VII.

And Lady Mary Wortley Montague,
Although a clever woman in most things,
Does very wrong when she speaks ill of you,
And 'gainst your skin reproachful sarcasm flings,
Calling it pale, and dead, and dull of hue,
And cold, and clammy-white, like cod's or ling's.
I know not what a lady's taste may be,
But Dutch cheeks oft seemed kissable to me.

VIII.

They want, indeed, the radiance, rich and sunny,
That eastern warmth in eastern regions speaks;
You won't get that swart glow for love or money;
"Tis not the nature of Batavian cheeks.
But it appears to me extremely funny,

To think one can't kiss any thing but Greeks
And Jewesses, and dark Italian dames,
Merely because they are Lord Byron's flames.
IX.

I'm not at all a bigot in that line;

I'm very liberal in my admiration;
I think one may find something quite divine
Among the female part of every nation.
At different times I differently incline,

(Consistency in gout's a botheration) I fall in love, I speak it to my sorrow, With maidens fair to-day, with dark to-morrow.

X.

The reading public very fiercely blame,
And with much reason too, as I opine,
The introducing of one's real name

Into the pages of this Magazine.

I should esteem it a most heinous shame,
To take such liberties in verse of mine;
Therefore I all particulars suppress,
And slump them in one mass of loveliness.
XI.

Ye bonny lasses! misinterpret not

The motives of the bard, your worshipper;
I sink your names, but may I go to pot,
If therefore be my praise the less sincere.
I value not the breeched tribe a groat,

But would not with one scruple interfere
Of yours for worlds.—“ Fair creatures! to whom
Heaven

A calm and sinless life with love hath given."

XII.

Beauties of every shape, of every hue,
In Caledon's accommodating clime
Spring radiant up; but sorely may ye rue,
If in their company you spend much time:
"Tis sport to them, lads, but 'tis death to you.
How I could rail against them in my rhyme!
Their little, dimpling, fawning, winning wiles;
Their voices falsely sweet, their cunning smiles.

XIII.

She'll hang upon your arm at rout or ball,
As if you were her chosen prop and stay:
And if you peer into her eyes, you shall
Find smiles as bright and warm as the sun's ray.
But if, perchance, upon your knees you fall,
And pop the honest question, by my fay
She'll bridle up, my boy, with mighty glum air,
And look as cool on you as a cucumber.

XIV.

But to return to Holland, and the lasses

That make the windows of the Dutch so clear. Ah! Scottish hizzies! dim your window-glasses, And dirty are yourselves, those maidens near: Even English girls their tidiness surpasses,'Tis no great boast to vanquish your's I fear ;Ye are good creatures, I'd lay gold upon it, But most confounded filthy-I must own it.

XV.

And yet not all without thy charms thou art

Burd Grizzy! magic even in thee there lies, Busked on the Sabbath morn most trim and smart, Kirk-ganging gladness dancing in thine eyes, When, from thy rustic toilette thou dost part,

With scarlet hood arranged in graceful plies, With muslin gown, with coat of manky green, With feet, with cuits, unshod, unhosed-but clean. XVI.

Pernicious beauties-doomed to captivate

The eye of Tam or Saunders, faithless swain. With smooth soft words he'll woo thee to thy fate, Believe him not-his oaths, his vows, are vain: True, he would come with cunning step, and late,

I doubt it not; thro' frost, and wind, and rain, Full many a mile he'd come-the lad is stout; But oh! consent not that he chap thee out.*

XVII.

Else, ere the circling year its round shall speed, Alas! what bitter fortune may be thine ;

I prithee, simple damosel, take heed,

Restrain thee, Grizzy, at my warning line: Think on the doom may be thy folly's meed,Yon solemn elders, yon austere divine, Think with what frowns, they'll hear thy sad confession;

Ah! think, fair maiden, think on the Kirk-Session.

XVIII.

No touch of tender mercy melted ever

The iron hearts of that barbaric crew; Yea, though thine eye be fruitful as a river, With grave, stern glance, thy misery they'll view: They'll call thee harlot, strumpet, Godless-liver, Unclean, a castaway, a tainted ewe,

A Jesabel, a painted, pranked fool

And end with," Grizzy, mount the cutty-stool."

XIX. And mount thou must that black detested bench; Aye up, to all the congregation's gazing, Wrapt in thy mantle soiled, most desolate wench, Not once from thy cold hand thy visage raising; While black Mess John his stubborn fist shall clench, And pour his wrath like a volcano blazing,A fiery flood of taunting, grinning glee, O'er the Precentor's head-and all at thee. XX.

Or if perchance, in wildness of despair,

One asking glance across the kirk you throw, No countenance of softening pity there

Shall meet, O lass forlorn, that eye of woe,The wrinkled beldames' sour and savage stare

Shall meet thee like a witch's curse below ;Around thee, leering lad, and sneering hizzie, Shall find a sport in the rebuke of Grizzy.

XXV.

But these digressions would a saint perplex;
I'm creeping back into last canto's style.-
Not every lass such tears such terrors vex;
To chap-out some of them is not worth while,
Especially those clumsiest of their sex,

Edina's Grizzies-coarse, and stout, and vile,
A man can scarcely span about their wrist,
They don't deserve the honour to be kiss'd.

XXVI.

It can't be said their raiment hangs out lures,
They wear black worsted stockings-that's a dress
Which (its sole merit) dirt from sight secures,
Impregnated with months of filthiness.

