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As bees bizz out wi' angry fyke,1 When plundering herds assail their byke;2

As open pussie's mortal foes,
When, pop! she starts before their
nose;

As eager runs the market-crowd,
When, "Catch the thief!" resounds
aloud;

So Maggie runs, the witches follow, Wi' mony an eldritch skreech and hollow.

Ah, Tam! ah, Tam! thou'll get thy fairin!

In hell they'll roast thee like a herrin!

Whene'er to drink you are inclin'd,
Or cutty-sarks run in your mind,
Think, ye may buy the joys o'er dear,
Remember Tam O'Shanter's mare.

FROM THE "LINES TO A LOUSE."
Now haud ye there, ye're out o' sight,
Below the fatt'rils, snug and tight;
Na, faith ye yet! ye'll no be right
Till ye've got on it,

The vera topmost, tow'ring height
O' Miss's bonnet.

I wad na been surpris'd to spy
You on an auld wife's flainen toy;6
Or aiblins some bit duddie boy,
On 's wyliecoat: 7

How daur ye do't?

In vain thy Kate awaits thy comin!
Kate soon will be a woefu' woman!
Now, do thy speedy utmost, Meg,
And win the key-stane of the brig; But Miss's fine Lunardi! fie,
There at them thou thy tail may toss,
A running stream they dare na cross.
But ere the key-stane she could make,
The fient a tail she had to shake!
For Nannie, far before the rest,
Hard upon noble Maggie prest,
And flew at Tam wi' furious ettle;+
But little wist she Maggie's mettle —
Ae spring brought off her master

hale,

But left behind her ain gray tail;
The carlin claught her by the rump,
And left poor Maggie scarce a stump.
Now, who this tale of truth shall
read,

Ilk man and mother's son, tak heed;

1 Bustle,

O Jenny, dinna toss your head,
An' set your beauties a' abread!
Ye little ken what cursed speed

The blastie's' makin!
Thae winks and finger-ends, I dread,
Are notice takin!

O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as others see us!
It wad frae mony a blunder free us
And foolish notion;
What airs in dress and gait wad lea'e
us,
And ev'n devotion!

2 Hive.

It is a well-known fact that witches, or any evil spirits have no power to follow a poor wight any farther than the middle of the next running stream. It may be proper likewise to mention to the benighted traveller, that when he falls in with bogles, whatever danger may be in his going forward, there is much more hazard in turning back. R. B.

• Effort.

An old-fashioned head-dress.

Ribbon-ends. 7 Flannel vest.

A bonnet, named after Lunardi, whose balloon made him notorious in Scotland about 1785.

The shrivelled dwarf.

SAMUEL BUTLER.

[From Hudibras.]

THE LEARNING OF HUDIBRAS.

He was in logic a great critic, Profoundly skill'd in analytic; He could distinguish and divide A hair 'twixt south and south-west side;

On either which he would dispute, Confute, change hands, and still confute.

He'd undertake to prove, by force
Of argument, a man's no horse.
He'd prove a buzzard is no fowl,
And that a lord may be an owl,
A calf an alderman, a goose a jus-
tice,

And rooks committee-men and trus

tees.

He'd run in debt by disputation,
And pay with ratiocination.
All this by syllogism, true

In mood and figure he would do.
For Rhetoric, he could not ope

Which made some think, when he
did gabble,
They'd heard three laborers of Babel;
Or Cerberus himself pronounce
A leash of languages at once.
This he as volubly would vent
As if his stock would ne'er be spent;
And truly to support that charge,
He had supplies as vast and large;
For he could coin or counterfeit
New words with little or no wit:
Words, so debas'd and hard, no stone
Was hard enough to touch them on:
And when with hasty noise he spoke
'em,

The ignorant for current took 'em;
That had the orator, who once
Did fill his mouth with pebble-stones
When he harangued, but known his
phrase,

He would have used no other ways.
In Mathematics he was greater
Than Tycho Brahe or Erra Pater:
For he, by geometric scale,

His mouth, but out there flew a Could take the size of pots of ale;

trope:

And when he happened to break off
In the middle of his speech, or cough,
He had hard words ready to shew
why,

And tell what rules he did it by:
Else, when with greatest art he spoke,
You'd think he talk'd like other
folk:

For all a rhetorician's rules
Teach nothing but to name his tools.
But, when he pleas'd to shew't, his
speech,

In loftiness of sound, was rich;
A Babylonish dialect,
Which learned pedants much affect.
It was a party-color'd dress
Of patch'd and piebald languages:
'Twas English cut on Greek and La-
tin,

Like fustian heretofore on satin.
It had an odd promiscuous tone,
As if he'd talked three parts in
one;

Resolve, by signs and tangents, straight,

If bread or butter wanted weight; And wisely tell what hour o' th' day The clock does strike, by algebra. Beside he was a shrewd philosopher, And had read ev'ry text and gloss

over.

