THE ROCK AN' THE WEE PICKLE TOW.
1 There was an auld wife had a wee pickle tow,
And she wad gae try the spinnin' o't;
But lootin' her doun, her rock took a-lowe,
And that was an ill beginnin' o't.
She spat on 't, she flat on 't, and tramped on its pate,
But a' she could do it wad ha'e its ain gate;
At last she sat down on't and bitterly grat,
For e'er ha'in' tried the spinnin' o't.
2 Foul fa' them that ever advised me to spin,
It minds me o' the beginnin' o't;
I weel might ha'e ended as I had begun,
And never ha'e tried the spinnin' o't.
But she's a wise wife wha kens her ain weird,
I thought ance a day it wad never be spier'd,
How let ye the lowe tak' the rock by the beard,
When ye gaed to try the spinnin' o't?
3 The spinnin', the spinnin', it gars my heart sab
To think on the ill beginnin' o't;
I took't in my head to mak' me a wab,
And that was the first beginnin' o't.
But had I nine daughters, as I ha'e but three,
The safest and soundest advice I wad gi'e,
That they wad frae spinnin' aye keep their heads free,
For fear o' an ill beginnin' o't.
4 But if they, in spite o' my counsel, wad run
The dreary, sad task o' the spinnin' o't;
Let them find a lown seat by the light o' the sun,
And syne venture on the beginnin' o't.
For wha's done as I've done, alake and awowe!
To busk up a rock at the cheek o' a lowe;
They'll say that I had little wit in my pow—
O the muckle black deil tak' the spinnin' o't.
RICHARD GLOVER.
Glover was a man so remarkable as to be thought capable of having written the letters of Junius, although no one now almost names his name or reads his poetry. He was the son of a Hamburgh merchant in London, and born (1712) in St Martin's Lane, Cannon Street. He was educated at a private school in Surrey, but being designed for trade, was never sent to a university, yet by his own exertions he became an excellent classical scholar. At sixteen he wrote a poem to the memory of Sir Isaac Newton, and at twenty-five produced nine books of his 'Leonidas.' Partly through its own merits, partly through its liberal political sentiments, and partly through the influence of Lord Cobham, to whom it was inscribed, and the praise of Fielding and Chatham, it became very popular. In 1739, he produced a poem entitled 'London; or, The Progress of Commerce,' and a spirited ballad entitled 'Admiral Hosier's Ghost,' which we have given, both designed to rouse the national spirit against the Spaniards.
Glover was a merchant, and very highly esteemed among his commercial brethren, although at one time unfortunate in business. When forced by his failure to seek retirement, he produced a tragedy on the subject of Boadicea, which ran the usual nine nights, although it has long since ceased to be acted or read. In his later years his affairs improved; he returned again to public life, was elected to Parliament, and approved himself a painstaking and popular M.P. In 1770, he enlarged his 'Leonidas' from nine books to twelve, and afterwards wrote a sequel to it, entitled 'The Athenais.' Glover spent his closing years in opulent retirement, enjoying the intimacy and respect of the most eminent men of the day, and died in 1785.
'Leonidas' may be called the epic of the eighteenth century, and betrays the artificial genius of its age. The poet rises to his flight like a heavy heron—not a hawk or eagle. Passages in it are good, but the effect of the whole is dulness. It reminds you of Cowper's 'Homer,' in which all is accurate, but all is cold, and where even the sound of battle lulls to slumber—or of Edwin Atherstone's 'Fall of Nineveh,' where you are fatigued with uniform pomp, and the story struggles and staggers under a load of words. Thomson exclaimed when he heard of the work of Glover, 'He write an epic, who never saw a mountain!' And there was justice in the remark. The success of 'Leonidas' was probably one cause of the swarm of epics which appeared in the close of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century.—Cottle himself being, according to De Quincey, 'the author of four epic poems, and a new kind of blacking.' Their day seems now for ever at an end.