I hadna been his wife a week but only four, For, though my heart is broken, I'm but young, wae is me! I gang like a ghaist, and I carena much to spin, I darena think o' Jamie, for that would be a sin, Robert Ferguson. Born 1751 Died 1774. FERGUSON was the son of the accountant in the British Linen Company's Bank in Edinburgh, and received a University education. His father dying early, Ferguson was left destitute, but after many privations he obtained a clerkship in a law office, which would have supported him; but he had acquired a taste for the low society of the tavern, which quite unfitted him for his duties. At last, prostrated in body and mind, he sunk into a state of insanity, and ended his life in an asylum. He died in 1774. His poetry is chiefly in the Scottish dialect. He wrote some pieces in English, in which, however, he failed. BRAID CLAITH. YE wha are fain to hae your name But hap ye weel, baith back and wame, He that some ells o' this may fa', Bids bauld to bear the gree awa', When beinly clad wi' shell fu' braw Waesucks for him wha has nae feck o't! For he's a gowk they're sure to geck at; A chiel that ne'er will be respeckit Till his four quarters are bedeckit On Sabbath-days the barber spark, Or to the Meadows, or the Park, Weel might ye trow, to see them there, Would be right laith, When pacin' wi' a gawsy air If ony mettled stirrah grien His body in a scabbard clean For, gin he come wi' coat threadbare, But crook her bonny mou fou sair, And scauld him baith: Wooers should aye their travel spare, Thomas Chatterton. { Born 1752. Died 1770. AN English poet, whose precocious genius and untimely fate have gained him great notoriety. He was born at Bristol, his father being sexton of Redcliff Church, where Chatterton professed to have found the manuscripts which he tried to palm off on the public as ancient. His father dying before he was born, Chatterton was educated at a charity school, where he was thought to be a great dunce, but where, at the age of eight, he began to compose verses. At fourteen he was apprenticed to an attorney in Bristol, under whom he cultivated poetry, antiquities, and heraldry, rather than law. Ambitious in the highest degree of literary fame, he at sixteen set himself to obtain a name, and unfortunately, for this purpose, chose to attempt a series of impositions, probably sug The New Bridge of gested by the success of Macpherson's "Ossian." Bristol having been completed and opened with great ceremony, Chatterton sent to a newspaper an account of the ceremonies that took place at the opening of the Old Bridge, some hundreds of years before, and which he stated to have been found in some ancient manuscripts. This led to inquiries, which Chatterton met by producing farther copies of MS., some of which he sent to Horace Walpole. He took care never to submit the so called originals to any competent judge. Walpole submitted the MS. to Gray and Mason, who at once pronounced them to be forgeries, and after critics have confirmed the sentence. The compositions published by him are so complete and finished that one is lost in wonder at their being written by a youth of sixteen. He had no assistance, but toiled on in secret and alone. How different had been his fate had he adhered to truth! Chatterton now went to London, and found a precarious living by literary work. His splendid visions of fame and honour were melting away. He then cast off the restraints of religion, and plunged into intemperance, which completed the wreck of body and mind. At last, in absolute want, and goaded by remorse into the deepest despair, he destroyed himself by poison on 25th August 1770, at the early age of seventeen years and nine months. A HYMN FOR CHRISTMAS DAY. ALMIGHTY framer of the skies! O let our pure devotion rise, The sun of glory gleamed the ray, How shall we celebrate the day, A humble form the Godhead wore, To gaudy pomp unknown: Tho' in a human walk He trod Still was the Man Almighty God Despised, oppress'd, the Godhead bears, He saw the creatures he had made, How shall we celebrate His name, The soul is raptured to conceive My soul, exert thy powers, adore, The God from whom creation sprung FROM "THE PROPHECY." THIS truth of old was sorrow's friend"Times at the worst will surely mend." The difficulty's then to know How long Oppression's clock can go; When tax is laid to save debate Is levied by prerogative; Look up, ye Britons! cease to sigh, When Popish bishops dare to claim Then is your time to strike the blow, FROM "TRAGEDY OF ELLA."* The Minstrel's Song. OH! sing unto my roundelay; Oh! drop the briny tear with me; Dance no more at holiday, Like a running river be ; My love is dead, Gone to his death-bed, * One of the pretended MSS. |