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Thy visage is ane emblem of thy heart
Where every passion acts a different part;
A subtile serpent, now a harmless dove,
All rage and furie-in a moment love.
By nature false, yet honest if thou please,
Honey or gall, speak truth or specious lyes,
Such Proteus shapes you can put on with ease.
A saint in show, but in a carnal mynde,
A slave to mammon's drossie part inclyn'd;
Heav'n thou pretends to seek, but heav'n does know
All thy desires are center'd here below.

Wheedling's thy trade, and spite of all commands
Thou find'st the art to play with both the hands.

III.

THE POOR CLIENT'S COMPLAINT,

DONE OUT OF BUCHANAN.

From a broadside in the Library of the Faculty of Advocates, upon which is written the following MS. Note.

"Epigram 1. Book 1st, by Master Andrew Simpsone, Episcopale Minister, as is commonly reported; and he confessed it before Mr. Davide his sone, and Andrew Lawder, writer, his lodger, in Anno 1707 and thereafter."

Simpson is well known for his zeal and sufferings for Episcopacy. He was the author of various works controversial, topographical, and poetical. His account of Galloway was a few years since published from a MS. in the Faculty Library by Thomas Maitland, Esquire, Advocate. The poem, if it can be so termed,―entituledTripatriarchichon, or the Lives of the three Patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, extracted forth of the sacred king, and digested into English verse. Edinburgh, 1705, 8vo,—is known to the book collector for its rarity; and to the book reader for its absurdity.

Colin, by promise, being oblig'd to pay
Me such a sum, betwixt and such a day;
I ask'd it-he refus'd it-I addrest
Aulus the Lawyer. He reply'd "Its" best
To sue him at the Law. I'll make him debtor,
"Your cause is good, there cannot be a better."

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Being thus advis'd, away to Pate I trudge,
Pray him, and pay him, to bespeak the Judge.
Engag'd thus far, be't better be it worse
I must proceed, and thus I do depurse:-
For writing summons, signing, signeting,
With a red plaster and a paper ring;
For summoning the principal, and then
For citeing witnesses to say
"Amen!"

For execution (alias indorsations),
For tabling, calling with continuations;
Next for consulting Aulus and his man ;
(For he must be consulted now and then),
For pleading in the outer-house and inner
From ten to twelve-then Aulus goes to dinner;
For writing bills, for reading them, for answers,
More dubious than those of Necromancers.

For interlocutors, for little acts,

For large decreets, and their as large extracts,

For hornings, for discussing of suspensions
Full stuff'd with lies and frivolous pretensions,
For "Please your Lordships" and such like petitions,
For raising and for serving inhibitions.

And for comprysings, or adjudications,

For their allowances for registrations,

With many other acts and protestations,

Which may be summ'd up in one word-vexations.

Then unexpectedly upon a small

Defect alleg'd, Colin reduces all:

We to 't again, and Aulus doth disjoint

The process, and debates it point by point;
The cause at length's concluded, but not ended,
This made me wonder !-Aulus he pretended
Decreets must not be given out at random,
But must abide a serious avizandum,

Conform to course of roll.-When that will be
Indeed I cannot tell, nor yet can he.

Thus Aulus hath for ten years' space extended
The plea, and further more I have expended

Vast sums, to wit, for washing, lodging, diet,
Yet seldom did I rest or sleep in quiet.

For coal, for candle, paper, pen, and ink,

And such like things, which truely one would think Were unsignificant, but yet they 've come

In ten years' space unto a pretty sum.

