Pastoral for October. RAMSAY'S "RICHY AND SANDY."1 ON THE DEATH OF MR. ADDISON. RICHY. That's true indeed! But now thae days are gane, And, with him, a' that's pleasant on the plain. A summer day I never thought it lang, To hear him make a roundel or a sang. How sweet he sung where vines and myrtles grow, 1 Sir Richard Steele and Mr. Alexander Pope. 2 His poetic epistle from Italy to the Earl of Halifax. 3 An opera written by him. His Campaign,' a poem. O, Richy! but 't is hard that Death aye reaves RICHY. Then he had aye a good advice to gie, And kend my thoughts amaist as well as me. Had I been thowless, vext, or oughtlins sour, He wad have made me blyth in half an hour; Had Rosie ta'en the dorts, or had the tod Worry'd my lambs, or were my feet ill-shod, Kindly he'd laugh when sae he saw me dwine, And talk of happiness like a divine. Of ilka thing he had an unco' skill; He kend by moonlight how tides ebb and fill ; He kend (what kend he no?) e'en to a hair He'd tell or night gin neist day wad be fair. Blind John, ye mind, wha sung in kittle phrase, How the ill sp'rit did the first mischief raise ; Mony a time, beneath the auld birk-tree, What's bonny in that sang he loot me see. The lasses aft flung down their rakes and pails, And held their tongues, O strange ! to hear his tales. SANDY. Sound be his sleep, and saft his wak'ning be! He's in a better case than thee or me. He was o'er good for us; the gods hae ta'en But see, the sheep are wysing to the cleugh; Thomas has loos'd his ousen frae the pleugh; Maggy by this has bewk the supper-scones; And muckle kye stand rowting in the loans; Come, Richy, let us truse and hame o'er bend, And make the best of what we canna mend. 1 The famous Milton; he was blind. GLOSSARY. Gars, causes; dowf, dull; aboon, above; mane, moan; aught, eight; unco, very; jo, sweetheart; bogle-bo, bugbear spirit; glowrin, staring; fleg, fright; dauted, fondled; wedder, wether; eith, easily; meikle mair, much more; remead, remedy; had, hold; laids, loads; feckless, feeble; wyt, shun, remove; kent, shepherd's staff; coly, shepherd's dog; bent, open field; bught, sheepfold, pen; roundel, roundelay; wimbling, winding; sinsyne, since; aeten, oaten; to the fore, still remaining, surviving, unspent ; ken, know; burn, stream; gowan, daisy; rin, run; weirs, wars; bairns, children; forbears, forefathers; meikle, much; spaining, weaning; reaves, robs; greet, weep; gie, give; thowless, inactive; oughtlins, any little; wad, would; dorts, dumps; tod, fox; dwine, cause to languish; ilka, every; or, ere; gin, if; neist, next; kittle, enlivening; birk, birch; bonny, good; loot, let; ain, own; forgether aboon the lift, come together above the sky; wysing, tending; cleugh, cliff, hollow be tween precipices, nook; ousen, oxen; bewk, baked; scones, cakes; muckle kye, many cows; rowting, bellowing; loans, openings between fields, through which cattle come up; truse, leave off; canna, cannot; bend, field. See p. 186. Armstrong's "Art of Health." EXERCISE. APOLOGETIC; THE DIFFICULTY OF THE SUBJECT. NICE RULES ARE FOR THE DELICATE, NOT THE STRONG. THROUGH Various toils th' adventurous Muse has past; But half the toil, and more than half, remains. A hardy frame; nor needlessly to brave The thriving oak which, on the mountain's brow, HEALTH OF THE LABORER. INDIFFERENT TO CHANGES. Behold the laborer of the glebe who toils THE REWARDS OF SIMPLICITY, SOBRIETY, AND EXERCISE. TOIL, AND BE STRONG. —VARIOUS EXERCISE. Toil, and be strong. By toil the flaccid nerves Grow firm, and gain a more compacted tone; The greener juices are by toil subdued, Mellowed, and subtilized; the vapid old Expelled, and all the rancor of the blood. Come, my companions, ye who feel the charms Go, climb the mountain; from the ethereal source [bounds ANGLING RECOMMENDED FOR GENTLER EXERCISE. — TRENT; With the well-imitated fly to hook His life is pure that wears no fouler stains. To haunt the peopled stream; the garden yields Which every year improves. Nor thou disdain To plant the grove, or turn the barren mould. HAPPINESS OF THE GARDENER, RETIRED, WITH FRIENDS AND MEANS. FRIENDLY RIVALRY IN GARDENING. O happy he! whom, when his years decline (His fortune and his fame by worthy means Attained, and equal to his moderate mind; His life approved by all the wise and good, Even envied by the vain), the peaceful groves Of Epicurus, from this stormy world, Receive to rest; of all ungrateful cares Absolved, and sacred from the selfish crowd. Happiest of men! if the same soil invites A chosen few, companions of his youth, Once fellow-rakes perhaps, now rural friends; With whom, in easy commerce, to pursue Nature's free charms, and vie for sylvan fame : A fair ambition; void of strife or guile, Or jealousy, or pain to be outdone. Who plans th' enchanted garden, who directs The visto best, and best conducts the stream; Whose groves the fastest thicken and ascend; Who first the welcome Spring salutes; who shows The earliest bloom, the sweetest, proudest charms Of Flora; who best gives Pomona's juice To match the sprightly genius of Champagne. EVENINGS OF WINTER SPENT SENSIBLY. Thrice happy days! in rural business past; 12 Pythagoras of Samos was a vegetarian, and so the Bramins. His neighbors lift the latch, and bless unbid Where sense grows wild and takes of no manure), CHOOSE THAT KIND OF EXERCISE THAT IS MOST AGREEABLE. Whate'er you study, in whate'er you sweat, The gun's unerring thunder; and there are His vacant fancy most: the toil you hate DIRECTING HOW GRADUALLY TO STRENGTHEN WEAKER MEM- As beauty still has blemish; and the mind To which they were not born. But weaker parts Begin with gentle toils; and, as your nerves Grow firm, to hardier by just steps aspire. The prudent, even in every moderate walk, At first but saunter; and by slow degrees Increase their pace. This doctrine of the wise Well knows the master of the flying steed. First from the goal the managed coursers play On bended reins; as yet the skilful youth Repress their foamy pride; but every breath The race grows warmer, and the tempest swells; Till all the fiery mettle has its way, And the thick thunder hurries o'er the plain. EFFECTS OF TOO SUDDEN EXERCISE.