The author of "Legal Lyrics," a small volume of humorous songs, printed for private circulation, George Outram, was born in the vicinity of Glasgow in 1805. His father, a native of England, was partner and manager in the Clyde Iron Works. In 1827 he was called to the Scottish bar, and practised for some years as an advocate. To the character of an orator he made no pretensions, but he evinced great ability as a chamber counsel. He accepted, in 1837, the editorship of the Glasgow Herald, and continued the principal conductor of this journal till the period of his death. He died at Rosemore, on the shores of the Holy Loch, on the 16th September 1856, in his fifty-first year. His remains were interred in Warriston Cemetery, Edinburgh.
Of most retiring disposition, Mr Outram confined his intercourse to a limited circle of friends, by whom he was esteemed for his genial worth and interesting conversation. By the late Lord Cockburn he was especially beloved. He has left in MS. several interesting songs, which are likely to be published by his executors. His cousin-german, General Sir James Outram, is well known for his military services in India.
I gaed to spend a week in Fife,
An unco week it proved to be,
For there I met a waesome wife,
Lamenting her viduity.
Her grief brak' out sae fierce and fell,
I thought her heart wad burst the shell;
And, I was sae left to mysel,
I sell't her an annuity.
The bargain lookit fair eneugh,
She just was turned o' saxty-three;
I couldna guess'd she 'd prove sae teugh
By human ingenuity.
But years have come, and years have gane,
And there she 's yet as stieve 's a stane;
The auld wife 's growing young again
Since she got her annuity.
She 's crined awa to bane an' skin,
But that it seems is nought to me;
She 's like to live, although she 's in
The last stage o' tenuity.
She munches wi' her wizen'd gums,
An' stumps about on legs o' thrums,
But comes—as sure as Christmas comes—
To ca' for her annuity.
She jokes her joke, an' cracks her crack,
As spunkie as a growin' flea;
An' there she sits upon my back
A livin' perpetuity.
She hurkles by her ingle side,
An' toasts an' tans her wrinkled hide;
Lord kens how lang she yet may bide
To ca' for her annuity.
I read the tables drawn wi' care
For an Insurance Company;
Her chance o' life was stated there
Wi' perfect perspicuity.
But tables here, or tables there,
She 's lived ten years beyond her share;
An 's like to live a dozen mair
To ca' for her annuity.
I gat the loon that drew the deed,
We spell'd it ower richt carefully;
In vain he yerk'd his souple head
To find an ambiguity.
It 's dated, tested, a' complete;
The proper stamp, nae word delete;
And diligence, as on decreet,
May pass for her annuity.
*****
I thought that grief might gar her quit,
Her only son was lost at sea;
But aff her wits behuved to flit
An' leave her in fatuity.
She threeps, an' threeps he 's livin' yet
For a' the tellin' she can get;
But catch the doited wife forget
To ca' for her annuity.
If there 's a sough o' cholera
Or typhus, wha sae gleg as she!
She buys up baths, an' drugs, an' a',
In siccan superfluity!
She doesna need—she's fever proof—
The pest walked o'er her very roof;
She tauld me sae, and then her loof
Held out for her annuity.
Ae day she fell, her arm she brak,
A compound fracture as could be;
Nae leech the cure wad undertak,
Whate'er was the gratuity.
It 's cured! she handles 't like a flail,
It does as weel in bits as hale;
But I 'm a broken man mysel'
Wi' her and her annuity.
Her broozled flesh and broken banes
Are weel as flesh and banes can be,
She beats the taeds that live in stanes
An' fatten in vacuity!
They die when they 're exposed to air,
They canna thole the atmosphere;
But her! expose her onywhere,
She lives for her annuity.
*****
The water-drap wears out the rock
As this eternal jade wears me;
I could withstand the single shock,
But not the continuity.
It 's pay me here, an' pay me there,
An' pay me, pay me evermair;
I 'll gang demented wi' despair;
I 'm charged for her annuity.
