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An Oration on the Virtues of the Old WOMEN, &c. THE madness of this unmuzzled age has driven me to mountains of thoughts, and a continual meditation; it is enough to make an auld wife tin redwood, and drive a body beyond the halter’s end of ill-nature, to see what I see, and hear what I hear: Therefore the hinges of my auger are broke and the bands of my good and mild nature are burst in two, the door of civility is laid quite open, plain speech and mild admonition is of none effect; nothing must be used now but thunder-bolts of reproach tartly trimmed in a tantalizing stile, roughly redd up and manufactured thro’ an auld Matron’s mouth, who is indeed but frail in the teeth, but will squeeze surprisingly With her auld gums until her very chaft blades crack in the crushing of your vice. I shall branch out my discourse into four heads; First, What I have seen, and been witness to. Secondly, What I now see, and am witness to. Thirdly, What I have heard, does hear, and cannot help ; I mean the difference between the old women and the young. Fourthly, Conclude with an advice to young men and young women how to avoid the buying of Janet Juniper’s stinking butter*, which will have a rotten rift on their stomach as long as they live. First, The first: thing then, I see and observe is, That a wheen daft giddy-headed, cock-nosed, juniper-nebbed mothers, bring up a wheen sky-racket dancing daughters, a’ bred up to be ladies, without so much as the breadth of their lufe of land, it’s an admiration to me where the lairds are a’ to come frae that’s to be coupled to them ; work! na, na, my bairn must not work, she’s to be a lady, they ca’ her miss, I must have her ears bor’d says old Mumps the mother; thus the poor pet is brought up like a motherless lamb, or a parrot in a cage ; they learn no
- A nick-name to the wife’s daughter that no man will many
because stuff'd full of laziness, self-conceit and stinking pride or if she be married she'll ly like stinking butter on his stomach <<illegible>> she lives.
