Interrupted by a clumsy finger! (Perhaps someone knows how to combine this post with that immediately preceding, and of course remove these two sentences)

Read, recite, or sing Watt's own original verses with the kind of admonitory tone implied by the verse about those who stand in high degree, and may fall as Boney has done. In fact, imagine how a fervent Bourbonniste would declaim them; no more the fallen Emperor will appear at his palaces in great splendour, no more like Alexander will he march off to War with his "crouds" of - as the Marshals were seen at the time by supporters of L'Ancien Regime - brigands and regicides. Only one thing, in fact, other than the pathos which is certainly the dominant mood to a modern understanding, makes it more likely than not that this song was intended to be sympathetic to Napoleon, and that is the Radical tradition in Paisley. It would, as I've argued, be a dangerous step openly to evince pro-Bonapartist views; but, crucially, the original song depends upon ambiguity, indeed Irony, to allow of "plausible deniability".

ABCD.