Nay, if she love me not, I care not for her:
Shall I look pale because the maiden blooms?
Or sigh because she smiles-and smiles on others?
Not I, by Heaven!-I hold my peace too dear,
To let it, like the plume upon her cap,
Shake at each nod that her caprice shall dictate.
Old Play.
Yet keep up thy heart, bold cavalier,
For a cup of sack shall fence the cold.
For time will rust the brightest blade,
And years will break the strongest bow;
Was never wight so starkly made,
But time and years would overthrow?
(2.)-VERSES FOUND IN BOTHWELL'S POCKET-BOOK.
["It may be worth noting, that it was in correcting the proof-sheets of The Antiquary that Scott first took to equipping his chapters with mottoes of his own fabrication. On one occasion he happened to ask John Ballantyne, who was sitting by him, to hunt for a par"WITH these letters was a lock of hair wrapped in ticular passage in Beaumont and Fletcher. John did a copy of verses, written obviously with a feeling which as he was bid, but did not succeed in discovering the lines. Hang it, Johnnie,' cried Scott, I believe I atoned, in Morton's opinion, for the roughness of the I can make a motto sooner than you will find one.' poetry, and the conceits with which it abounded, acHe did so accordingly; and from that hour, when-cording to the taste of the period: ”— ever memory failed to suggest an appropriate epigraph, he had recourse to the inexhaustible mines of 'old play' or old ballad,' to which we owe some of the most exquisite verses that ever flowed from his pen"-Life, vol. v., p. 145.]
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THY hue, dear pledge, is pure and bright,
As in that well-remember'd night,
When first thy mystic braid was wove,
And first my Agnes whisper'd love.
Since then how often hast thou press'd
The torrid zone of this wild breast,
Whose wrath and hate have sworn to dwell
With the first sin which peopled hell,
A breast whose blood's a troubled ocean,
Each throb the earthquake's wild commotion!-
O, if such clime thou canst endure,
Yet keep thy hue unstain'd and pure,
What conquest o'er each erring thought
Of that fierce realm had Agnes wrought!
I had not wander'd wild and wide,
With such an angel for my guide;
Nor heaven nor earth could then reprove me,
If she had lived, and lived to love me.
Not then this world's wild joys had been
To me one savage hunting scene,
My sole delight the headlong race,
And frantic hurry of the chase;
To start, pursue, and bring to bay,
Rush in, drag down and rend my prey,
Then-from the carcass turn away!
Mine ireful mood had sweetness tamed,
And soothed each wound which pride inflamed!
Yes, God and man might now approve me,
If thou hadst lived, and lived to love me.
Chap. xxiii.
(1.)-MAJOR BELLENDEN'S SONG. AND what though winter will pinch severe Through locks of grey and a cloak that 's old,
(3.)-EPITAPH ON BALFOUR OF BURLEY
"GENTLE reader, I did request of mine honest friend Peter Proudfoot, travelling merchant, known to many of this land for his faithful and just dealings, as well in muslins and cambrics as in small wares, to procure
In the far eastern clime, no great while since,
Lived Sultaun Solimaun, a mighty prince,
Whose eyes, as oft as they perform'd their round,
Beheld all others fix'd upon the ground;
Whose ears received the same unvaried phrase,
"Sultaun! thy vassal hears, and he obeys!"
All have their tastes-this may the fancy strike
Of such grave folks as pomp and grandeur like;
For me, I love the honest heart and warm
Of Monarch who can amble round his farm,
Or, when the toil of state no more annoys,
In chimney corner seek domestic joys-
I love a prince will bid the bottle pass,
Exchanging with his subjects glance and glass;
In fitting time, can, gayest of the gay,
Keep up the jest, and mingle in the lay--
Such Monarchs best our free-born humours suit,
But Despots must be stately, stern, and mute.
This Solimaun, Serendib had in sway—
And where's Serendib? may some critic say.-
Good lack, mine honest friend, consult the chart,
Scare not my Pegasus before I start!
If Rennell has it not, you'll find, mayhap,
The isle laid down in Captain Sindbad's map,-
Famed mariner! whose merciless narrations
Drove every friend and kinsman out of patience,
Till, fain to find a guest who thought them shorter.
He deign'd to tell them over to a porter-3
The last edition see, by Long. and Co.,
Rees, Hurst, and Orme, our fathers in the Row.
