Wringing the hackneyed clichees one more time, or: is this in part a literary response to Vox Populi, which was reissued in Scotland? There claims are made about Virgil are made in some pretty apauling verses; and boasting about the potential martial loyalties of Englishmen abound: though martial fury and claims of how the people wat to die for Charles are found commonly -- see also Brome's England's Joy etc

   One of the wittiest and probably the most ironical of the poems working over the comon tropes used to celebrate the king's return, L'tit' Caledonic' opens by saying how glad he is that the great Virgil isn't around trying to celebrate such an event as the return of Charles; and the innuendo is unmistakable. But the poet's display of wit here is framed within the outdoing topos, a figure of heroic verse by which the poet insists that the subject outgoes all previous and sometimes all possible parallels. Use of this trope almost allows him to say anything. The return of Charles here is seen as so far beyond comparison that only a poetaster would attempt to find words for what is literally the "unuterable happiness" of the occasion The poet's loyalty comes with a satiric edge being sharpened at the expense of some recent goings on in London and the way other poets have written about them. How is Scoltand to express joy? Drinking toasts led to so much rowdiness that they were banned the very day -- 30 May -- after Charles had arrived in Whitehall, and that ban immediately put an end to all the drunken bragging about how we'll all go to sea and beat the Dutch.

    Of interest in Scotland, the Solemn League and Covenant had been reissued by Parliament on 5 March, but only a very foolish king would believe that it promised him safety. The poetic voice is that of a canny analyst of the times, someone who can read between the lines of events and proclamations. Given the wit and this cannyness, all the more credible seem the fairly straitforward expressions of loyalty that end the poem.