Eulogiated from the green decline
Of Thames's banks to Scoticanian shores,
Where Loch-lomondian liquids undulize.
To meminate thy name in after times,
The mighty mayor of each regalian town
Shall consignate thy work to parchment fair
In roll burgharian, and their tables all
Shall fumigate with fumigation strong:
Scotland, from perpendicularian hills,
Shall emigrate her fair muttonian store,
Which late had there in pedestration walk'd,
And o'er her airy heights perambuliz❜d.
Oh, blackest execrations on thy head,
Edina shameless! tho' he came within
The bounds of your notation; though you knew
His honorific name, you noted not,
But basely suffer'd him to chariotize
Far from your tow'rs, with smoke that nubilate,
Nor drank one amicitial swelling cup
To welcome him convivial.
With rage inflated, catenations1 tear,
Nor ever after be you vinculiz'd,
Since you that sociability denied
To him whose potent lexiphanian stile
Words can prolongate, and inswell his page
With what in others to a line's confin'd.
Welcome, thou verbal potentate and prince!
To hills and vallies, where emerging oats
From earth assuage our pauperty to bay,
And bless thy name, thy dictionarian skill,
Which there definitive will still remain,
And oft be speculiz'd by taper blue,
While youth studentious turn thy folio page.
1 Catenations. Vide chains.-JOHNSON.
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 nat❜ralize.
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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