To macers, turnkeys, agents, catchpoles, pates,
Servants, sub-servants, petty foggers, cheats;
For morning-drinks, four-hours, half-gills at noon,
To fit their stomach for the fork and spoon
To which they go, but I, poor man, meanwhille
Slip quietly to th' Earl of Murray's* aisle.
We meet again at two, then to disgeast
Their bellyful, they 'll have a gill at least.
Sometimes a double one, for brandy-wine
Can only end the war called "intestine."
For mum, sack, claret, white-wine, purl, beer, ale,
(One he would have it new, another stale,
Both must be pleased,) for pipes, tobacco, snuff,
Twist, coffee, tea and also greasie stuff
Called chocolet,-punch, clarified whey,
With other drinks, all which I duely pay,

For rolls, for nacketts, roundabouts, sour kakes,
For cheshire cheese, fresh butter, cuckies, bakes,
For paunches, saucers, sheep heads, chits, black pyes,
Lamb legs, lamb kirnels, and lamb privities,
Skait, lobsters, oysters, mussels, wilks, neats-tongues,
One he for leeks, beer, and red herring longs;

This must be had, another doth prefer
Raw herring, onions, oil, spice, vinegar,—
Rare composition; and he's truly sorry
It's not in Colpepper's Dispensatory :

For apples, pears, plumbs, cherries, nuts, green peas,
Dulce, tangles, purslain, turneps, radishes,

With forty other things I have forgot,
And I'm a villain if I pay'd them not.
Moreover my affairs at home sustain
Both the emergent loss, and cessant gain ;

Old Kirke.

Aulus himself terms this a double loss,
And I call him and it a triple cross.

By all these means my expenses do surmount
Near ten times ten times Colin's first account.
And now e'er that I wholly be bereft
Of th' little time and money to me left,
I'm at the length resolved thus to do,
I'll shun my debtor and lawyer too;
And after this I never will give credit
Unto one word, if either of them said it:
You'll ask which of the two I'd rather shun,
Aulus-it's he, it's he hath me undone,
I've words from both, yet sad experience tells
That Colin gives, but Aulus dearly sells.

Th' unwary reader thinks perhaps that I
Have penn'd a satyre 'gainst the Faculty,
'Gainst those who by their accurate debates
Maintain our rights and settle our estates,
Who do their very lungs with pleading spend
Us 'gainst oppressors stifly to defend.
A gross mistake, for I'll be sworn I do
Admire their parts and their profession too;
I wish that law and lawyers both may thrive,
And at the height of grandeur so arrive
That in all good men's eyes they may appear
Like burnisht gold, both beautiful and clear,
That this may be, (and 'tis for this I pray),
Rust must be scour'd off, cobwebs swept away.

IV.

A LETTER FROM THE GHOST OF SIR WILLIAM ANSTRUTHER OF THAT ILK, ONCE SENATOUR OF THE COlledge of jusTICE, TO THE LORDS OF SESSION AND COMMISSIONERS OF JUSTICIARY.

From a MS. preserved in the Collections of the indefatigable Wodrow. Lord Anstruther was appointed a Judge of the Court of Session 1st November 1689: was nominated a Justiciary Judge 9th November 1704, and died at his lodgings in Edinburgh, 24th January 1711. He was the author of a work entituled "Essays Moral and Divine."-Edinburgh 1701, 4to.

MY LORDS,

Elysian Fields, 27 Jany. 1711.

Having had the honour for several years to be one of your number, and being obliged, very much against my will, to leave soe good company and society, I tho't it my deuty to pay you my respects by this, which Charon promised to send to the earth, by the first messenger of death who should be ordered to the upper world.

Of late, it seems he hath work enough upon his hands; for, till I arrived, poor John Adams, our macer, gote not on board, which I indeed first imputed to his civility to me, who, as he was informed, was quickly to follow, not considering that nobody works without wages, and that none are payed in our worlde. We no sooner got on board, but the boat was ready to sink; for John's soul remained still very ponderous and heavy, and mine, you know, was alwise terrestrial. However, at last, with great difficulty, we reached the happy shoer; and then, my Lords, and never before, I had a treu veu of justice, which here soe impartially reigns, that your Lordships, at present, cannot comprehend it, or have any notions of it. Never till now did I see a whole sett of honnest, knowing, piouse, and just judges; and it's weel that such are to be found somewhere. They are not here created by court favour, but the most deserving and

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