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Text divider from 'The Contented Wife, with the Husband's Answer', a chapbook printed in Glasgow in 1802

THE PATRIOT FAIR

When young and artless as the lamb,
Which plays about its fondling dam,
Brisk, buxom, pert, and silly;
I slighted all the manly swains,
And put my virgin heart in chain,
For smiling smooth fac'd Willy.

But when experience came with years,
Which rais'd my hopes and quell'd my fears,
My heart was blythe and bonny,
I turn'd off every beardless youth,
So gave my word, and fix'd my truth
On honest sturdy Johnny.

Next at the wake I saw the 'Squire,
For love I felt a new desire,
Fond to outshine my mammy,
I sigh'd for fringes, frogs, and beaux,
For pig-tail wigs, and powder'd clothes,
And silken master Sammy.

For riches next I set a flame,
Old Gripus to my cottage came,
And held an amorous parley.
For music next I chanc'd to burn,
And fondly listen'd in my turn,
To warbling quivering Charley.

So now alike the fools and wits,
Fops, fidlers, foreigners and cits,
All struck me by rotation.
Come learn of me ye patriot fair,
Nor make a single man your care,
But sigh for all the nation.

Glasgow, Printed by J. & M. Robertson, Saltmarket. 1802.