I wonder where such creatures can find wooers ;
Some through blue hogars their great ankles press;
Whence, like a rascal's visage in the pillory,
Stares, fringed and flounced with flannel, the
redheelery.

XXVII.

"Tis well that some have gustos less refined, And can endure both hogars and red heels;

A chairman or a cadie is quite blind
To such objections, no disgust he feels;
So be his wench a wholesome and a kind,

He asks no more; a speedy bargain seals Their union; the fond couple club their stock, "For every Jenny there is found a Jock."

XXVIII.

Which brings us back again unto Mynheer
Braun and his Lady. I have ta'en a trot
Since last we parted; I've been far and near;
My fable has not moved a single jot
These forty stanzas-it is very clear

That I into a vaguish style have got;
My poetry much like a wild young horse is,
Or one of Mr Noel's wild Discourses;

XXIX.

But better late than never. As I said

Somewhere, I think, in canto before last, Braun and his company were so ill bred, As, during my discourse, to fall as fast Asleep as if they had been all a-bed;

Whereon to the withdrawing-room I past, To take a dish of tea with Mrs Braun, And talk o'er all the Scandal of the Town.

XXX.

O how a matron gay and fashionable,

A giver of at-homes, a knowing Dame, That fills her suite of rooms with well-clad rabble. Would stare if into such a scene she came ; Some half a score of Fraus sat round a table,

Playing at Commerce, that most dull round game; Enormous Fraus, with ribbons at their ears, And but one beau, the Parson Vanderschpiers.

EDITOR.

ON THE DRESS OF THE ELIZABETHAN AGE.

MR EDITOR,

I HAVE Occasionally observed in your Miscellany, certain sly sneers at the dress of the present day, which, I am exceedingly sorry to think, does not meet with your approbation. As all we know of your personal appearance is," that you are a man clothed in dark garments," the public are unable to judge whether or not your theory of apparel accords with your practice. For my own part, I do not care a straw whether I ever see you or not. I once believed, on the authority of a friend, who never made a joke in his life, that the picture of the old gentleman on the cover of your Magazine was intended for you, and I really could not help respecting your very venerable appearance. I thought indeed, from the length of your beard, that you had rather injudiciously sat for your portrait on a Saturday evening, and as you have no neckcloth on there, I fancied it was out getting washed for the Sabbath. I beg your pardon, however, for this mistake, as I have since been informed, on the best authority, that the picture alluded to, is one of Mr Blackwood, and if he thinks he looks a prettier man in that costume, I have no objection to his wearing it. By the way, this mistake about the picture gave rise, I should fancy, to the idea since exploded, that the Editor and the Publisher were one and the same person. You, sir, however, who are such a critic in dress, must be deep read in its history; and it is, I presume, from a comparison of that of the present day with the fashion of other times, that you are disposed to be so very sarcastic. Now I am willing to stake my character as a well-dressed man,-(and I assure you, that, although I have mounted a wig of late in the Parliament House, I am still, after mid-day, as complete a Dandy-Quadriller as ever) that the dress of the present day is the most rational that ever prevailed in this country since the reign of the immortal Alfred. Let us take the reign of Queen Bess, erroneously called the Virgin Queen; or of King James I. rightly denominated the British Solomon. I will paint a belle and a beau of that day so clearly, as to save you the expense of an engraving, though perhaps your ingenious friend, Mr Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, will exe

cute one in time for your next Number.

I suppose it is a matter of indifference, whether I begin at the feet of the ladies of the Elizabethan age, and so mount up, in my description, to their heads, or commence operations with their heads, and descend gently unto their feet. I adopt the latter mode. In the Merry Wives of Windsor, Falstaff says to Mrs Ford," thou hast the right arched bent of the brow, that becomes the ship-tire, the tire-valiant, and any tire of Venetian admittance." "The ship-tire (says the excellent Dr Drake, in his most amusing book on Shakspeare), appears to have been an open flaunting head-dress, with scarfs or ribbons floating in the air like streamers:"

"With ribbons pendant flaring round her

head."

The tire-valiant was probably something more showy-and, I suppose, only hoisted in calm weather and light breezes, like sky-scrapers on the masts of ships. Such head-dresses awoke different images to different minds, and while to some they suggested that of a ship with every inch of canvass set, to others they seemed rather ludicrous than magnificent. A satirical poet of 1595, speaks of "Flaming heads with staring haire, To peacocks I compare them right, With wyres turn'd like horns of ram; Who glorieth in their feathers bright."

Beneath head-dresses such as these, the ladies were not contented, like those of our times, to wear nothing but their own hair. We are told by Stubbs, in his Anatomy of Abuses, that it was who had beautiful hair into private a common practice to allure children places, and crop them. The dead, too, were rifled for the same purpose. The right of sepulchres, were shorn away "The golden tresses of the dead, To live a second life, or second head, And beauty's dead fleece made another gay."

It happened that Queen Bess had red hair, and when that failed her, Paul Hentzer tells us, that she wore a red wig. It therefore became fashionable to wear red wigs, though, from the love of vanity, wigs were to be seen of all hues. "Wigs of all hues, and without pins the hair."

"It is a wonder more than ordinary (says an old satirist) to "behould theyr perewigs of sundry collours." As few faces could look well under a red wig, the ladies were under the necessity of