—COUGH. — ASTHMA.PNEUMONIA, ETC. When all at once from indolence to toil You spring, the fibres by the hasty shock Are tired and cracked, before their unctuous coats, Compressed, can pour the lubricating balm. Besides, collected in the passive veins, The purple mass a sudden torrent rolls, 1 This word is much used by some of the old English poets, and signifies reward or prize. O'erpowers the heart, and deluges the lungs Or the slow minings of the hectic fire. AVOID TOURS DE FORCE.'- TAKE EXERCISE MODERATELY. AVOID SUDDEN DRINKING OF WATER AFTER SWEATING. But when the hard varieties of life You toil to learn; or try the dusty chase, GENERAL PRECEPTS SUFFICE AS TO HEALTH. Besides, I would not stun your patient ears He knows enough, the mariner, who knows [boil; ROMAN BATHING; ANOINTING. — WHY NORTHERN NATIONS SHOULD NOT CULTIVATE TOO SOFT A SKIN. In ancient times, when Rome with Athens vied For polished luxury and useful arts; All hot and reeking from the Olympic strife, And warm palæstra, in the tepid bath The athletic youth relaxed their weary limbs. Soft oils bedewed them, with the grateful powers Of nard and cassia fraught, to soothe and heal The cherished nerves. Our less voluptuous clime Not much invites us to such arts as these. 1 The inflammation of the lungs. "T is not for those whom gelid skies embrace, EVILS OF CHECKED PERSPIRATION. While this eternal, this most copious waste To take their numbers were to count the sands MAKE NOT THE SKIN TOO DELICATE. THE SCYTH AND PICT. Subject not, then, by soft emollient arts, This grand expanse, on which your fates depend, ADAPT YOUR HABIT OF BODY TO YOUR CLIMATE.- The body, moulded by the clime, endures The Equator heats or Hyperborean frost : Except by habits foreign to its turn, Unwise, you counteract its forming power. Rude at the first, the Winter shocks you less By long acquaintance; study, then, your sky, Form to its manners your obsequious frame, And learn to suffer what you cannot shun. Against the rigors of a damp, cold heaven To fortify their bodies, some frequent The gelid cistern; and, where naught forbids, I praise their dauntless heart: a frame so steeled Dreads not the cough, nor those ungenial blasts That breathe the tertian or fell rheumatism: The nerves so tempered never quit their tone, No chronic languors haunt such hardy breasts. BE NOT ENSLAVED TO A DELICATE REGIMEN. But all things have their bounds: and he who By daily use, the kindest regimen [makes, Essential to his health, should never mix With humankind, nor art nor trade pursue. He not the safe vicissitudes of life NORTHERNERS VISITING A SOUTHERN CLIME SHOULD BATHE Let those who from the frozen Arctos reach Parched Mauritania, or the sultry West, Or the wide flood through rich Indostan rolled, Plunge thrice a day, and in the tepid wave Untwist their stubborn pores; that full and free The evaporation through the softened skin May bear proportion to the swelling blood. So shall they 'scape the fever's rapid flames; So feel untainted the hot breath of hell. WARM BATHS.-CLEANLINESS ENFORCED. With us, the man of no complaint demands (As much it does) to health, were greatly worth You hurried, with untimely exercise, WINTER DEMANDS MUCH, SUMMER LITTLE EXERCISE. —— RHEUMATISM. While Winter chills the blood, and binds the veins, No labors are too hard by those you 'scape The slow diseases of the torpid year; Endless to name; to one of which alone, To that which tears the nerves, the toil of slaves THE COOL OF A SUMMER MORNING AND EVENING IS THE TIME Now the fresh morn alone and mellow eve EXERCISE PROMOTES HEALTHFUL AND REFRESHING SLEEP. The shades descend, and midnight o'er the world Expands her sable wings. Great Nature droops Through all her works. How happy he whose toil Has o'er his languid, powerless limbs diffused A pleasing lassitude: he not in vain Invokes the gentle Deity of Dreams. His powers the most voluptuously dissolve In soft repose: on him the balmy dews Of sleep with double nutriment descend. AVOID EATING LATE AT NIGHT.-SLEEP ON FOOD HALFDIGESTED, AT LEAST. BAD DREAMS. But would you sweetly waste the blank of night In deep oblivion; or on fancy's wings Visit the paradise of happy dreams, And waken cheerful as the lively morn; Oppress not Nature sinking down to rest With feasts too late, too solid, or too full: But be the first concoction half-matured Ere you to mighty indolence resign Your passive faculties. He from the toils And troubles of the day to heavier toil Retires, whom trembling from the tower that rocks Amid the clouds, or Calpe's hideous height, The busy demons hurl; or in the main O'erwhelm; or bury struggling under ground. |