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NOTES.
the partiality of the author of Albania, with a few of those flowers with which Cleveland has garnished his invective against the Scots:
But that there's charm in verse, I would not quoteThe name of Scot without an antidote;Unless my head were red, that I might brewInvention there, that might be poison too.———Before a Scot can properly be curst,I must, like Hocus, swallow daggers first.———No more let Ireland brag, her harmless nationFosters no venom, since that Scots plantation.———Nature herself doth Scotchmen beasts confess,Making their country such a wilderness;A land that brings in question and suspenseGod's omnipresence, but that Charles came thence;But that Montrose and Crawford's loyal bandAtoned their sin, and christened half their land.———He that saw hell in's melancholy dream,And in the twy-light of his phancie's theme,Scared from his sins, repented in a fright,Had he viewed Scotland; had turned proselite:A land where one may pray with curst intent;O may they never suffer banishment!Had Cain been Scot, God would have changed his doom,Not forced him wander, but confined him home.Like Jews they spread, and as infection fly,As if the devil had ubiquity.Hence 'tis they live at rovers, and defieThis or that place, rags of geography.They'r citizens of the world, they'r all in all,Scotland's a nation epidemical.———You scandal to the stock of verse, a raceAble to bring the gibbet in disgrace;