did thereto resort; But lov’d the country life, choos’d to inure Himself to past’rage and agriculture; Proving, improving, ditching, trenching, draining, Viewing, reviewing, and by those means gaining; Planting, transplanting, levelling, erecting Walls, chambers, houses, terraces; projecting Now this, now that device, this draught, that measure, That might advance his profit with his pleasure. Quick in his bargains, honest in commerce, Just in his dealings, being much adverse From quirks of law, still ready to refer His cause t’ an honest country arbiter. He was acquainted with cosmography, Arithmetic, and modern history; With architecture and such arts as these, Which I may call specifick sciences Fit for a gentleman; and surely he That knows them not, at least in some degree, May brook the title, but he wants the thing, Is but a shadow scarce worth noticing. He learned the French, be’t spoken to his praise, In very little more than fourty days. 

 Then comes the full burst of woe, in which, instead of saying much himself, the poet informs us what the ancients would have said on such an occasion: 

 A heathen poet, at the news, no doubt, Would have exclaimed, and furiously cry’d out Against the fates, the destinies and starrs, What! this the effect of planetarie warrs! We might have seen him rage and rave, yea worse, ’Tis very like we might have heard him curse The year, the month, the day, the hour, the place, The company, the wager, and the race; Decry all recreations, with the names Of Isthmian, Pythian, and Olympick games; Exclaim against them all both old and new, Both the Nemaean and the Lethaean too: Adjudge all persons, under highest pain, Always to walk on foot, and then again Order all horses to be hough’d, that we Might never more the like adventure see. 

 Supposing our readers have had enough of Mr. Symson’s woe, and finding nothing more in his poem worthy of transcription, we return to the tragic story. 

 It is needless to point out to the intelligent reader that the witchcraft of the mother consisted only in the ascendency of a powerful mind over a weak and melancholy one, and that the harshness with which she exercised her superiority in a case of delicacy had driven her daughter first to despair, then to frenzy. Accordingly, the Author has endeavoured to explain the tragic tale on this principle. Whatever resemblance Lady Ashton may be supposed to possess to the celebrated Dame Margaret Ross, the reader must not suppose that there was any idea of tracing the portrait of the first Lord Viscount Stair in the tricky and mean-spirited Sir William Ashton. Lord Stair, whatever might be his 

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