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HORACE, ODE XI. LIB. I.

IV.

A sad-ey'd mourner at his tomb,

Thou, Friendship! pay thy rites divine,

And echo thro' the midnight gloom
That Strephon's early fall was thine.

HORACE,

ODE XI. LIB. I.

NE'ER fash your thumb what gods decree

To be the weird o' you or me.

Nor deal in cantrip's kittle cunning

To spier how fast your days are running;

But patient lippen for the best,

Nor be in dowy thought opprest,

Whether we see mair winters come

Than this that spits wi' canker'd foam.

THE AUTHOR'S LIFE.

Now moisten weel your geyzen'd wa's
Wi' couthy friends and hearty blaws;
Ne'er let your hope o'ergang your days,
For eild and thraldom never stays;
The day looks gash, toot aff your horn,
Nor care yae strae about the morn.

་་་་་

THE

AUTHOR'S LIFE.

My life is like the flowing stream

That glides where summer's beauties teem,

Meets all the riches of the gale

That on its watry bosom sail,

And wanders 'midst Elysian groves

Thro' all the haunts that fancy loves.

May I when drooping days decline, And 'gainst those genial streams combine, The winter's sad decay forsake,

And centre in my parent lake.

SONG.

SINCE brightest beauty soon must fade,

That in life's spring so long has roll'd,
And whither in the drooping shade,
E'er it return to native mould.

Ye virgins, seize the fleeting hour,
In time catch Cytherea's joy,
'Ere age your wonted smiles deflower,
And hopes of love and life annoy.

EPIGRAM

On a Lawyer's desiring one of the Tribe to look with respect to a Gibbet.

THE Lawyers may revere that tree

Where thieves so oft have strung,

Since, by the Law's most wise decree,
Her thieves are never hung.

ON THE

AUTHOR'S INTENTION

OF GOING TO SEA.

FORTUNE and BOB, e'er since his birth,

Could never yet agree;

She fairly kick'd him from the earth,
To try his fate at sea.

EPIGRAM

Written Extempore, at the desire of a gentleman who was rather ill-favoured, but who had a beautiful Family of Children.

SC-TT and his children emblems are

Of real good and evil;

His children are like cherubims,

But Scott is like the devil.

THE

VANITY OF HUMAN WISHES.

An Elegy on the untimely Death of a Scots Poet.

BY MR JOHN TAIT.

Quis desiderio sit pudor, aut modus
Tam cari capitis? Præcipe lugubres
Cantus, Melpomene, cui liquidam pater
Vocem cum cithara dedit.

HOR.

DARK was the night, and silence reign'd o'er all; No mirthful sounds urg'd on the ling'ring hour The sheeted ghost stalk'd thro' the stately hall; And ev'ry breast confess'd chill Horror's

power.

Slumb'ring I lay: I mus'd on human hopes:

"Vain, vain," I cried, " are all the hopes we

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