SOLILOQUY, September 29th, 1746.
This prop and that successively decays.
Strokes thicken; each alarm my heart dismays,
Widow'd of ev'ry earthly flatt'ring joy.
Sorrows on sorrows roll without alloy.
My country bleeds, and in its ruines lie
Thousands. My all 's perhaps condemned to die.
Amaz'd, o'erwhelmed, without one cheering ray,
From those dread scenes, when shall I wing my way?
To Thee, great God, I lift my fainting soul,
Who fierce, devouring passions canst controul.
Nature, convulsive, wrapt in furious forms,
Calms at thy word. Contend shall mortal worms?
If partial ill promotes the gen'ral good,
Tho' nature shrinks, I kiss the angry rod.
This, this alone, my spirits can sustain,
That thou supreme o'er all the world dost reign.
When I or mine, howe'er decreed to fall,
Shall turn to dust, be our eternal all.
Meanwhile, inspire with fortitude divine;
In prisons and in death, thy face make shine.
Thy smiles, O God! each trial can unsting,
And out of gall itself can sweetness bring.
O Liberty! O Virtue! O my Country!
Tell me, ye wise, now sunk in deep despair,
Where grows the med'cine for oppressive care?
Where grows it not? th' ingenious Pope replies;
To make the happy, friend, be good, be wise;
Add only competence to health and peace,
You need no more to perfect happiness.'
O strangers to the sorrows of the mind,
The load of ills that oft afflicts mankind!
One chain of woes another still succeeds.
Our friends are martyr'd, and our country bleeds.
Humanity's too weak these ills to bear;
Too plain a proof no happiness is here.
Must we, content, slavery's curse endure,
Nor bravely wish, nor once attempt a cure?
Will rebel-murderers from blood refrain ?
Will corrupt statesmen liberty maintain?
Will Britain clear her long-contracted scores
On armies, fleets, for Hanover and whores?
Will justice flourish, will our trade increase,
Our fame grow greater, or our taxes less?
Bid things impossible in our natures rise!
Bid knaves turn honest, nay, bid fools turn wise!
Bid France keep faith! Bid England show her zeal,
And fight as well as wish to turn the scale!
Bid sympathy forsake my joyless breast,
Or miracles revive to give me rest!
In private life may happiness be found
With those who only live, or who abound?
Mark all estates, and shew me if you can,
What's more precarious than the bliss of man.
Amidst his joys, uncertain to possess,
The fear of losing makes the pleasure less.
Thus one's tormented with foreboding pain,
Another 's wretched thro' desire of gain.
Some who enjoy health, peace, and competence,
Are still unhappy; they 've but common sense.
The man of genius, brighter far and great,
Would gladly change for a genteel estate.
In ev'ry station discontent we see ;
Each thinks his neighbour happier than he.
Search the world o'er, 'tis doubtful if you find
One man's condition fitted to his mind.
Alternate real or imagin'd woes
Disturb our life and all our joys oppose.
Nor can my muse the mournful tale avoid,
What numbers zeal and brav'ry have destroy'd,
The gen'rous, faithful, uncorrupted band,
Design'd deliv'rers of a sinking land.
Tho' good, unfortunate; oppress'd, tho' brave;
See spiteful foes pursue them to the grave.
Unshaken loyalty is all their crime,
And struggling with their chains a second time.
For this they suffer worse than traitor's fate,
Condemned by knaves and furies of the state,
In loathsome dungeons close confin'd they lie,
To feel a thousand deaths before they die.
At last these heroes must resign their breath,
And close the scene with ignominious death.
Thus ev'n the best their virtue has undone,
And fix'd the slav'ry which they sought to shun.
How then shall man attain the state of bliss?
In t' other world he may, but not in this.
Unjustly, therefore, some we happy call.
More or less wretched is the fate of all.
Upon the different Accounts of the behaviour of the two executed lords (Kilmarnock and Balmerino), taken out of an English Newspaper.
If Ford and Foster haply disagree,
What is a trivial circumstance to me.
But this of their two heroes I remark,
Howe'er the historians leave us in the dark,
OLD ROUGH AND TUGGED much outmann'd the Earl,
And tho' mistaken was a steady carl.
The Earl's conversion is an obvious thing,
If not to Christ, at least to George our king.
Arthurus, Dominus de Balmerino, decollatus 18 die Augusti
1746, ætatis suæ 58. By a Lady.
Here lies the man, to Scotland ever dear,
Whose honest breast ne'er felt a guilty fear.
By principle, not mean self int'rest, sway'd,
The victor left to bring the vanquish'd aid;
His courage manly, but his words were few,
Content in poverty, and own'd it too.
In life's last scene with dignity appears,
Not for himself, but for his country, fears;
Pities the graceful partner of his fall,
And nobly wishes he might die for all.
Ev'n enemies, convinc'd, his worth approv'd:
He fell admir'd, lamented, and belov'd.
The above turned into the form of an Inscription.
Here lies ARTHUR, Lord BALMERINO,
Whose memory will be ever dear to his country.
Religiously strict and judicious in the choice
Of his principles and maxims of life,
With an inflexible constancy was he attached to them.
He left the service of George, in which he bore some rank,
To join the sinking cause of the injured James,
After the woeful defeat at Dumblane.
He was a man of great personal courage
And remarkable modesty
In a corrupted age, asham'd of nothing but want.
He bore unmerited poverty with a Roman greatness of soul.
In the closing scene of life
He behaved with surprizing dignity,
Expressing a warm regard for his unhappy country
And vindicating his own honour and that of the injured
Charles P.
Feelingly he express'd a generous concern for his companion,
And nobly wish'd he alone might suffer for the cause.
He triumphed over calumny, silenced his enemies
Struck with admiration at his uncommon intrepidity,
And fell admired, lamented, esteemed by all.
Here Arthur lies, the rest forbear;
There may be treason in a tear.
If Heav'n be pleas'd when sinners cease to sin;
If Hell be pleas'd when sinners enter in ;
If earth be pleas'd to lose a truckling knave;
Then all are pleas'd-MacDonald's in his grave.
Spoken extempore on Lovat's Execution, by a lover of all those
who will and dare be honest in the worst of times.
None but the hangman, Murray,2 or some tool,
Could from his heart say Lovat was a fool.
Yet ev'ry coxcomb will explain and teach
The chain of causes that surpass his reach.
When soft Kilmarnock, trembling, came to bleed,
He fell a traitor and a wretch indeed.
His coward soul the canting preacher awes,
weeps and dies a rebel to the cause.
'Twas hope of pardon; 'twas fanatick fear;
And none but Hanoverians dropt a tear.
Brave Balmerino, whom no words can paint,
Embrac'd his martyrdom and died a saint.
He sprang triumphant to a better state,
By all confest, superiour to his fate.
If Ratcliffe's youthful crimes receiv'd their due,
Ratcliffe was steady, bold and loyal too.
1 See f. 1829, where these lines are repeated.
2 John Murray of Broughton (see f. 411 et seq.) became an evidence against his former associates, especially against Simon, Lord Lovat, who was executed at London on 9th April 1747, in his eightieth year, for being implicated in the Rebellion.
3 William, fourth Earl of Kilmarnock, taken prisoner at Culloden and beheaded on Tower Hill, 18th August 1746.
+ Charles Ratcliffe, brother of James, third Earl of Derwentwater, who was executed on 24th February 1716 for his share in the rebellion of 1715. At that time Charles had also been taken and condemned, but he escaped out of Newgate and went to France. In November 1745 he was recaptured on board the
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