Glen Collection of printed music > Printed text > Collection of ancient and modern Scottish ballads, tales, and songs > Volume 2

31
WATTY AND MEG
WIFE REFORMED.
" We dream in courtship, but in wedlock wake."
Pope.
[The subject of this humorous poem is the jarrlngs of a
husband and wife in low life. The characters are dis-
criminated with a nicety that raises the author nearly
to a level with Fergusson and Burns in this department.
The language, in some instances, however, has not the
chastity of the former, or manliness of the latter poet,
abounding too much in expressions that are used only
by the very lowest of the vulgar ; although ribaldry may
be natural, yet its coarseness is disagreeable. It was
perhaps designed by the author as a satire on termagant
women, and as an advice to patient, good-natured hus-
bands firmly to resist the overflowings of a domineer-
ing spirit in their loquacious yoke-fellows.
This poem was written about 1790 by James Wilson, a
travelling pedlar. In 1789 he published his poems and
prose pieces in one volume, in which he shews that he
was a shrewd observer of mankind in all their gradations.
During the spring of 1791, he spoke occasionally in the