Whate'er the crabbed'st author hath, He understood by implicit faith: Whatever sceptic could inquire for, For ev'ry why he had a wherefore; Knew more than forty of them do, As far as words and terms could go: All which he understood by rote, And, as occasion serv'd, would quote No matter whether right or wrong, They might be either said or sung. His notions fitted things so well, That which was which he could not tell

But oftentimes mistook the one For th' other, as great clerks have done.

He could reduce all things to acts, And knew their natures by abstracts; Where entity and quiddity,

The ghosts of defunct bodies fly, Where truth in person does appear, Like words congeal'd in northern air.

He knew what's what, and that's as high

As metaphysic wit can fly.

[From Hudibras.]

More peevish, cross, and splenetic, Than dog distract, or monkey sick; That with more care keep holy-day The wrong, than others the right way:

Compound for sins they are inclined to,

By damning those they have no mind

to:

Still so perverse and opposite,

As if they worshipped God for spite.
The self-same thing they will abhor
One way, and long another for.
Free-will they one way disavow;

THE BIBLICAL KNOWLEDGE AND Another, nothing else allow.

RELIGION OF HUDIBRAS.

He knew the seat of Paradise,
Could tell in what degree it lies;
And, as he was disposed, could prove

it

Below the moon, or else above it: What Adam dreamt of, when his bride

Came from her closet in his side;
Whether the devil tempted her
By a High-Dutch interpreter:
If either of them had a navel:
Who first made music malleable;
Whether the serpent, at the fall,
Had cloven feet or none at all.
All this without a gloss or comment,
He could unriddle in a moment,
In proper terms, such as men smat-
ter,

When they throw out and miss the

matter.

For his religion, it was fit
To match his learning and his wit:
'Twas Presbyterian true blue;
For he was of that stubborn crew
Of errant saints whom all men grant
To be the true church militant;
Such as do build their faith upon
The holy text of pike and gun;
Decide all controversies by
Infallible artillery;

And prove their doctrine orthodox
By apostolic blows and knocks.

A sect whose chief devotion lies
In odd perverse antipathies;
In falling out with that or this,
And finding somewhat still amiss:

All piety consists therein

In them, in other men all sin.
Rather than fail they will decry
That which they love most tenderly;
Quarrel with minced pie, and dispar-

age

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FROM "NOTHING TO WEAR." NOTHING TO WEAR! Now, as this is a true ditty,

I do not assert this, you know, is between us

That she's in a state of absolute nudity,

Like Powers' Greek Slave or the Medici Venus;

But I do mean to say, I have heard her declare,

When at the same moment she had on a dress

Which cost five hundred dollars, and not a cent less,

And jewelry worth ten times more, I should guess, That she had not a thing in the wide world to wear!

I should mention just here, that out of Miss Flora's

Two hundred and fifty or sixty adorers,

I had just been selected as he who

should throw all

The rest in the shade, by the gracious bestowal

On myself, after twenty or thirty rejections,

Of those fossil remains which she called her “affections,"

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And flirt when I like-now, stop, don't you speak

And you must not come here more than twice in the week,

Or talk to me either at party or ball, But always be ready to come when I call;

So don't prose to me about duty and stuff,

If we don't break this off, there will be time enough

For that sort of thing; but the bargain must be

That, as long as I choose, I am perfectly free,

For this is a kind of engagement,

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Well, having thus wooed Miss M'Flimsey and gained her,

With the silks, crinolines, and hoops that contained her,

I had, as I thought, a contingent remainder

At least in the property, and the best right

To appear as its escort by day and by night;

And it being the week of the Stuckups' grand ball,

Their cards had been out a fortnight or so,

And set all the Avenue on the tiptoe,

I considered it only my duty to call, And see if Miss Flora intended to go. I found her -as ladies are apt to be found,

When the time intervening between the first sound

Of the bell and the visitor's entry is shorter

Than usual-I found; I won't say I caught her,

Intent on the pier-glass, undoubtedly meaning

To see if perhaps it did n't need cleaning.

She turned as I entered-"Why Harry, you sinner,

I thought that you went to the Flashers' to dinner!"

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