The Rights of Women - Spoken by Miss Fontenelle on her benefit night and Some Commemorations of Thomson

Burns wrote the first poem as a prologue to be spoken by the actress Miss Fontenelle on her benefit night on 26 November 1792. Louisa Fontenelle was a touring London actress who attracted Burns's attention when he saw her performance at the Dumfries theatre in 1792/3. He wrote to her afterwards on 22 November applauding her charms and offering her the enclosed lines.

In this first page Burns, perhaps dangerously, cites 'the rights of man', but immediately turns our attention to women's rights of protection and decorum not currently in fashion. He also points to men's boorish behaviour as upsetting to women.

In this second page of the poem, Burns continues to enumerate woman's needs such as admiration, immortal love and majesty. He is also in support of women's foils of smiles, glances, sighs and tears. The content is hardly revolutionary, but he then goes on to quote the French partisans call to arms, ca ira, in support of womankind.

The third page contains the poem On Some Commemorations of Thomson. Here, Burns was reacting to the recent failed ceremony to honour James Thomson, a famed Scottish poet of the early eighteenth century. Burns was asked to attend the ceremony, held at Ednam Hill, to erect a bust of Thomson and to recite a poem he had written for the occasion. Although Burns wrote the poem (Address to the Shade of Thomson), he did not attend the ceremony. The event was a disaster, as the bust was broken before the ceremony.