[Janet Clinker’s Oration is commonly found printed along with The History of Haverel Wives, and in the chap-book from which the text in the following pages are taken, this is the case. The full title in this case is:—‘An Oration on the Virtues of the Old Women, and the Pride of the Young: with a Direction for Young Men, what sort of Women to take, and for Women what sort of Men to Marry. Dictated by Janet Clinker, and written by Humphrey Clinker, the Clashing Wives’ Clerk. Glasgow: Printed by J. & M. Robertson, Saltmarket, 1807.’ It has been collated with the editions mentioned in the Introduction to these volumes: together with the reprint published in 1820 by Webster & Son, Edinburgh, referred to in the prefatory note to the History of the Haverel Wives.]
AN ORATION ON THE VIRTUES OF THE OLD WOMEN, AND THE PRIDE OF THE YOUNG.
The madness of this unmuzzled age has driven me to mountains of thoughts, and a continual meditation: It is enough to make an auld wife rin red-wood, and drive a body beyond the halter’s-end of ill-nature, to see what I see, and here what I hear: Therefore the hinges of my anger are broke, and the bands of my good and mild nature are burst in two, the door of civility is laid quite open, plain speech and mild admonition is of none effect; nothing must be used now but thunder-bolts of reproach tartly trimm’d up in a tantalizing stile, roughly redd up and manufactured thro’ an auld Matron’s mouth, who is indeed but frail in the teeth, but will squeeze surprizingly with her auld gums, until her very chaft-blades crack in the crushing of your vice.
I shall branch out my discourse into four heads.
First, What I have seen, and been witness to.
Secondly, What I now see, and am witness to.