“Then we must deal tenderly with him,” said the hearty old man; and writing his reply on a slip of paper, he pinned it on her back.
“Papa’s answer is on the back of my dress,” said Miss Wilson, as she re-entered the drawing-room. Turning her round, the delighted swain perceived these words—“With the author’s compliments.”
Susanna, Countess of Eglinton, Allan Ramsay’s patroness, to whom he dedicated his immortal “Gentle Shepherd,” once sent him a basket of fine fruit. No poet of the last century could let such a circumstance pass unsung; accordingly, honest Allan composed the following complimentary epigram, which he sent with his note of acknowledgment to the Countess:—
“Now Priam’s son, ye may be mute,
For I can bauldly brag with thee;
Thou to the fairest gave the fruit—
The fairest gave the fruit to me.”
Neatly turned, you say! Yes; but, not content with sending the epigram to the person for whom it was particularly intended, he enclosed a copy to his friend Budgell, who soon sent him back the subjoined comment upon it, which, we need not doubt, severely wounded the vanity of the wig-maker poet:—
“As Juno fair, as Venus kind,
She may have been who gave the fruit;