Have you as yet, in per'patetic mood,
Regarded with the texture of the eye
The cave cavernick, where fraternal bard,
Churchill, depicted pauperated swains
With thraldom and bleak want, reducted sore,
Where Nature, coloriz❜d, so coarsely fades
And puts her russet par'phernalia on?
Have you as yet the way explorified,
To let lignarian chalice, swell'd with oats,
Thy orifice approach? Have you as yet,
With skin fresh rubified by scarlet spheres,
Apply'd brimstonic unction to your hide,
To terrify the salamandrian fire
That from involuntary digits asks
The strong allaceration?-Or can you swill
The usquebalian flames of whiskey blue
In fermentation strong? have you apply'd
The kilt aerian to your Anglian thighs,
And with renunciation assigniz'd
Your breeches in Londona to be worn?
Can you, in frigor of Highlandian sky,
On heathy summits take nocturnal rest?
It cannot be-You may as well desire
An alderman leave plum-puddenian store,
And scratch the tegument from pottage-dish,
As bid thy countrymen, and thee conjoin'd,
Forsake stomachic joys. Then hie you home,
And be a malcontent, that naked hinds,
On lentils fed, can make your kingdom quake,
And tremulate Old England libertiz'd.
ON JOHNSON'S DICTIONARY. 1
In love with a pedantic jargon,
Our poets now-a-days are far gone;
So that a man can't read their songs,
Unless he has the gift of tongues;
Or else, to make him understand,
Keeps Johnson's Lexicon at hand.
Be warn'd, young poet, and take heed,
That Johnson you with caution read:
Always attentively distinguish
The Greek and Latin words from English;
And never use such, as 'tis wise
Not to attempt to natʼralize.
Suffice the following specimen,
To make the admonition plain.
Little of anthropopathy has he,
Who in yon fulgid curricle reclines
Alone; while I, depauperated bard!
The streets pedestrious scour; why with bland voice,
Bids he me not his vectitation share?
Alas! he fears my lacerated coat,
And visage pale with frigorific want,
Would bring dedecoration on his chaise.
Me miserable! that the Aonian hill
Is not auriferous, nor fit to bear
1 I place this second poem on 'Johnson' among Fergusson's: because I feel satisfied that it also is his production. It appeared in the 'Weekly Magazine' only a few months before the preceding one, and it is most unlikely that he would have published that, had not the former likewise been his. Moreover, in a fragment of a letter of our Poet's to Woods of the Theatre' the matter of the present verses occurs in prose. The italics sufficiently elucidate the cumbrous Latinizations of Johnson. These 'Verses' were published anonymously, but various of his acknowledged Poems appeared similarly.
The farinaceous food, support of bards
Carnivorous but seldom; yet the soil
Which Hippocrene humectates, nothing yields
But sterile laurels and aquaticks sour.
To dulcify th' absinthiated cup
Of life, receiv'd from thy novercal hand,
Shall I have nothing, muse? To lenify
Thy heart indurate, shall poetic woe
And plaintive ejulation nought avail?
Riches desiderate I never did,
Ev'n when in mood most optative; a farm,
Small, but aprique, was all I ever wish'd.
I, when a rustic, wou'd my blatant calves
Well pleas'd ablactate, and delighted tend
My gemilliparous sheep; nor scorn to rear
The superb turkey and the fripant goose;
Then to dendrology my thoughts I'd turn,
A fav'rite care should horticulture be,
But most of all would geoponicks please.
While ambulation thoughtless I protract,
The tir'd sun appropinquates to the sea:
And now my arid throat, and latrant guts
Vociferate for supper; but what house
To get it in gives dubitation sad.
O! for a turgid bottle of Bell's beer,
Mature for imbibition! and O! for
(Dear object of hiation) mutton pies.
ON JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ. AND DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON
BEING CONFINED TO THE ISLE OF SKY.
["Dr. Johnson and Mr. Boswell have at last appeared. It seems they sailed from the isle of Sky on the 3d instant, bound for Icolmkill, but were driven, by the remarkable storm which came on that day, to the isle of Coll, where they were wind bound for a fortnight. On getting loose from Coll, as they term it, they reached the isle of Mull, and from thence went to Icolmkill, under the conduct of Sir Allan Maclean. They dined yesterday with the Duke of Argyle, and this day set out for Glasgow, from whence they are to go to Auchinleck.
"Dr. Johnson being asked, how he liked his entertainment in the Highlands? answered, 'That the sauce to everything was the benevolence of the inhabitants, which, he said, could not be enough praised. I love the people, said he, better than the country.'-Dr. Johnson and Mr. Boswell are expected next week at lord Elibank's in East-Lothian."-Extract of a letter from Inverary, Oct. 26, 1773.]
Two gems, the nation's greatest boast,
To Scotia's plains drew near,
Bright to illume her dismal coast,
And barren fields to cheer.
She, fearing that their gracious forms,
To other climes would fly,
Learning and Liberty by storms
Confin'd to Isle of Sky.
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