expedition of the Highland host, which took place in 1678. His object was to satirise both the men who composed this expedition and those who directed it to take place. It chiefly consists in a ludicrous account of the outlandish appearance, senseless manners, and oppressive conduct of the northern army. So far as satire could repay the rank cruelty of that mode of constraining men's consciences, it was repaid for the poem is full of poignant sarcasm, expressed in language far above the poetical diction of that day, at least in Scotland. Ii was not published, however, till 1697, nearly twenty years after the incident which called it forth, when at length it appeared in a small volume, along with several other poems by the same author. We present the reader with the following specimen of the composition, being a description of the Highlanders:—
Some might have judged they were the creatures
Call'd selfies, whose customes and features
Paracelsus doth descry,
In his occult philosophy,
Or faunes, or brownies, if ye will,
Or satyres, come from Atlas hill;
Or that the three-tongu'd tyke was sleeping,
Who hath the Stygian door a keeping:
Their head, their neck, their leggs, and thighs
Are influenced by the skies;
Without a clout to interrupt them,
They need not strip them when they whip them;
Nor loose their doublet when they're hanged.
***
But those who were their chief commanders,
As such who bore the pirnie standarts;
Who led the van and drove the rear,
Were right well mounted of their gear,
With brogues, and trues, and pirnie plaidts,
And good blue bonnets on their heads,
Which on the one side had a flipe,
Adorn'd with a tobacco-pipe.
With dirk, and snap-work, and snuff-mill,
A bagg which they with onions fill,
And, as their strict observers say,
A tasse horn fill'd with usquebay.
A slasht-out coat beneath her plaides,
A targe of timber, nails, and hides;
With a long two handed sword,
As good's the country can afford
Had they not need of bulk and bones,
Who fight with all these arms at once?
It's marvellous how in such weather
O'er hill and' moss they came together;
How in such stormes they came so far-,
The reason is, they 're smeared with tar
Which doth defend them heel and neck,
Just as it doth their sheep protect
***
Nought like religion they retain,
Of moral honestie they're clean.
In nothing they're accounted sharp,
Except in bagpipe and in harp.
