Life is all a variorum,
We regard not how it goes;
Let them cant about decorum,
Who have characters to lose.

Here's to badgets, bags and wallets!
Here's to all the wandering train!
Here's our ragged brats and callets!
One and all cry out.—Amen.

[223]:

Morality, thou deadly bane,
Thy tens o' thousands thou hast slain;
Vain is his hope whose stay and trust is
In moral mercy, truth and justice.

[224]:

I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve;
What then? poor beastie, thou maun live.

[225]:

Hear me, auld Hangie, for a wee,
An' let poor damned bodies be;
I'm sure sma' pleasure it can gie,
E'en to a deil,
To skelp an' scaud' poor dogs like me
An' hear us squeel....
Then you, ye auld, snec-drawing dog!
Ye came to Paradise incog,
An' play'd on man a cursed brogue,
(Black be your fa'!)
An' gied the infant world a shog,
'Maist ruin'd a'....
But fare you weel, auld Nickie-ben!
O wad ye tak a thought an' men'.
Ye aiblins might—I dinna ken—
Still hae a stake.
I'm wae to think upon yon den,
E'en for your sake!

[226]: "I have been all along a miserable dupe to Love." He was constantly the victim of some fair enslaver. (Récit de son frère.)

[227]: In short she, altogether unwittingly to herself, initiated me in that delicious passion, which in spite of acid disappointment, gin-horse prudence, and book-worm philosophy, I hold to be the first of human joys, our dearest blessing here below.