Assert we serve a Parricide
Or an Incendiarie;
But we will murder, sham, and trick,
Of such to make us free;
We'll burn alive, and quarter quick—
So Hey Boyes up go we.
The Parliament, those poor sham sots,
We'll make them well content
To give supplies to cut their throats;
And when they do consent,
We'll kick these villans on the breech,
No more of them will we,
But Britain better manners teach—
For Hey Boyes up go we.
But if they chance to temporize,
And foster fond suspicions,
And tell King James of their franchise,
Their charter and conditions,
He'll p——— upon them and their Laws—
They're blind that cannot see
The longest Sword decides the Cause—
Thus Hey Boyes up go we.
The sins of the Long Parliament
He'll visite them upon,
Their other crimes and henious faults,
Which since are come and gone.
Of Westminster and Oxford too
The damned memorie;
He hath an Irish job to do—
So Hey Boyes up go we.
And, that he may facilitat
His work, he'll work a while
By Toleration—lull asleep
The rogues, and them beguile;
Some subtile potions he'll compose
Of grace and clemencie,
To blunt all those who him oppose—
So Hey Boyes up go we."
This is in our author's best manner: but he is also capable of a more lofty and dignified strain, though his temperament perhaps, and probably still more the circumstances in which he was placed, habitually inclined him to "crack the satiric thong." The following stanzas well become the intrepid warrior who fought and died for the cause of Religion and of Liberty: they form part of a short poem, entitled, "Some few Lines composed by him for divertisement from melancholie thoughts, when travelling abroad. To the tune of Fancy free."
"Through razing rage of cursed kings,
Whom vicious souls admire;
Through unjust sentences which springs
From avarice or ire;
Or some such like infernall cause,
Whence guiltless people quake
Before his face, whose sword, whose laws,
Should their oppressors shake;
Through fine fevers, wasting wounds,
Through melancholious want,
Through sad distastures which abounds
To such as long and pant—* * * *
Through calumnies, through frauds and slights,
That moveth mortals' mind,
Through slandering tongues of brutish wights,
To baser wayes inclined:
They must adventure who intends
In Vertue's camp to warr,
Abhorring mean penurious ends
That brave exploits do marr.
If, when travers'd by all such fates,
Honour and Vertue be
Both proof against enchanting baits,
And frowning destiny,
A soul may have a sure solace,
When stormed on every side,
And look proud tyrants in the face
With scorn to be dismay'd." &c.
Upon the whole, though William Cleland, compared with the great English poets of the preceding age,—with Dryden,—or even with his more direct prototype, the author of Hudibras,—sinks into a rude and unskilful versifier; yet his poetical talents were unquestionably superior to any that the Tory party could then oppose to them; and if his genius be estimated (as it ought to be) rather from what it promised than performed,—and with due consideration of the lamentable state of poetry at that time in Scotland, and of all the peculiar disadvantages under which Cleland wrote, the reader, we think, will be inclined to assign him a very honourable niche in our national Temple of Fame, not only as 'a Scots Worthy,' but likewise as a Scottish Poet.
THE EXACT NARRATIVE OF THE CONFLICT AT DUNKELD, BETWIXT THE EARL OF ANGUS'S REGIMENT AND THE REBELS.
The said regiment being then betwixt seven and eight hundred men, arrived at Dunkeld Saturndays night, the 17 of August, 1689, under the command of Lieutenant-Collonel William Cleland, a brave and singularly well accomplished gentleman, within 28 years of age. Immediatly they found themselves obliged to lie at their arms, as being in the midst of their enemies.—Sunday at nine in the morning, they began some retrenchments within the Marquess of Athol's yard-dykes; the old breaches whereof they made up with loose stones, and scaffolded the dykes about. In the after-