Serendib found, deem not my tale a fiction-
This Sultaun, whether lacking contradiction-
(A sort of stimulant which hath its uses,
To raise the spirits and reform the juices,
-Sovereign specific for all sorts of cures
In my wife's practice, and perhaps in yours,)
The Sultaun lacking this same wholesome bitter,
Or cordial smooth for prince's palate fitter-
Or if some Mollah had hag-rid his dreams
With Degial, Ginnistan, and such wild themes
Belonging to the Mollah's subtle craft,
I wot not-but the Sultaun never laugh'd,
Scarce ate or drank, and took a melancholy
That scorn'd all remedy-profane or holy;
2 The hint of the following tale is taken from La Camiscia Magica, a novel of Giam Battista Casti.
3 See the Arabian Nights' Entertainments.
In his long list of melancholies, mad,
Or mazed, or dumb, hath Burton none so bad.1
Physicians soon arrived, sage, ware, and tried,
As e'er scrawl'd jargon in a darken'd room;
With heedful glance the Sultaun's tongue they eyed,
Peep'd in his bath, and God knows where beside,
And then in solemn accent spoke their doom,
"His majesty is very far from well."
Then each to work with his specific fell:
The Hakim Ibrahim instanter brought
His unguent Mahazzim al Zerdukkaut,
While Roompot, a practitioner more wily,
Relied on his Munaskif al fillfily.2
More and yet more in deep array appear,
And some the front assail, and some the rear;
Their remedies to reinforce and vary,
Came surgeon eke, and eke apothecary;
Till the tired Monarch, though of words grown chary,
Yet dropt, to recompense their fruitless labour,
Some hint about a bowstring or a sabre.
There lack'd, I promise you, no longer speeches
To rid the palace of those learned leeches.
Then was the council call'd-by their advice,
(They deem'd the matter ticklish all, and nice,
And sought to shift it off from their own shoulders,)
Tartars and couriers in all speed were sent,
To call a sort of Eastern Parliament
Of feudatory chieftains and freeholders-
Such have the Persians at this very day,
My gallant Malcolm calls them couroultai ;—3
I'm not prepared to show in this slight song
That to Serendib the same forms belong,-
Double assessment, forage, and free quarters. And fearing these as China-men the Tartars. Or as the whisker'd vermin fear the mousers, Each fumbled in the pocket of his trowsers.
And next came forth the reverend Convocation, Bald heads, white beards, and many a turban green, Imaum and Mollah there of every station,
Santon, Fakir, and Calendar were seen. Their votes were various some advised a Mosque With fitting revenues should be erected, With seemly gardens and with gay Kiosque, To recreate a band of priests selected; Others opined that through the realms a dole Be made to holy men, whose prayers might profit The Sultaun's weal in body and in soul.
But their long-headed chief, the Sheik Ul-Sofit, More closely touch'd the point:-"Thy studious mood,"
Quoth he, "O Prince ! hath thicken'd all thy blood, And dull'd thy brain with labour beyond measure; Wherefore relax a space and take thy pleasure, And toy with beauty, or tell o'er thy treasure; From all the cares of state, my Liege, enlarge thee, And leave the burden to thy faithful clergy."
These counsels sage availed not a whit,
And so the patient (as is not uncommon
Where grave physicians lose their time and wit)
Resolved to take advice of an old woman;
His mother she, a dame who once was beauteous,
And still was called so by each subject duteous.
Now, whether Fatima was witch in earnest,
Or only made believe, I cannot say-
E'en let the learn'd go search, and tell me if I'm But she profess'd to cure disease the sternest, wrong.
The Omrahs, each with hand on scymitar,
Gave, like Sempronius, still their voice for war-
"The sabre of the Sultaun in its sheath
Too long has slept, nor own'd the work of death;
Let the Tambourgi bid his signal rattle,
Bang the loud gong, and raise the shout of battle!
This dreary cloud that dims our sovereign's day,
Shall from his kindled bosom flit away,
When the bold Lootie wheels his courser round,
And the arm'd elephant shall shake the ground.
Each noble pants to own the glorious summons-
And for the charges-Lo! your faithful Commons!"
The Riots who attended in their places
(Serendib language calls a farmer Riot) Look'd ruefully in one another's faces,
From this oration auguring much disquiet,
1 See Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy.
For these hard words see D'Herbelot, or the learned editor of the Recipes of Avicenna.
By dint of magic amulet or lay;
And, when all other skill in vain was shown, She deem'd it fitting time to use her own.
66 Sympathia magica hath wonders done,"
(Thus did old Fatima bespeak her son,)
"It works upon the fibres and the pores,
And thus, insensibly, our health restores,
And it must help us here.-Thou must endure
The ill, my son, or travel for the cure.
Search land and sea, and get, where'er you can,
The inmost vesture of a happy man,
I mean his SHIRT, my son; which, taken warm
And fresh from off his back, shall chase your harm,
Bid every current of your veins rejoice,
And your dull heart leap light as shepherd-boy's."
