neither clothes nor food,
Then burnt their houses to conclude;
'T was tit for tat.
How can her nainsell e'er be good,
To think on that?
And after all, O, shame and grief!
To use some worse than murd'ring thief,
Their very gentleman and chief,
Unhumanly!
Like Popish tortures, I believe,
Such cruelty.
Ev'n what was act on open stage
At Carlisle, in the hottest rage,
When mercy was clapt in a cage,
And pity dead,
Such cruelty approv'd by every age,
I shook my head.
So many to curse, so few to pray,
And some aloud huzza did cry;
They cursed the rebel Scots that day,
As they'd been nowt
Brought up for slaughter, as that way
Too many rowt.
Therefore, alas! dear countrymen,
O never do the like again,
To thirst for vengeance, never ben'
Your gun nor pa',
But with the English e'en borrow and len',
Let anger fa'.
Their boasts and bullying, not worth a louse,
As our King's the best about the house.
'T is ay good to be sober and douce,
To live in peace;
For many, I see, for being o'er crouse,
Gets broken face.
WAVERLEY
OR
'TIS SIXTY YEARS SINCE
Volume I.
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY
The title of this work has not been chosen without the grave and solid
deliberation which matters of importance demand from the prudent. Even
its first, or general denomination, was the result of no common research
or selection, although, according to the example of my predecessors, I
had only to seize upon the most sounding and euphonic surname that
English history or topography affords, and elect it at once as the title
of my work and the name of my hero. But, alas! what could my readers have
expected from the chivalrous epithets of Howard, Mordaunt, Mortimer, or
Stanley, or from the softer and more sentimental sounds of Belmour,
Belville, Belfield, and Belgrave, but pages of inanity, similar to those
which have been so christened for half a century past? I must modestly
admit I am too diffident of my own merit to place it in unnecessary
opposition to preconceived associations; I have, therefore, like a maiden
knight with his whit
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