puddock-stools
In glen or shaw;

He wha could brush them down to mools,
Willie's awa!

dress

boldest

more

fellow, gold

simpleton, slut, silly

The brethren o' the Commerce-Chaumer
May mourn their loss wi' doolfu' clamour;
He was a dictionar and grammar

Amang them a';

I fear they'll now mak mony a stammer-
Willie's awa!

Nae mair we see his levee door
Philosophers and poets pour,
And toothy critics by the score,
In bloody raw!

The adjutant o' a' the core,

Willie's awa!

Now worthy Gregory's* Latin face,

Tytler'st and Greenfield'st modest grace;

Mackenzies, Stewart,|| sic a brace

As Rome ne'er saw;

They a' maun meet some ither place,

Willie's awa!

Poor Burns-e'en Scotch drink canna quicken,

He cheeps like some bewilder'd chicken,

Scar'd frae its minnie and the clecken,

By hoodie-craw;

Grief's gien his heart an unco kickin'-
Willie's awa!

Now every sour-mou'd girnin' blellum,
And Calvin's folk, are fit to fell him;
And self-conceited critic skellum

His quill may draw ;

He wha could brawlie ward their bellum

Willie's awa!

Up wimpling stately Tweed I've sped,
And Eden scenes on crystal Jed,

Dr James Gregory.
Lord Woodhouslee.
Professor Greenfield.

(a fungus)

wood

dust

chamber

sorrowful

row

company

such

must, other

cannot

chirps

Author of "Man of Feeling."
Professor Dugald Stewart

ON LEAVING A PLACE IN THE HIGHLANDS WHERE HE HAD
BEEN KINDLY ENTERTAINED.

WHEN death's dark stream I ferry o'er-
A time that surely shall come-
In heaven itself I'll ask no more
Than just a Highland welcome!

ON READING IN A NEWSPAPER

THE DEATH OF JOHN M'LEOD, ESQ.,

BROTHER TO A YOUNG LADY, A PARTICULAR FRIEND OF THE AUTHOR'S.

SAD thy tale, thou idle page,

And rueful thy alarms

Death tears the brother of her love

From Isabella's arms.

Sweetly decked with pearly dew
The morning rose may blow,
But cold successive noontide blasts
May lay its beauties low.

Fair on Isabella's morn

The sun propitious smiled,
But, long ere noon, succeeding clouds
Succeeding hopes beguiled.

Fate oft tears the bosom cords
That nature finest strung;
So Isabella's heart was formed,
And so that heart was wrung.
Were it in the poet's power,
Strong as he shares the grief
That pierces Isabella's heart,
To give that heart relief!
Dread Omnipotence, alone,

Can heal the wound he gave-
Can point the brimful grief-worn eyes
To scenes beyond the grave.

Virtue's blossoms there shall blow,
And fear no withering blast;
There Isabella's spotless worth
Shall happy be at last.

ON THE DEATH OF SIR JAMES HUNTER BLAIR.

THE lamp of day, with ill-presaging glare,

Dim, cloudy, sank beneath the western wave;

The inconstant blast howled through the darkening air, And hollow whistled in the rocky cave.

Lone as I wandered by each cliff and dell,

Once the loved haunts of Scotia's royal train ;*
Or mused where limpid streams once hallowed well,t
Or mouldering ruins marked the sacred fane. ‡

The increasing blast roared round the beetling rocks,
The clouds, swift-winged, flew o'er the starry sky,
The groaning trees untimely shed their locks,
And shooting meteors caught the startled eye.

The paly moon rose in the livid east,

And 'mong the cliffs disclosed a stately form,
In weeds of woe that frantic beat her breast,
And mixed her wailings with the raving storm.
Wild to my heart the filial pulses glow,

"Twas Caledonia's trophied shield I viewed: Her form majestic drooped in pensive woe, The lightning of her eye in tears imbued.

Park, Holyrood.

+ St Anthony's Well.

St Anthony's Chapel.