Such was the counsel from his mother came;-
I know not if she had some under-game,
3 See Sir John Malcolm's admirable History of Persia. 4 Nobility.
As Doctors nave, who bid their patients roam
And live abroad, when sure to die at home;
Or if she thought, that, somehow or another,
Queen-Regent sounded better than Queen-Mother;
But, says the Chronicle (who will go look it,)
That such was her advice-the Sultaun took it.
All are on board-the Sultaun and his train,
In gilded galley prompt to plough the main.
The old Rais was the first who questioned,
"Whither?"
They paused" Arabia," thought the pensive Prince, "Was call'd The Happy many ages since
Our Prince, though Sultauns of such things are heedless,
Thought it a thing indelicate and needless
To ask, if at that moment he was happy.
And Monsieur, seeing that he was comme il faut, a
Loud voice mustered up, for " Vive le Roi!"
Then whisper'd, " Ave you any news of Nappy?"
The Sultaun answer'd him with a cross question,—
"Pray, can you tell me aught of one John Bull,
That dwells somewhere beyond your herring-pool ?”
For Mokha, Rais."—And they came safely thither. The query seem'd of difficult digestion,
But not in Araby, with all her balm,
Not where Judea weeps beneath her palm,
Not in rich Egypt, not in Nubian waste,
Could there the step of happiness be traced.
One Copt alone profess'd to have seen her smile,
When Bruce his goblet fill'd at infant Nile:
She bless'd the dauntless traveller as he quaff'd,
But vanish'd from him with the ended draught.
"Enough of turbans," said the weary King,
"These dolimans of ours are not the thing;
Try we the Giaours, these men of coat and cap, I
Incline to think some of them must be happy;
At least, they have as fair a cause as any can,
They drink good wine and keep no Ramazan.
Then northward, ho!"-The vessel cuts the sea,
And fair Italia lies upon her lee.—
But fair Italia, she who once unfurl'd
Her eagle banners o'er a conquer'd world,
Long from her throne of domination tumbled,
Lay, by her quondam vassals, sorely humbled;
The Pope himself look'd pensive, pale, and lean,
And was not half the man he once had been.
"While these the priest and those the noble fleeces,
Our poor old boot," they said, "is torn to pieces.
Its tops the vengeful claws of Austria feel,
And the Great Devil is rending toe and heel.*
If happiness you seek, to tell you truly,
We think she dwells with one Giovanni Bulli;
A tramontane, a heretic,—the buck,
Poffaredio! still has all the luck;
By land or ocean never strikes his flag-
And then-a perfect walking money-bag."
Off set our Prince to seek John Bull's abode,
But first took France-it lay upon the road.
XIII.
Monsieur Baboon, after much late commotion,
Was agitated like a settling ocean,
The well-known resemblance of Italy in the map.
4 The Calabrias, infested by bands of assassins. One of the leaders was called Fra Diavolo, t. e. Brother Devil.
The party shrugg'd, and grinn'd, and took his snuff
And found his whole good-breeding scarce enough.
Twitching his visage into as many puckers
As damsels wont to put into their tuckers,
(Ere liberal Fashion damn'd both lace and law
And bade the veil of modesty be drawn,)
Replied the Frenchman, after a brief pause,
"Jean Bool!-I vas not know him-Yes, I vas→→
I vas remember dat, von year or two,
I saw him at von place call'd Vaterloo-
Ma foi! il s'est tres joliment battu,
Dat is for Englishman,-m'entendez-vous ?
But den he had wit him one damn son-gun,
Rogue I no like-dey call him Vellington."
Monsieur's politeness could not hide his fret,
So Solimaun took leave, and cross'd the strait
John Bull was in his very worst of moods,
Raving of sterile farms and unsold goods;
His sugar-loaves and bales about he threw,
And on his counter beat the devil's tattoo.
His wars were ended, and the victory won,
But then, 'twas reckoning-day with honest John;
And authors vouch, 'twas still this Worthy's way,
"Never to grumble till he came to pay;
And then he always thinks, his temper's such,
The work too little, and the pay too much."6
Yet, grumbler as he is, so kind and hearty,
That when his mortal foe was on the floor,
And past the power to harm his quiet more,
Poor John had wellnigh wept for Bonaparte!
Such was the wight whom Solimaun salam'd,-
"And who are you," John answer'd, "and be d-d?"
"A stranger, come to see the happiest man,-
So, signior, all avouch,-in Frangistan."-7
5 Or drubbing; so called in the Slang Dictionary.
6 See the True Born Englishman, by Daniel De Foe
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